What were the international space arrangements and scientific purposes Eisenhower spoke of in October 1957?
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"International Geophysical Year" (IGY) ran from from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. Eisenhower's speech in October 1957 was being made in that context.
Image source Wikimedia
The United States' Explorer 1 satellite was launched as one of the projects for that year.
The US intention to launch an artificial satellite during the IGY had been announced in July 1955:
"On behalf of the President, I am now announcing that the President has approved plans by this country for going ahead with the launching of small earth-circling satellites as part of the United States participation in the International Geophysical Year... This program will for the first time in history enable scientists throughout the world to make sustained observations in the regions beyond the earth's atmosphere."
- James Hagerty, Presidential Press Secretary, July 28, 1955 (source NASA History)
These were the "arrangements with the international scientific community" the Eisenhower was talking about, and that led to the Vanguard program and the launch of Explorer 1 on 31 January 1958 (and also the later missions of the Explorer Program).
Of course, in the event the Soviet Union launched its satellite, Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957 - before the United States could launch Explorer 1. This is why Eisenhower sounds slightly defensive when talking about the US program.
Perhaps the best-known discovery from Explorer 1 was what is now known as the Van Allen radiation belt. This was named after Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, who had designed the science package for Explorer 1. That package consisted of:
- Anton 314 omnidirectional Geiger-Müller tube, designed by Dr. George Ludwig of Iowa's Cosmic Ray Laboratory, to detect cosmic rays. It could detect protons with E > 30 MeV and electrons with E > 3 MeV. Most of the time the instrument was saturated;
- Five temperature sensors (one internal, three external and one on the nose cone);
- Acoustic detector (crystal transducer and solid-state amplifier) to detect micrometeorite (cosmic dust) impacts. It responded to micrometeorite impacts on the spacecraft skin in such a way that each impact would be a function of mass and velocity. Its effective area was 0.075 m2 and the average threshold sensitivity was 2.5×10−3 g cm/s;
- Wire grid detector, also to detect micrometeorite impacts. It consisted of 12 parallel connected cards mounted in a fiberglass supporting ring. Each card was wound with two layers of enameled nickel alloy wire with a diameter of 17 µm (21 µm with the enamel insulation included) in such way that a total area of 1 cm by 1 cm was completely covered. If a micrometeorite of about 10 µm impacted, it would fracture the wire, destroy the electrical connection, and thus record the event.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has a number of pictures of the unit (and contemporary mock-ups) on it's website.
The measurements transmitted from those instruments were the "scientific purposes" that Eisenhower was speaking about. These were expected to provide data for the scientific community about the environment that existed in Earth orbit, and was also expected to inform the design of future satellites.
All the raw data was shared and held in a series of World Data Centres maintained by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). That was all part of the arrangements agreed for the IGY.
This formed a significant part of the contribution that the US had agreed to make to scientific research in International Geophysical Year.
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