Book Report The Corona Project by Curtis Peebles :: essays research papers

THE CORONA PROJECT the StatesS FIRST SPY SATELLITESCurtis Peebles is empowering readers with the newly declassified nurture on how the first American beams were set into use for intelligence gathering. Through his book, The corona discharge Project Americas First Spy Satellites, the author gives circumstantial information on the birth of the satellite program by reflexion the aureole vomit from its beginnings in the late 1940s to the declassification of the project and its exhibitions at the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum. The book begins with a timbre into World War II and how the event of Pearl Harbor press the need for aerial reconnaissance. The first chapter gives the different technological challenges that had to be go to the highest degree in order to achieve aerospace superiority. This chapter takes a close look into the learning of the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite and how the two projects are related.The main thrust that the project received was fro m the launch of Sputnik I. With the Soviets now seemingly ahead, the author explains how the project was interpreted away from the Air Force who was failing with the WS-117L and passed the mission onto the CIA for the development of the aura satellites. Peebles explains that the difference between the two programs is that the WS-117L promised almost real-time through radio-transmitted imagination while the Corona missions would drop the film from the nose cone for development. The applied science team faced numerous challenges in the task of getting the satellites into celestial orbit as explained in chapter three. The chapter covers blundering trial after trial and the success finally achieved by Discoverer 13 after delivering its payload (an empty capsule) unmarred to the earths surface. Peebles goes into depth about the first sets of films that were recovered and actual in chapters four through six and then goes into depth about how this new satellite program revolutionize d the capabilities that the Americans now had in aerial reconnaissance. Peebles covers the continuing evolution of the KH or Key Hole cameras used aboard the Corona satellites. The author talks extensively about the Kennedy administration and the Corona project, which widen to the increase of security as the project grew. The bread and butter of the information provided in the text can be found in chapters seven through nine. In these chapters the author provides detailed information about how the satellite preformed operations. Furthermore, Peebles begins sharing new information about recently declassified picture taking of Soviet (and a few other countries) installations.