title: Keep Watching the Skies!: The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age
author: W. Patrick McCray
description: Starred Review. McCray, professor of history at the Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, has previously written about "big science" in Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambition &amp; the Promise of Technology. Here, he examines "small science" at the dawn of the space age: Project Moonwatch, in which groups of non-scientist volunteers dutifully observed the passage of artificial satellites in the sky. The project's mastermind, astronomer Fred Whipple, intended to provide a manual backup for the automated camera system that was meant to track satellites, a huge, multi-national science effort. At a time when very little was known about the ionosphere and upper atmosphere, armchair astronomers of all backgrounds turned out in the thousands to aid the scientific pursuit of knowledge (and, to a lesser extent, fight the Commies); when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, it was the Moonwatchers who provided the first observations to astronomers at the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory. McCray's history is full of fascinating individuals-not only Whipple, a legend among scientists for his energy and creative engineering, but "citizen heroes" as well. McCray has included a useful bibliography, and a helpful list of acronyms and people, but his text is jargon-free. This pop science takes a fascinating look at a fundamental, and almost-forgotten, moment in Space Age history. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ##
  
  
  
  
  
  #  
  
  
  THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  And why beholdest thou the motethat is in thy brother's eye,but considerest
  not the beamthat is in thine own eye?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  MATTHEW 7 : 3  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chronology
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1969
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Neil Armstrong sets foot on Earth's moon.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1990
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Series of treaties between United States and Soviet Union creates the
  CoDominium.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2008
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  First successful interstellar drive tested. Alderson Drive perfected.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2020
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  First interstellar colonies. Beginning of Great Exodus.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2040
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CoDominium Bureau of Relocation begins mass out-system shipment of convicts.
  Colonization of Sparta and St. Ekaterina.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2079
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Sergei Lermontov becomes Grand Admiral of CoDominium Space Navy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2103
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Great Patriotic Wars. End of the CoDominium. Exodus of the Fleet.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  