Page:The Air Force Role In Developing International Outer Space Law (Terrill, 1999).djvu/23

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launched under the Navy’s Viking-AerobeeHi/Vanguard program.[1] However, the military services did not cease working on their boosters and continued to attempt to launch them.[2] When the Navy’s Vanguard program ebbed, the secretary of defense turned too late to the Air Force in hopes of launching a satellite during the IGY program.[3]

Who Would Be First in Space?

Some have concluded that the USSR was first in space by default because of Eisenhower’s “ambivalence” and his secretary of defense’s penchant for fiscal conservatism regarding space programs.[4] These factors might partially explain why the United States failed to be first in space. Other factors explain why the USSR was first in space with Sputnik.[5] First, Eisenhower had been assured that physics precluded dropping a bomb from a satellite in orbit; therefore, he was not concerned about a surprise attack from outer space. Second, the Eisenhoweradministration did not fully appreciate the “psychological shock value” of a successful Sputnik launch or the reaction of the American people to having Sputnik overhead.[6] Third, Eisenhower’s administration did not appreciate fully the propaganda and prestige value of being “first in space,”[7] despite warnings to this effect by the National Security Council, the scientific community’s TCP, and RAND. Finally, and probably most importantly, the US was not first in space because the USheld a significant lead over the USSR in miniaturizing its hydrogen bomb devices.

Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson
  1. While the first stage of the Vanguard was fully developed and a number successfully launched, three stages of the Vanguard were necessary to launch a satellite into orbit. The second and third stages of the Vanguard never got beyond dummy status.
  2. Marven L. Whipple, “Atlantic Missile Range/Eastern Test Range Index of Missile Launchings, 1950-1974.”
  3. “USAF Space Programs,” 15-16.
  4. Bowen, 57-107; Watson, 157-79.
  5. Sputnik as used hereafter refers specifically to the spaceflights of Sputniks I and II not to the general term sputnik, which is the Russian word for satellite.
  6. Watson, 123-26.
  7. [[Author:Piers Brendon|]], Ike, His Life and Times (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 347-49; Marquis William Childs, Eisenhower: Captive Hero; A Critical Study of the General and the President (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958), 258-63.