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From: pwilcox@paldn.UUCP (Peter McLeod Wilcox)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Lessons Learned
Summary: US Satelite Capability
Keywords: lessons, grenada, panama
Message-ID: <12923@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 9 Jan 90 02:20:06 GMT
References: <12601@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12694@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12762@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12860@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: pwilcox@paldn.UUCP (Peter McLeod Wilcox)

In article <12860@cbnews.ATT.COM>, smb@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Steven M. Bellovin) writes:
> There's also evidence that while
> the U.S. didn't try to ``lose'' to Sputnik, Eisenhower and his
> advisors didn't care much who won, because they perceived geopolitical
> benefits to the Soviets setting the precedent of overflight by
> orbiting bodies.)


The Atlas ICBM was well into its operational flight testing when Sputnik
was launched.  Convair was instructed, and compliance was verified, not
to run the fuel tanks dry - i.e. the missle was instructed to shut the
motors down early.  The result of this was that the missle stayed
suborbital.  Lest there be any doubt of its orbital capability remember
that it was one of the missles in this test sequence which carried
Eisenhowers Christmas greeting recording onto orbit.  After Sputnik.

There are several possible reasons for this, the performance of Atlas
was highly classified, Atlas was strictly a military operation and
Vanguard was a more scientific oriented project, take your choice.
But the US certainly had orbital capability before the Soviets demonstrated
it with Sputnik.
-- 
Pete Wilcox		...gatech!nanovx!techwood!paldn!pwilcox