Page 167 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

to serve only as advisers on Project Cirrus, a new classified cloud-seeding effort
to be conducted by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the office of Naval Research,
and the U.S. Air Force. As stated in the GE contract, the general purposes of the
project were “research study of cloud particles and cloud modifications” by seed-
ing, including investigations of liquid water content, particle sizes and distribu-
38
tion, and vertical cloud development. They were searching for fundamental
knowledge of cloud physics and chemistry to improve operational forecasting
as well as practical techniques of cloud modification for military purposes or
39
possible economic development. An important clause in the contract further
stipulated that “the entire flight program shall be conducted by the government,
using exclusively government personnel and equipment, and shall be under the
exclusive control of such government personnel.” Suits notified his staff that “it
is essential that all of the GE employees who are working on the project refrain
from asserting any control or direction over the flight program. The GE research
laboratory responsibility is confined strictly to laboratory work and reports.” 40
GE argued that the whole matter properly belonged to the government, and
that the government, by suitable legislation, should both regulate the inducing
of rainfall and indemnify for loss any contractor acting on the government’s
behalf—especially themselves. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal asked Con-
gress for a law “to protect contractors engaged in cloud modification experi-
41
ments against claims for damages by third parties,” but no such legislation was
forthcoming. The Harvard Law School Record reported:

Today “Project Cirrus” has an annual budget of $750,000 from military and naval
funds because of its war implications—bogging down enemy troops in snow and
rain, clearing airfields of fog at lowest cost, and infecting induced storms with bac-
teriological and radiological materials. The Battle of the Bulge, in which the Nazis
mobilized and attacked under supercooled fog, could have been much altered by a
few pounds of dry ice. 42

Between 1947 and 1952, Project Cirrus conducted about 250 experiments
involving modification of cold cirrus and stratus clouds, warm and cold cumulus
clouds, periodic seeding, forest fire suppression, and a notable attempt to modify
a hurricane. Researchers in the project developed a suite of modern techniques
applicable to cloud physics, including instruments for measuring temperatures
and cloud properties in flight, collecting cloud droplets and ice crystals, and gen-
43
erating artificial nuclei. Military aircraft (a B-17, later a B-29, and eventually as
many as six planes) equipped with seeding devices, new instrumentation, and
camera equipment operated over a 1,000-square-mile restricted flight area just

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