Keep Watching the Skies!: The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age

Copyright © 2008 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-0-691-12854-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007941755

press.princeton.edu

eISBN: 978-140-08297-05

R0

To my parents, Bill and Carole McCray, in

appreciation of a chemistry set, some binoculars,

and—most importantly—the encouragement

that came with them.

Contents

Acknowledgments  ix

Organizations and People  xi

Introduction

THEY Said It Couldn’t Be Done!  1

Chapter 1

Cultures of Observation  19

Chapter 2

An Astronomical Engineer  45

Chapter 3

Wanted: Satellite Spotters  72

Chapter 4

Of Spacehounds and Lunartiks  93

Chapter 5

Seeing History through a Small Telescope  139

Chapter 6

Amateurs Provide Strength on the Bench  165

Chapter 7

Moonwatch Grows Up  190

Chapter 8

The Legacy of Moonwatch  223

Explanation of Sources Used  249

Notes to the Chapters  251

Index  293

Acknowledgments

One day in 2002, while I was browsing yet another set of archival boxes, Pamela Henson, a historian at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, asked me if I had heard of Moonwatch. Once I started to look through the collection, I became fascinated with the stories it contained about amateur scientists. As I did the subsequent research for this book, many people and institutions provided invaluable help, guidance, and contributions.

At the Smithsonian Archives, Pam Henson as well as Ellen Alers and Tracy Robinson provided excellent assistance as I examined the collections there. Additional archival assistance came from Janice Goldblum (National Academy of Sciences Archive), Brenda Corbin and Gregory Shelton (U.S. Naval Observatory Library), Francisca Ordia and Connie Adams (Boy Scouts of America), Michael Saladyga (American Association of Variable Star Observers), Catherine Zeiser (Millbrook School).

The National Science Foundation provided timely assistance in the form of a grant (NSF Award #0323336—Astronomy during the Cold War), which the American Institute of Physics and Spencer R. Weart managed. Additional support came from the University of California, Santa Barbara. I was extremely fortunate to have David H. DeVorkin as a collaborator on the larger grant project and benefited from his numerous suggestions. I am especially grateful to David for his insights regarding Fred Whipple’s career and astronomy in the 1950s and 1960s in general. Teasel Muir-Harmony, now a graduate student at Notre Dame University, also provided excellent research assistance.

Numerous other colleagues from the history community and my home department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, took the time to share opinions and research materials: Anita Guerrini, Jordan D. Marché, Michael Osborne, Robert W. Smith, Paul Spickard, and Thomas R. Williams.

Formal archives did not provide my sole sources of information. Several former Moonwatchers or their families graciously loaned me materials from their personal collections and took the time to answer my queries by phone, email, and letter. Without their kind help, this book would be based on much less evidence and be far less interesting. I am especially indebted to John Bartholdi, Jack Borde, Donald Charles, Leo Deming, Russell Eberst, Jeanne Emmons Bishop and the late Richard H. Emmons, Steve Maran, Ted Molczan, Jay Pasachoff, Richard Ditteon, Jane Richardson, Victor Slabinski, Walt Steiger, Thomas Van Flandern, Joel Weisberg, and Babette Whipple, as well as all of the former Moonwatchers who kindly responded to my questions. Ingrid Gnerlich and her colleagues at Princeton University Press provided excellent assistance in bringing this book to completion.

Finally, Nicole Archambeau deserves especial recognition for her excellent advice on editing and organization. This book is stronger for Nicole’s suggestions and I am grateful for her encouragement.

Santa Barbara, California

Organizations and People

Abbreviations

AAVSO — American Association of Variable Star Observers, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts

IGY — International Geophysical Year, which ran from July 1957 to December 1958

NAS — National Academy of Sciences, established in 1863 and headquartered in Washington, D.C.

NASA — National Aeronautics and Space Administration, formed in 1958

NSF — National Science Foundation, established in 1950 and located in Washington, D.C.

SAO — Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cast of Characters

IN CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

James Baker — Astronomer and optical engineer who developed, along with Joseph Nunn, the basic design of the Baker-Nunn camera

Leon Campbell, Jr. — Moonwatch’s director from 1956 to 1961

William Hirst — Moonwatch director from 1964 to 1968

J. Allen Hynek — Astronomer and director of the SAO’s satellite tracking program during the IGY

Walter Munn — Field representative for the SAO

Armand Spitz — Early Moonwatch organizer, science popularizer, and planetarium builder

Richard Vanderburgh — Moonwatch director from 1961 to 1964

Albert Werner — Moonwatch director from 1968 until the program’s end in 1975

Fred Whipple — Astronomer and director of Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1955 to 1973

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Lloyd Berkner — Vice-president of the entire International Geophysical Year

Leonard Carmichael — Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution

Joseph Kaplan — UCLA physicist and chairman of the United States National Committee for the IGY (referred to, in the book, simply as the National Committee)

Hugh Odishaw — Executive director of the U.S. IGY program who operated out of the National Academy of Sciences

S. Paul Kramer — Odishaw’s assistant at the National Academy of Sciences

Richard Porter — Electrical engineer for General Electric and chairman of the Technical Panel for the Earth Satellite Program (in the book, the Satellite Panel)

Homer Newell — Leading scientist for the navy’s Vanguard satellite program

PROMINENT MOONWATCHERS

Bro. Wendell Adams, New Orleans, Louisiana

Nunz Addabbo, Terre Haute, Indiana

Jack Bartholdi, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Jack Borde, Walnut Creek, California

Don Charles, Walnut Creek, California

Philip del Vecchio, Paterson, New Jersey

Sally Dieke, Baltimore, Maryland

Russell Eberst, United Kingdom

Richard Emmons, North Canton, Ohio

Paul Engle, Edinburg, Texas

Rodney Faxon, Chicago, Illinois

Edward Halbach, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Vioalle Hefferan, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Walter Scott Houston, Manhattan, Kansas

Neale Howard, Milbrook, New York

Arthur Leonard, Sacramento, California

Stephen Maran, New York, New York

Ed Martz, Alamogordo, New Mexico

Massasi Miyadi, Tokyo, Japan

Ted Molczan, Hamilton, Ontario

Miss Charlie Noble, Fort Worth, Texas

Jay Pasachoff, New York City

Tom Petrie, Cleveland, Ohio

Dave Saltus, Arlington, Virginia

Jane Shelby, New York City

Victor Slabinski, Cleveland, Ohio

Geoffrey Taylor, Adelaide, Australia

Tom Van Flandern, Cleveland, Ohio

Joel Weisberg, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Jim Westphal, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Donald Zahner, St. Louis, Missouri

THEY Said It Couldn’t Be Done!

Vioalle Clark Hefferan returned to her Seventh Street apartment, relieved it was finally Friday. All week long, she had helped students get ready for Bulldog Day, Albuquerque High School’s annual day of homecoming festivities. Although her students’ float, decked out in green and white, did not win any prizes, Hefferan knew that they would forget their disappointment by the time that evening’s football game started.

As soon as Vioalle walked in the door, the phone rang. She put down her books and picked up the receiver. An out-of-breath voice exclaimed, The Russians have launched a satellite! It was 4:30 P.M. in New Mexico, on October 4, 1957. Only minutes had passed since news of the successful launch had traveled from the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hefferan’s mystery caller begged her to assemble her team of amateur satellite spotters and be ready to observe Sputnik’s passage in less than an hour.

As the sun started to set, Vioalle Hefferan phoned members of Moonwatch team #041 and passed the word. She realized she might not have any takers. Students from Hefferan’s high school astronomy club made up most of her team, and many of them might not want to cancel their dates for that evening’s festivities (fig. I.1). Within two hours, however, two dozen teens rendezvoused with Hefferan on the fourth-floor roof of Albuquerque High School.

FIGURE I.1. Vioalle Hefferan and her Moonwatch team on the roof of Albuquerque High School, c. 1961.

The constellation Sagittarius emerged in the twilit sky, hanging between Saturn and the nearly full moon. However, Hefferan’s students weren’t interested in this particular moon. They had their sights set on spotting the earth’s newest satellite, one that no eyes had yet seen in the sky.

While they did not know it at the time, amateur scientists around the world, equipped with homebuilt telescopes and ham radio equipment, were the only groups with the capability to spot and track the first satellites that October night. Although teams of engineers were constructing a global system of sophisticated and expensive satellite tracking cameras, this was unfinished. The Soviets’ surprise launch of Sputnik caught these professionally staffed stations, as one Chicago newspaper would chide, with their telescopes down. ¹

Hefferan’s team and the dozens of other Moonwatch teams mobilizing around the world that evening stood to make history. As the night chill settled in, her students took their places at observing stations and scanned the skies through telescopes they had helped design and build. Their objective was ambitious. A speeding satellite could cross the face of the full moon in less than a second and traverse an entire continent in minutes. A student was ready at a nearby telephone to relay the team’s data—exactly when and where they spotted the Soviet satellite in the night sky—to scientists who anxiously waited to plot the course of the world’s first satellite. Telescopes pivoted, feet shifted, voices quieted, and eyes strained for a sign that the long-awaited exploration of space had begun. ²

Satellites, Science, and the IGY

In the weeks that followed, similar scenes repeated at Moonwatch stations all over the globe. Thousands of teenagers, homemakers, longtime amateur astronomers, school teachers, blue-collar workers, and other citizen-scientists took turns scanning the skies in the hopes of spotting one of the first satellites flashing by at 18,000 miles per hour. Despite their all-night vigil, the big prize of being the first team in the United States, perhaps the world, to see Sputnik, eluded Hefferan’s students that night. This was not due to lack of training or effort on their part, however. Predicting the orbits of artificial satellites and locating the actual objects in the wide expanse of sky was as much art and luck as science. Hefferan’s team soon learned that Sputnik wouldn’t be visible over New Mexico for several more days. When it finally did arrive, however, they manned their posts again and won acclaim throughout their school and state for spotting it.

The novelty of what flashed and beeped in the October sky in 1957 is hard to appreciate today. As I write this, thousands of objects of varying size are orbiting the earth. Hundreds of these are functioning satellites. These objects girding the globe are critical links in a modern technological and scientific infrastructure that most people reflect on little, if at all.

Only when a solar flare or technical glitch knocks a satellite out of commission do we realize how our lives tenuously connect to these objects silently speeding overhead. Global positioning tools in our cars and even watches rely on a system of satellites. Weather satellites help meteorologists predict the path of deadly storms giving people days rather than hours to evacuate. Other satellites send music and television shows to people’s homes. Orbiting platforms with sensitive infrared detectors can spot plumes of hot gases coming from a hostile missile launch while others carry cameras that provide real-time intelligence data. Satellites have revolutionized world communications, provided entertainment for billions, and spawned vast multinational companies—all while knitting the world into a global village.

Satellites and orbiting telescopes have also helped revolutionize how science is done. From the first small satellites and solar system probes that helped scientists understand the nature of the earth’s immediate environment to multibillion-dollar space telescopes, scientific instruments freed from landbound confines have provided scientists and ordinary citizens with extraordinary new powers of observation. When the amateur scientists of Moonwatch worked with professional scientists to spot and track the first satellites, they also helped humans move toward a new understanding of how we see ourselves, our planet, and our place in the cosmos.

The initial entrée for amateur scientists to take part in this grand adventure came as professional scientists prepared for the International Geophysical Year. The IGY, as it was known in the 1950s, was the most ambitious and complex science project of the twentieth century. Between July 1957 and December 1958, tens of thousands of professional scientists from sixty-seven different nations staffed hundreds of stations around the globe. Together, they researched important topics in fields like geophysics, atmospheric sciences, and oceanography. During the IGY, scientists gained a remarkable new understanding of our planet. For instance, they detected the Van Allen radiation belts around the earth, explored Antarctica, and probed the worldwide system of underwater mountains and ridges to help explain how continents moved.

Most stunning of all, though, and what dominated headlines, political debate, and dining room conversation more than anything else during the IGY, was the launch of the world’s first artificial satellites. The ramifications of first one and then several satellites affected national politics, influenced pop culture, and transformed international relations.

The IGY provided opportunities not only for Moonwatchers but for amateur scientists of all interests. Ham radio operators, meteor spotters, and weather observers participated in IGY-related activities and stimulated interest among ordinary citizens to explore science’s seemingly endless frontier. War-surplus equipment, commercially available science kits, and a knack for constructing their own equipment enabled the amateurs’ pursuits. The community of amateur scientists blossomed during the heyday of Operation Moonwatch. *

Moonwatch and amateur science were part of the multifaceted bonanza of science popularization that emerged first after the end of World War Two and then again following Sputnik. ³ As the public recognized the role of scientists in winning World War Two, the prestige of scientists rose dramatically. Physical scientists are in vogue these days, Harper’s commented after the war. No dinner party is a success without at least one physicist to explain . . . the nature of the new age in which we live. ⁴ The postwar media consequently depicted scientists as heroic explorers and science as a majestic adventure.

The symbols of postwar science were indeed grand. The United States Postal Service memorialized the Hale Telescope, perched high atop Palomar Mountain in southern California, on a postage stamp when it was dedicated in 1948. Beneath its graceful, classically shaped dome, the world’s largest telescope with its massive 200-inch mirror silently collected the universe’s mysteries. Colorful articles in Time, Collier’s, and Life presented a romantic image of the lone astronomer exploring the universe with this giant new instrument. The public was fascinated by its size and majesty, some believing that its capabilities transcended even science. The president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which had funded the telescope, even described it as an instrument to help heal an ailing world. ⁵ Giant telescopes, powerful atom smashers, nuclear-powered submarines, the structure of DNA, the invention of the transistor, rockets probing the limits of the earth’s atmosphere—all broached the sublime and thrilled a public eager to understand and embrace the transformative potential of science and technology.

What distinguished the citizens around the world who took part in Moonwatch from their curious neighbors was that they were not just passive consumers of science popularization. As dedicated observers, tinkerers, and experimenters, Moonwatchers and other amateur scientists vigorously worked with professional scientists to help produce new scientific knowledge. Moonwatchers were among the most enthusiastic devotees of science and technology in the 1950s. While the first Soviet satellites alarmed many Westerners, Moonwatchers had a different reaction. Their correspondence and newsletters spoke of the great adventure space exploration promised and the broader horizons that beckoned to their children. As one Moonwatcher rhapsodized during the IGY, One cannot look for very long into the workshop of the Creator without changing his attitude towards life. ⁶ Before widespread disenchantment with science and technology took hold in the 1960s, launching satellites and exploring space seemed triumphant and glorious endeavors. Moonwatch provided an invitation for amateur scientists and other curious citizens to come along for the ride and actively participate.

What Was Moonwatch?

The imminent availability of satellites in 1957 promised scientists new vistas for research. By knowing, with great accuracy and precision, where a satellite was, scientists could learn far more about their planet than earthbound instruments permitted. Orbiting instruments, for example, could reliably send scientists information about cosmic rays and other forms of radiation that the earth’s atmosphere screens out. By sighting the satellite from different points on earth and triangulating the observations, researchers could create a more accurate map of the earth’s surface and the planet’s actual shape. They could study the motion of satellites to understand how the earth’s gravitational field varied with location, such as over the earth’s equatorial bulge. In addition, the orbit of satellites could provide scientists with much more detailed information about the earth’s upper atmosphere, including its density and temperature.

While this research might sound mundane today, in 1957 it was basic information essential for any future space exploration by either people or machines. These data were also valuable for national security. The air force, for example, couldn’t accurately launch rockets from Kansas to Kiev if it did not know exactly where on the earth Kiev actually was or how missiles would behave as they zoomed through the earth’s atmosphere.

Before orbiting satellites could provide scientists and engineers with this cornucopia of information and applications, they needed to know where the satellites were and how they moved. While today’s modern tracking tools and sophisticated computer programs make this a relatively straightforward and incredibly precise operation, the situation was quite different when Sputnik and its brethren first appeared. Importantly, rocket engine and guidance technologies could not guarantee that the first satellites would go exactly where Soviet or American engineers wanted. A rocket burn of a few extra seconds, for an object moving several thousand miles per hour, could put it in an orbit much different from what engineers initially planned.

Once a satellite had been lofted into orbit, it continued to move with stunning speed. A navy scientist in 1956 likened seeing a satellite to catching a glimpse of a golf ball tossed out of a jet plane. ⁷ This created two challenges to people on the ground. One was finding the satellite—under the best of conditions, scientists imagined, it would appear as a faint star—while it moved against the vast celestial tapestry. The second task, after the object had been acquired, was to continue to track it. Once scientists had established the location of the satellite at several points in its orbit, they could use classical physics to calculate its orbit and thus predict when and where the satellite would be in the future.

While the first satellites would broadcast radio signals, the first radio tracking systems wouldn’t produce the precision scientists wanted. Moreover, the transmitters themselves were delicate pieces of equipment, powered at first by short-lived batteries and operating in a harsh new environment scientists were just beginning to understand. In contrast, visual sighting and tracking offered scientists and politicians unquestionable proof that an object was indeed in orbit along with a dependable source of information about its position. Even if newfangled radio devices failed, visual satellite observations using the tried and true combination of human-eye-plus-telescope could still reveal to scientists many secrets of the earth’s shape and nature of the upper atmosphere.

Other than meteors and comets, scientists had never tried to track such fast-moving celestial objects moving so close to earth. A satellite’s speed varies with its apogee and perigee while its path over the earth’s surface can continually change over time. The orbit of the first Soviet Sputnik, for example, moved slightly to the west with each revolution while the earth itself moved underneath it. All of these variables made tracking the first satellites a major engineering and scientific accomplishment.

This is where amateur scientists entered the picture. Moonwatchers, scientists initially thought, would assist professionally staffed (and presumably more reliable) optical and radio tracking stations. At least that was the plan. During the opening weeks of the Space Age, however, Moonwatchers and other amateurs became a much more essential part of the global satellite tracking network. Organized, trained, and geared up when the first Soviet sputniks appeared, these heretofore unknown citizen-scientists made critical contributions in the opening days of the Space Age and contributed to the work of real scientists and engineers.

Harvard astronomer Fred L. Whipple conceived of Moonwatch when scientists around the world were making plans for the IGY. Whipple was already famous in scientific circles for his study of meteors and comets and for his wartime research on how to defeat enemy radar technology. He quickly transformed the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), newly moved from Washington, D.C., to Cambridge, Massachusetts, into one of the world’s largest organizations for research in astronomy and space science. ⁸

For years, Whipple had spoken publicly about the transformative potential of satellites and space exploration. In July 1955, when President Eisenhower announced that the United States would launch an artificial satellite during the IGY, the ambitious Whipple was ready. He quickly proposed that his observatory have the responsibility for spotting and tracking the first satellites. Whipple’s bold plan depended on the cooperation and integration of three very different ingredients. First, the SAO would establish a network of a dozen, specially designed cameras that could photograph satellites while simultaneously viewing relatively large swaths of the sky. These would be located all around the globe—Hawaii, Iran, Australia, and South Africa all had one—and staffed by trained technicians. Second, these camera stations would send their information and photographs to the SAO in Cambridge, where experts would crunch the numbers and predict the satellites’ orbits. All of this depended, however, on having a rough idea of where to look in the first place.

Enter Moonwatch, the critical third piece of Whipple’s plan. As Whipple first imagined it, Moonwatchers would perform only a few basic services. During the IGY, amateur volunteers would scan the skies at dusk and dawn, times when satellites are most visible, and send their sightings to the SAO. Serving as a global dragnet for satellites and giving professionally staffed tracking stations a rough estimate of where to start precision tracking, Moonwatchers would provide a valuable service. Amateurs would also maintain so-called death watches when satellites, captured by atmospheric drag and gravity, plunged back to earth. This information could lead, perhaps, to the recovery of satellite fragments while amateurs’ observations could help explain how objects like meteors (and incoming missile warheads) behaved in the upper atmosphere.

Whipple and his colleagues did not foresee the public exposure Moonwatch would receive when Sputnik caught the professionally staffed tracking stations and the rest of the world by surprise, nor did they imagine that the program would last for nearly two decades. What Whipple did understand from the outset, however, was that amateur astronomers and other citizens around the world could help gather useful data and actively work with professional scientists.

To help organize this immense undertaking, he recruited like-minded optimists: J. Allen Hynek, a professional astronomer from Ohio State University and UFO investigator who coined the term close encounters of the third kind; Armand N. Spitz, whose planetariums educated thousands of adults and children about the heavens; and Leon Campbell, Jr., a tireless and kindly science enthusiast well acquainted with the amateur astronomy community.

Together, these four men launched Moonwatch in 1956, but only after overcoming several serious hurdles. They had, for example, to convince skeptics in the professional science community and Washington political establishment that amateurs were up to the task. As Whipple recalled, in mild language that belies the tensions surrounding the IGY’s satellite program, Some of my colleagues were convinced that too few amateurs would volunteer, and that those who did would not always perform satisfactorily. ⁹ Understandably, perhaps, U.S. scientists and politicians were loath to take chances as millions of dollars, professional careers, and national prestige rested on the success of the American satellite effort. Whipple’s campaign to include amateur scientists in the action was indeed a bold gamble.

During the opening months of the Space Age, Moonwatchers around the world proved Whipple’s instincts right. Amateurs exceeded expectations and made a meaningful contribution to one of the largest science enterprises in history. During the opening months of the Space Age, in fact, their services were essential. Using telescopes hand-built or purchased from vendors like Radio Shack, Moonwatchers nightly monitored the skies while radio hams recorded Sputnik’s short-lived radio transmissions. Moonwatchers’ prompt response was due to their extensive training and participation in widely publicized national alerts. This preparation paid off. Within Moonwatch’s first two years, thousands of volunteers at more than two hundred stations worldwide joined the program. During the IGY, Moonwatchers made more than 10,000 satellite observations. As Whipple happily crowed years later to the global community of Moonwatchers, THEY said it couldn’t be done! THEY said it couldn’t work! . . . And THEY were dead wrong! ¹⁰

Moonwatch succeeded for several reasons. Whipple and his SAO colleagues provided invaluable support and encouragement. The best performing teams had skilled and dedicated team leaders, people like Vioalle Hefferan in New Mexico and Richard Emmons in Ohio who organized, trained, and motivated their teams. Moonwatchers actively participated in science, making them more than eyewitnesses to the global satellite craze that exploded with the opening of the Space Age. Regardless of their background—participants came from rural areas and large cities of the United States and dozens of locales around the world—the enthusiasm of Moonwatchers caught the attention of average citizens interested in science and space exploration. Moreover, the thousands of amateur scientists who participated in Moonwatch were not merely passive data collectors. Devoted amateurs refined their equipment, developed new techniques, and formed local and regional networks to communicate their work.

The influence of Moonwatch extended beyond the data that amateurs collected and shared. Dozens of teenagers entered science fairs and boasted of their Moonwatch experience when applying for college admission. Moonwatch, and amateur science in general, helped expand the horizons of young amateur scientists and encouraged them to consider professional research in astronomy or other fields. For some participants, Moonwatch helped launch their careers. For others, Moonwatch fulfilled a more personal need by providing an opportunity to study the heavens, learn new skills, and interact with people from their communities. People were proud of their participation. When the Smithsonian discontinued the program in 1975, one longtime Moonwatcher likened his participation to receiving an award for wartime valor.

Just as importantly, Moonwatch stimulated interest in science and space among ordinary citizens. Dozens of local newspaper articles featured Moonwatch teams standing vigil in the community. Journalists, especially those in smaller towns, relied on information amateurs provided to help explain satellites and rockets to their eager readers. Moonwatchers, consequently, served not only as amateur scientists and civic-minded volunteers but also as ambassadors for science to their local communities. Through open houses, science fairs, and evening viewing sessions, they presented the significance of the first satellites to intrigued and concerned citizens.

Despite experts’ initial claims that Moonwatch could never work, the Smithsonian continued the program long after the IGY ended. After the Eisenhower administration created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), hundreds of dedicated amateur scientists maintained their participation and helped NASA track satellites. Continuing their tradition of maintaining satellite deathwatches, Moonwatchers in Milwaukee had a front-row seat in 1962 when the five-ton satellite Sputnik 4 plunged to its fiery fate. Amateurs’ observations allowed American scientists to recover significant pieces of the debris. During Moonwatch’s twenty years of existence, it helped provide an opportunity for an entire generation of citizen-scientists and space buffs to play a role in the Space Age. Undaunted by its official end in 1975, a small, tight-knit community of satellite watchers continued to observe satellites and is posting their results on the World Wide Web even today.

Who Was an Amateur Scientist?

Amateur — the word itself comes from the Latin for lover. And, like lovers, amateur scientists varied in intensity and the degree to which they were consumed. A broad continuum of citizens participated in Moonwatch, and a wide array of terms may describe them: dabbler, hobbyist, recreation seeker, devotee, and serious amateur scientist. ¹¹

Imprecise and flexible labels challenge our attempts to strictly separate amateur scientists from their professional counterparts. Historians have devoted considerable attention to the study of amateur scientists, their interaction with professional science communities, and the extent of amateur contributions to research. Most of this historiography focuses on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ¹² This makes sense, as during that time scientists established their professional identities and set boundaries that delineated major research disciplines. By the time of the IGY, the traditional tensions historians have noted between professional scientists and amateurs were generally not an issue.

Credentials, institutional affiliation, and access to major equipment and other resources have all offered ways to distinguish amateurs from professional scientists. Commitment and motive for participating in scientific activities also matter. Moonwatch, for example, naturally attracted many people intrigued by its Space Age novelty. Their contributions were indeed often amateurish. Quite often a person would read a newspaper article or hear a radio show about Moonwatch or the IGY satellite program and become intrigued, then captivated. But while perhaps not of much use to scientific research, their participation in Moonwatch or other amateur science programs often served valuable civic or educational purposes.

Throughout this book, we will see how the amateurs of Moonwatch spanned a continuum of interest, motivation, and ability. Curiosity seekers and joyriders caught up in the IGY’s excitement joined more serious amateur scientists who wanted to help further scientific knowledge. As Moonwatchers, however, all of these people shared the goal of wanting to see satellites, regardless of motive. To achieve this end, amateurs established and followed standards and practices necessary for successful satellite spotting. Many amateurs became part of a larger community that circulated news and technical tips and met with other groups of amateur scientists or interacted with professional scientists.

The varied roster of Moonwatch participants makes it clear that the identity of amateur scientists is more nuanced than one might first suspect. Along with high school students and those enthusiasts astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson calls blue collar intellectuals, many people with backgrounds in science, engineering, or some other technical area took part in Moonwatch or other amateur IGY activities. ¹³ Therefore, I use professional scientist and amateur scientist—terms commonly used in the 1950s, while today citizen scientist is gaining popularity—with the recognition that the boundaries between them were sometimes indistinct and occasionally overlapped.

However, in this book, one characteristic distinguishes the amateurs of Moonwatch from professionals. When doing amateur science, they were all unpaid volunteers. ¹⁴ Instead of a paycheck, fame, or career advancement, remuneration came in the form of pride, peer recognition, the satisfaction of learning new skills, and the feeling that one was contributing, in however seemingly small a way,