Contaminating space: Project West Ford and scientific communities, 1958-1965

Abstract

From 1958 until 1965 the MIT Lincoln Laboratory worked on a military communications experiment which involved injecting a belt of copper dipoles into earth orbit. The US Air Force and Defense Department supported this project, called West Ford, because the project promised to deliver a secure and reliable system to transmit messages. Some optical and radio astronomers protested the belt because they feared that the dipoles would interfere with research. Other astronomers and scientists looked positively upon the project primarily because of the fields in which they worked, the funding they received, and the contacts they maintained. West Ford casts light upon the struggle between different scientific communities, the way in which scientists compartmentalize state and professional responsibilities, and the nature of scientific advising during the Cold War. The project also points to a strand of environmental consciousness, different from, and earlier than, the mid-1960s popular movement.