After the
Second World War, another conflict was quick to develop: a war of ideologies between the
capitalist West and the
communist East. Since the
Russian Civil War, it was clear that the
United States was opposed to
Bolshevism. Equally, the
Soviet Union preached worldwide revolution. In the course of this
cold war, both sides would seek the technological power to observe and ultimately eradicate the opposing system of society. These technological desires manifested themselves in the
aerospace technology of the 1950's and onward:
spy planes such as the
U2,
spy satellites,
strategic bombers like the American
B-52 and the Soviet Bison, and
ballistic missiles such as the
American Titan and the
Soviet R7. Additionally, in a further attempt to prove the superiority of one power's ideology over the other's,
manned space exploration served as a tool of
propaganda: from
Yuri Gagarin to the
Apollo program.
Prior to the era of
spy satellites, or any
satellites at all, was the time of
spy planes: compilations of
titanium,
steel, and reinforced
glass. The first aircraft designed specifically for high altitude aerial reconnaissance was the
U2. Now eclipsed in fame by a band of the same name, the
U2 was developed in the 1950's by
Lockheed under contract from the
CIA. Development took place at
Lockheed headquarters in
Burbank, California. Production occurred at the highly secure, secret facility dubbed "
Skunk Works" in
Groom Lake, Nevada. This infamous development and testing area for secret aircraft now bears the designation
Area 51.
The
U2 was a single seat aircraft with a wingspan of 80 feet. The original version flew at 85 000 feet with a range of 3000 miles. This enabled it to evade
Soviet defenses, namely
interceptors and
surface-to-air-missiles, while retaining the capacity to fly from Western nations. The
photographic equipment aboard the
U2 was sophisticated enough to be able to discern a
golf ball from the green at 85 000 feet. On July 1st, 1956 the U2 made its first flyover of the
Soviet Union, photographing
Moscow,
Leningrad, and the
Baltic Coast. This was the first of at least twenty flights.
Hoping to create a
statute allowing surveillance over-flights of the
Soviet Union under
international law,
President Eisenhower met with
Great Britain,
France, and the
USSR in 1955 to discuss an '
open skies proposal'. This proposal would allow the
US and the
USSR to continuously inspect one another's military installations by air. While popular in world opinion, the proposal was rejected by the
USSR.
On the first of May 1960, a
U2 piloted by
Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the
Soviet Union. The plane and the pilot were both captured. The political fallout of the incident was disastrous.
Premier Khrushchev cancelled plans to attend the
Paris Peace Conference.
Despite this misadventure, the
U2 continued to be used, though never again over the
Soviet Union. It was through
U2 over-flights of
Cuba that the placement of
IRBM's (
intermediate range ballistic missiles) was detected there and the
Cuban Missile Crisis was instigated. One such flight over
Cuba ended in disaster, when a
Soviet SAM (
surface-to-air missile) downed a
U2 on October 27th, 1962.
US aerial photography over the nation of
Cuba in October 1962 showed a frightening array of
Soviet weaponry being stationed there:
SAM sites,
strategic bombers, and launching sites for
IRBM’s. Essentially, these forces were equivalent to
American bases in
Turkey, threatening the
Soviet Union. The strain reached a climax when
Soviet air defenses managed to shoot down a
U2 over Cuba.
Kennedy responded to the buildup with a
naval blockade, deflecting those who suggested a full-out attack on
Cuba. After tense communications between
Kennedy and
Khrushchev, in the form of letters, it was agreed that the blockade would be lifted and the weapons removed. This incident showed both nations how close
nuclear war could be, and in so doing created increased caution in both nations. A
hotline was also established between
Washington and
Moscow to expedite emergency communication between the leaders.
This was the second
U2 disabled by
Soviet anti-aircraft technology. 1962 had not been a good year for the
U2, with a third being shot down over the
Chinese mainland on September 9th. (Relates to 2001
EP-3 situation in the
South China Sea)
After this year of failures, the
U2 was officially recognized to have lost its former invincibility of
altitude. The same missile programs that
U2's had been used to observe had finally developed a
SAM capable of downing a
U2. Additionally,
spy satellites like the
Discoverer and
Corona series' were eclipsing
spy planes for
espionage.
In 1957 the
U2 spy plane made an over-flight of a
R-7 launching facility in the
Soviet Union; that same year, on October 4th, a Russian
R-7 ICBM carried the first
manmade satellite to orbit. The 184-pound capsule, equipped only with a radio transmitted and four antennas, was enough to precipitate terror in the West that
communism may actually be superior. This Prosteyshiy
Sputnik (Simplest Satellite) humbled the
United States.
American space efforts were redoubled as a result.
Behind the hype and propaganda,
Sputnik was deceptive. It was launched on the
R-7, the only significant
Russianmissile at the time. The
R-7 was liquid fueled and based primarily upon the
V-2. At this time, the
United States had a multitude of missiles underway: the
Atlas and the
Titan, true
ICBM's (liquid fueled and still partly in the experimental stage); and the
Redstone,
Thor, and
Jupiter (liquid fueled modified
V-2's of the
IRBM class).
America had superior fuels, superior engines, and superior guidance. These trends would continue throughout the
arms race with the
USA developing increasingly precise (and smaller) weapons while the
USSR overcame large
CEP (
circular error of probability) with coincidingly larger yields.
Continuing in their quest to build
nationalistic pride within the
Soviet Union, the
USSR launched
Sputnik II: a larger satellite containing the dog
Laika. This was the first living creature to travel into space, and die there.
Laika made her flight on the 3rd of November 1957 atop an
R-7 rocket. Despite the continued public opinion of
Russian superiority in space, their missiles continued to lag behind the
US. The
missile gap did exist, but in favour of the
United States. The failure of the
Soviet Union to construct an effective
ICBM force before the
Americans led to the placement of
IRBM's in
Cuba and, consequently, the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
Liquid fueled
missiles dominated rocketry from when
Goddard constructed the first one in his backyard workshop. Fuels were held either in compressed tanks or pumped into a
combustion chamber, ignited, and used to generate
thrust. In order to accomplish this, the fuels must be
volatile. These fuels could not be safely stored inside the missiles thus missiles had to be fueled just prior to launch: a lengthy process taking between 15 minutes, for an
Atlas or
Titan, to a full half hour for an
R-7. A small
asphalt company in the
United States changed that through the quasi-accidental development of an effective
solid fuel. This allowed the development of increasingly devastating weapons that could be deployed more quickly. Solid fuels could be stored aboard the rocket and allowed for immediate launch. The first weapons to exploit this were the
US Minuteman and
Polaris missiles. The
Minuteman was a
silo-launched
intercontinental ballistic missile while the
Polaris was launched from a mobile submarine force. True to its name, the
Minuteman could launch in under a minute's preparation.
Eventually, the
Soviet Union developed their own
solid fuels, though they never trusted or relied on them as much as the
Americans. Now that the gap between an
American or
Russian decision to launch a strike and the completion of that strike was 30 minutes, the two
superpowers progressed to the development of even deadlier weapons.
Multiple independent re-entry vehicles (
MIRV's) were the next generation of
ballistic missiles. They delivered a stage called a
bus into orbit. This, in turn, fired multiple warheads on independent
re-entry trajectories. Thus, one missile could do the work of many. Three, then five, then eight, and reaching into the dozens of warheads,
MIRV's became more and more capable weapons.
Ultimately, both superpowers possessed a
nuclear arsenal capable of scouring the surface of the Earth of life. From
Atlases and
R-7's to the
Minuteman and
Polaris III's, the combined nuclear arsenals of
NATO and the
Warsaw Pact allowed for only one policy of "defense." Since no effective defense exists against
ballistic missiles, despite the attempts of
Reagan and
George W. Bush administrations, the only way to effectively deter a
nuclear attack is to offer the certainty of
nuclear retaliation. This policy, called
Mutual Assured Destruction, represents the inherent madness of the
Cold War. The rift of ideologies was so deep that either side was willing to eradicate all life on earth rather than surrender. Granted, this policy served to prevent
nuclear war rather than promote it, but regardless it demonstrated a massively
sadistic and
reckless attitude.
The need for assured retaliation partly drove the bilateral acquisition of huge
nuclear arsenals. Also involved, on each side, was a perceived
missile gap. While
Soviet information remains classified, it is now known that
U2 over-flights had revealed the figures for
missiles and
bombers released to the public were grossly exaggerated. The
military seized the chance to capitalize on feelings of inadequacy, while those who would oppose this unnecessary buildup could not admit to the covert surveillance that reveal the falsity of the gaps.
Beyond
propaganda,
satellites had one very important
military purpose:
surveillance. The original aim of the
US satellite program, directed by
Wernher Von Braun, was to construct and deploy such a
satellite. Their initial plans were incredibly optimistic, calling for an eighty-man orbital observation platform that was to be launched in one piece. Eventually, automation and the difficulty of launching such a titanic
satellite favored smaller, automated devices.
The first
satellites capable of photographing the surface of the
Earth were the
American Discoverer satellites. The
Discoverer craft relied on a system by which exposed film was returned to Earth in a capsule. Amidst launch and mechanical failures, these capsules initially proved very difficult to find. Embarrassingly, the capsule from
Discoverer 2 was actually recovered by
Russian forces in
Norway. From
Discover 14 onwards the satellites consistently returned useful images. After the
U2 incident in 1960,
satellites became the backbone of
American surveillance of the
Soviet Union. Ultimately, the success of the
Discoverer program was in learning important lessons for the more strategically useful
Corona program. The [Corona[ program was a logical extension of the
Discoverer program. After
Discoverer 38, a new camera was introduced, the
KH-4. This new system allowed for the production of
three-dimensional stereoscopic images.
Corona satellites tracked the development and deployment of numerous Soviet weapons including
submarines,
ballistic missiles, and
SAM’s. Accurate target information from
Corona surveillance allowed the
United States to effectively direct its force of
ICBM’s. For those in power, the
bomber and
missile gaps were exposed as frauds. In 1967,
LBJ said this of the space program:
“I wouldn’t want to be quoted on this. We’ve spent $35 or $40 billion on the space program. And if nothing else had come out of it except the knowledge that we gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn’t need to do. We were building things we didn’t need to build. We were harboring fears we didn’t need to harbor.”
For the remainder of the
cold war, and into the present day,
orbital surveillance satellites would play a key role in the
intelligence system of any nation with the wealth and technological skill to employ them.
While the wartime applications of space were rocketing forward, the secrecy that surrounded them prevented them from being as effective an agent of
propaganda as they could otherwise be. Both
superpowers realized this. It was largely for this reason that
Sputnik was a militarily innocuous satellite: so that they could tell the world about it. Beyond
Sputnik,
manned space-flight represented the ultimate possibility to show to the citizens of both
superpowers, and to the world in general, the space-faring acumen of a nation.
The
Soviet Union was the first to concentrate on this type of demonstration. While the
United States was developing
covert surveillance satellites, whose existence could not be revealed, the
Soviets put a radio beacon in the sky. While the
United States was strengthening its
nuclear arsenal on land and under the sea, the
Soviet Union put a man in space. This was perhaps the only area in the
Cold War where a veritable gap existed in favour of the
Soviet Union.
Kennedy was fairly quick to realize this, and remarkably quick to one-up the
Soviet Union. The vehicle by which this was accomplished was the
Apollo program. The
Apollo program rivals anything to date in terms of material and human expenditures in the achievement of a
public works project. While the success of the
Apollo program yielded relatively little benefit to the scientific community, it can be cited as the prime example of the superiority of the
United States over the
Soviet Union at the height of the
Cold War. The fact that this claim can be made at all demonstrates how well suited
manned flight is to the attention of the world. A mission with no real
tactical or
strategic purpose had a much firmer impression upon minds worldwide than massive
American missile superiority.
The forces that originated and developed during the
Cold War can still be seen at work today.
Spy planes have grown much smaller and more sophisticated despite a preference for
spy satellites, which are now an indispensable part of
military reconnaissance,
communication, and, in the form of
MIRV buses, weaponry.
ICBM research and development continues, as the
US Minuteman III and
Polaris III missiles attest to. One disturbing manifestation of the collapse of the
Soviet Union also involves
ICBM’s: the
proliferation of the nuclear hardware of the former
Soviet Union among dozens of nations in search of nuclear capabilities. The former
club of five nuclear powers: the
United States, the
Soviet Union, the
United Kingdom,
France, and
China has been joined by an unknown number of smaller nations, some of whom are developing
ICBM and
IRBM hardware.
Outside the
military,
satellites are now vital in a multitude of areas including
communications,
navigation,
meteorological observation, and
scientific research.
Manned space-flight continues in a far less competitive manner. An excellent recent example of this was the decommissioning of the
Russian space station Mir, and the launch of the
US dominated, but not owned,
International Space Station Alpha.