Page 226 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

bombs away

The scientists and cold warriors who meddled with the Earth’s atmosphere and
near-space environment believed that “they could control everything,” even
52
radiation and nuclear fallout. They had supporters in high places, such as Sen-
ate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, chair of the Preparedness Subcommittee.
The launch of Sputnik 1 in october 1957 diverted the world’s attention from the
scientific concerns of the ongoing International Geophysical Year and height-
ened American apprehensions of a “missile gap” and possible national security
threats from space. The launch of Sputnik 2 in November further fueled these
fears. Johnson warned in early 1958 that the Russian Sputniks were not “play toys”
and proclaimed that the very future of the United States depended on its first
seizing ownership of space and controlling it for military purposes.

The testimony of the scientists is this: Control of space means control of the world,
far more certainly, far more totally than any control that has ever or could ever be
achieved by weapons, or by troops of occupation. From space, the masters of infin-
ity would have the power to control the earth’s weather, to cause drought and flood,
to change the tides and raise the levels of the sea, to divert the Gulf Stream and
change temperate climates to frigid. . . . If, out in space, there is the ultimate posi-
tion—from which total control of the earth may be exercised—then our national
goal and the goal of all free men must be to win and hold that position. 53

Later that month, the United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1, with a
modified Redstone military missile, the Juno 1.
In August 1958, during the extensive series of bomb tests known as operation
Hardtack, the military tested its antiballistic missile and communication disrup-
tion capabilities with two high-altitude shots named Teak and orange. In each
test, an army Redstone rocket launched a 3.8-megaton hydrogen bomb warhead.
Teak detonated at 48 miles altitude in the mesosphere, and orange at 27 miles
in the stratosphere. Each blast illuminated the night sky as if it were daylight,
with the added excitement that due to a malfunction of the missile guidance sys-
tem, the Teak shot occurred directly over Johnston Island, in the North Pacific,
instead of at the planned spot 48 miles downrange. Apparently, the experiment-
ers had no qualms about destroying either themselves or any sensitive or protec-
tive layers of the atmosphere.
In operation Argus, conducted in August and September 1958, just six
months after the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts by the satellites
Explorer 1 and 3, the U.S. military and the Atomic Energy Commission decided

fearS, fantaSieS, and PoSSibilitieS of Control | 209