Chapter 4
Project West Ford
Even as it was resisting efforts in the early 1960s to formalize international outer space law, the Air Force was involved in Project West Ford, a project that would, inadvertently but directly, impact the development of space law. As proposed, West Ford was designed as an experiment to determine whether a small band of orbiting metal strips could be used as a military network providing a "positive, reliable, and survivable full-time communications capability between commanders and their forces."[1] Project West Ford caused significant debate within the United States and the international scientific community. It raised the legal issue as to whether experiments that potentially could interfere with scientific research should be conducted at the sole discretion of any individual nation-state.[2]
In 1958 the Air Force contracted with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory to study the feasibility of using a widely scattered belt of small metallic strips in orbit around the earth as the primary component of a space-based, worldwide communication system. Lincoln Laboratory, in its Barnstable study, concluded that such a system offered the advantages of physical invulnerability and antijamming protection.[3] Given that insufficient information was available to design the system, the Air Force proposed Project West Ford to fill this void.[4] Initially the Air Force planned to disperse 75 (later 110) pounds of disposable dipoles (thin strips of tin alloy) in outer space thereby creating an orbital belt 30 miles in diameter off which communications signals could be reflected. The Lincoln Laboratory was the Air Force contractor for the project.
The proposal proved controversial particularly with radio and optical astronomers, who were concerned that the belt might interfere with astronomical measurements particularly if the dipoles stayed in orbit beyond their projected one- or two-year life cycles.[5] Astronomers feared that the reflectivity of the belt would harm astronomer's ability to observe outer space. In December 1959, the Space Science Board (SSB) of the National Academy of Sciences appointed an ad hoc committee to
examine the consequences of West Ford. In July 1960 the SSB determined that the astronomers had raised legitimate concerns and
- ↑ "Proposed System Package Plan (abbreviated) for the Program, 861; Phase II (West Ford Phase II Program)," revised 1 November 1962,
- ↑ R. Cargill Hall, "The International Legal Problems in Space Exploration, An Analytical Review" (master's thesis, California State University at San Jose, June 1966), 41-42.
- ↑ Proposed System Package Plan for the West Ford Phase II Program, n.d., 10. The Barnstable study was conducted during the summer of 1958 for the Army Signal Corps. The final report of the Barnstable group, "A Short Study of Communications Theory Applied to Military Communications Systems," dated 30 October 1958, proposed Project Needles, which eventually became Project West Ford.
- ↑ Ibid., in its entirety.
- ↑ Hall, 41. Later in August 1960, even Gen Laurence S. Kuter, commander in chief, North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), complained to JCS about Project West Ford. He questioned whether the belt might inhibit NORAD's detection and tracking systems. In November the JCS reassured General Kuter regarding his concerns.
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