UNLUCKY FOR SOME

Sputnik 1

The 13^th April seems to be associated with forms of communication and control.

It is interesting that the curiosity of a couple of physicists musing about microwaves and Doppler shifts should have provided tools for the military in reaction to the launch of the first artificial satellite put in orbit.

The TRANSIT satellite system was developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of John Hopkins University for the U.S. Navy. Just days after the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made earth-orbiting satellite on 4^th October 1957. Two physicists at APL, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, found themselves in discussion about the microwave signals that would likely be emanating from the satellite and were able to determine Sputnik's orbit by analyzing the Doppler shift of its radio signals during a single pass. Frank McClure, the chairman of APL's Research Center, suggested that if the satellite's position were known and predictable, the Doppler shift could be used to locate a receiver on Earth.

Development of the TRANSIT system began in 1958, and a prototype satellite, Transit 1A, was launched in September 1959. That satellite failed to reach orbit. A second satellite, Transit 1B, was successfully launched 13^th April 1960, by a Thor-Ablestar rocket. The first successful tests of the system were made in 1960, and the system entered Naval service in 1964.

The TRANSIT system, also known as NAVSAT (for Navy Navigation Satellite System), was the first satellite navigation system to be used operationally. The system was primarily used by the U.S. Navy to provide accurate location information to its Polaris ballistic missile submarines, and it was also used as a navigation system by the Navy's surface ships, as well as for hydrographic and geodetic surveying. Transit provided continuous navigation satellite service from 1964, initially for Polaris submarines and later for civilian use as well.

Westar 1 was America's first domestic and commercially launched geostationary communications satellite, launched by Western Union and NASA on 13^th April 1974. It was built by Hughes for Western Union, using the HS-333 platform of spin-stabilised satellites.

In contrast to ordinary communications, CIA scientists were working on ultra control.

Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects.

Dulles

Headed by chemist Sidney Gottlieb, the MKULTRA project was started on the order of CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles on 13^th April, 1953, largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese and North Korean use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques, and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro.   Inevitably, it was all a colossal though ultra dangerous failure, but a boon to adventure fiction, television and film. The conspiracy theory reigns supreme with Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer. Why do these characters have the same initials?

One could surmise that as a result of all this, we have sat nav systems in our cars so that we can find our way despite our minds being clouded by recreational drugs. How's that for performance?