Word: vanguarde
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...clamor about how and why the U.S. lost the satellite race with Russia, the arguments that were hurled about-budgetary penny-pinching, interservice rivalries, underestimation of the Russians-overlooked some basic facts of the U.S. missile program. For the real reasons why the U.S.'s Project Vanguard failed to live up to its name, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS. Project Vanguard...
...wisecrack much repeated in the U.S. last week was that Project Vanguard, the U.S.'s earth-satellite program, ought to be renamed Project Rearguard. This clothed in humor the widespread feeling of resentment stirred up by the Russians' great cold-war propaganda victory. Inevitably, the question arose: Who's to blame...
...before Project Vanguard's birth, the Army and Navy jointly undertook a satellite project thought up by Engineer Wernher Von Braun, captured German V-2 expert turned U.S. Army missile brain. Von Braun planned to equip the Army's tested Redstone missile with booster rockets and use the hybrid to send a small (5 Ib.) satellite into an earth-girdling orbit...
...basic top-level decision then to be made was how to run the project. The twofold decision that emerged from the National Security Council: 1) keep the satellite project separate from military ballistic-missile research, and 2) put the Navy in charge. With that, Project Orbiter died and Project Vanguard was born...
...when it was made, the National Security Council decision seemed sensible enough. The U.S. had committed itself to pass on to the rest of the world, including Russia, scientific information obtained from IGY programs, so it seemed desirable, to the NSC (and to IGY scientists too) to keep Vanguard from getting deeply involved with top-secret military programs. Also, Administration policymakers, in a fit of touchiness about neutralist opinion, wanted to avoid any appearance of using IGY undertakings for military purposes...