Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

EXPERIMENTATION
The Commission is encouraging experimentation in this new field in the hope that
private industry can develop considerable additional technical information which will
serve to further the country’s over-all space program.
In this regard, an experimental authorization was granted in January of this year to
the ITT Laboratories, Nutley, N.J., to bounce signals off the moon and passive (non-radioequipped)
earth satellites for basic research and study.
Also in January of this year, an experimental authorization was granted to the
American Telephone and Telegraph Co. to permit it to go forward with plans to develop
an experimental program wherein earth terminal facilities at Holmdel, N.J., would transmit
to and receive from active (radio-equipped) earth satellites which also are undergoing
development by AT&T.
MONITORING
Another FCC activity is the continued monitoring of channels being used for space
communication. This started with its long range direction finding work in tracing Sputnik
I, before the Government established special installations to track space objects.
Commission monitoring is to prevent unauthorized use by other stations of channels
employed for space communication, and to identify and locate sources of interference on
those channels. At a number of FCC monitoring stations, special equipment includes sensitive
receivers, high gain directional antennas and automatic frequency scanning devices.
[4] RADIO ASTRONOMY
EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 45
Related to space communication is the use of radio in astronomy. The Geneva 1959
conference, for the first time in history, provided for protecting specific frequencies utilized
in radio astronomy. The FCC has completed the groundwork for putting these provisions
into effect domestically when the Geneva agreement is ratified by the United
States.
Meanwhile, the Commission has adopted rules to minimize interference to frequencies
used for radio astronomy observations in this country, particularly at the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank and the Naval Radio Research Observatory
at Sugar Grove, both in West Virginia.
Document I-9
Document title: F.R. Kappel, President, American Telephone and Telegraph Company, to
the Honorable James E. Webb, Administrator, NASA, April 5, 1961 (with several attachments).
Source: NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Office, NASA Headquarters,
Washington, D.C.
Document I-10
Document title: James E. Webb, Administrator, to F.R. Kappel, President, American
Telephone and Telegraph Company, April 8, 1961.
Source: NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Office, NASA Headquarters,
Washington, D.C.