The Smithsonian's Satellite-tracking 

 Program: Its History and Organization^ 



By E. Nelson Hayes 



Technical Writer, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 



[With 4 plates] 



For centuries poets have imagined voyages to the moon and 

 planets,^ and since the L^te 19th century scientists have been slowly 

 evolving the means by which those dreams might become realities.' 



Robert Goddard of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., outlined in 

 1919 a method for reaching extreme altitudes and later, supported 

 in part by grants from the Smithsonian Institution, conducted a series 

 of limited experiments to demonstrate the practicability of his ideas. 

 Thereafter both in the United States and in Europe increasing at- 

 tention was paid to the development of rockets for military use and for 

 the probing of the upper atmosphere and the exploration of outer 

 space. 



The fundamental idea was that rockets of limited thrust could 

 penetrate the upper atmosphere and bring back valuable scientific 

 data. Later, manned rockets of greater power would reach outer 

 space and eventually journey throughout the solar system. 



BEGINNING 



DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPT 



The concept of an artificial satellite orbiting the earth was a 

 fairly late development, because such a vehicle would be of little 

 scientific value unless it could signal information back to the earth 



1 The present article takes the development of the satellite-tracking program up to 

 October 1957. It is expected that a later Smithsonian Report ■will contain a further 

 article embodying results after that date. 



' See Marjorie Nicholson, "Voyages to the Moon," Macmillan, 1948. 



* In the lS90's the father of Russian rocketry, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, in his famous 

 novel "Beyond the Planet Earth" (translated by Kenneth Syers : Pergamon, 1960). de- 

 fined for the first time in scientific terms the feasibility of Interplanetary travel. A dec- 

 ade later he published "The Probing of Space by Means of Jet Devices." 



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