Cold War Plan Tried To Put a Copper Ring Around the Earth

Wired has the story of a plan enacted in the early 1960s by the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense that had the goal of safeguarding the country's long-range communications from Russian interference. The solution they came up with wasn't easy, but it was straightforward: launch hundreds of millions of thin copper wires into orbit in the hopes of forming an artificial ring around the planet. From the article: "Project Needles, as it was originally known, was Walter E. Morrow’s idea. He suggested that if Earth possessed a permanent radio reflector in the form of an orbiting ring of copper threads, America’s long-range communications would be immune from solar disturbances and out of reach of nefarious Soviet plots. Each copper wire was about 1.8 centimeters in length. This was half the wavelength of the 8 GHz transmission signal beamed from Earth, effectively turning each filament into what is known as a dipole antenna. The antennas would boost long-range radio broadcasts without depending on the fickle ionosphere. ... On May 9, 1963, a second West Ford launch successfully dispersed its spindly cargo approximately 3,500 kilometers above the Earth, along an orbit that crossed the North and South Pole. Voice transmissions were successfully relayed between California and Massachusetts, and the technical aspects of the experiment were declared a success. As the dipole needles continued to disperse, the transmissions fell off considerably, although the experiment proved the strategy could work in principle."

Comments

Sooo....

[girlintraining]

So what you're saying is, we launched a crap-ton of space junk into orbit to test the theory that our leaders will buy anything as long as it's for the war on terr--er, communism. Sorry. Got my time periods mixed up there for a sec.

Re:Sooo....

[AK Marc]

But it worked. It did exactly what they said it would. It was a successful experiment that tested dipoles and orbital mechanics. That you didn't personally find it valuable doesn't make it so.

Re: Sooo....

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment isn't the best example, although the poster has made quite a record of bad posts on science topics, which get modded up despite being flat out wrong with many unmoderated replies pointing out in detail why the information is incorrect. I don't usually look at the user name of posts, but still after the occasional glance have come to recognize a couple screennames because they are so consistently very wrong on the topics I'm interested in and/or have a background in. It can be amazing how a very small number of people can spread so much misinformation by repeating enough of it, even if completely unaware of what they are doing. And while it is tempting to reply to them non-anonymously when my background is relevant, having seen how they respond anyway, I don't need my name associated with arguing with idiots on the internet.

Re:Sooo....

[ElectricTurtle]

Spoken like somebody who doesn't understand microeconomics. I have about half a million in total assets. Most of these aren't liquid, and moreover my various obligations are fairly close to my income, which is to say I'm close to broke most of the time. Being broke means you don't have disposable income, not that you don't have assets or income, and that in order to spend more you must go into debt.

Cost-benefit analysis

[Arancaytar]

Pro: Awesome radio transmissions
Con: Filling Earth's orbitals with junk that will fuck with spacecraft for centuries.

Hm.

handy

[iggymanz]

the Soviet union also could have used this primitive system of global satellite coverage, somehow that fact got lost on our own boneheaded leaders