As I have been working on the NaNoWriMo challenge, I learned something new about the Civil Air Patrol I had never known. CAP was a key player in Operation Moonwatch. Never heard of it. Well, let me take a moment to share what I have learned.
Training Observers for the Space Age
The Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957. Earlier that summer, CAP helped train Moonwatch observers.
As part of the support for the International Geophysical Year program, officials requested the United States Air Force to perform a series of tracking missions. The proposed training missions would simulate a satellite crossing the sky. However, using Air Force jets threatened to make the program costly. They devised a method to achieve the same results using light aircraft with volunteer crews from the Civil Air Patrol. CAP flight crews across the nation flew night missions while a tiny 1/10 candlepower light trailed behind their aircraft. They flew at an altitude and speed almost exactly simulating the appearance of a real satellite hundreds of miles above the earth.
Connecting Satellite Tracking Stations
An urgent request came from the National Academy of Sciences for Civil Air Patrol to assume the responsibility of transmitting predictions on the satellite’s movement to hundreds of photographic tracking stations across the country. CAP’s nationwide radio network provided a fast way of passing on the results from the volunteer moon watch observers. Observers also tracked the satellites electronically and with photography. During this period, CAP did much to weave the effective wing and region communications network into a truly national radio net.
The move to the space age also prompted CAP headquarters educational experts to prepare and new aviation textbook called Rockets, Missiles and Aeronautics.
To learn more about Operation Moonwatch, read:
- Operation Moonwatch
- Citizen Science, Old-School Style: The True Tale of Operation Moonwatch
- New Book by UCSB Historian Examines Citizen-Scientists and the Dawn of the Space Age
Additional Reading
- How Technology Helped Us Find a Missing Aircraft
- How Technology Helped Our Air Force Operations Evaluation
- Book Review: Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
- Book Review: From Maine to Mexico: With America’s Private Pilots in the Fight Against Nazi U-Boats
- NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, Am I Crazy?
I mentioned this, but not in as much detail, in my article last year in the CAP National Historical Journal about the formative years of the CAP communications program (it starts on page 9).
http://www.capmembers.com/media/cms/CAP_NHJ_JUL_SEP_2014_DB2C5124DCFB8.pdf