Meteor Astronomy.

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Interesting association copy of the First Edition, that of M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory senior staff member Robert P. Rafuse (d. 2006), with his signature. In 1963, six years into Rafuse's 39 year tenure at the M.I.T. lab, it launched the infamous 'Project Needles' (see below); Lovell describes British astronomers' opposition towards it in his autobiography, Astronomer by Chance (1990, pp. 331-34). xv, 463, [1] pp; 187 figs.; 175 tables; 3 plates. Original cloth. Ink stamp of Lincoln Laboratory on top and bottom edge, front flyleaf, ink number written on verso of title page. Else Near Fine, in very good dust jacket (price-clipped, slight chip at head of spine, lightly stained at heel of spine without affecting book). The International Series of Monographs on Physics. 'Although natural (meteors) and artificial (Project Needles, to create an artificial ionosphere) objects served as early passive relay satellite, the era of space communications actually began with the efforts on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to use the Moon as a passive communications satellite. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Lincoln Laboratory carried out Project Needles, formerly known as Project West Ford, on behalf of the Department of Defense. This project involved launching nearly 500 million-hair like copper wires into orbit in 1963, thereby forming a belt of dipole antennas. Lincoln Laboratory then used this artificial ionosphere to send messages between Camp Parks, California, and Westford, Massachusetts. British radio astronomers, including Sir Martin Ryle and Sir Bernard Lovell, as well as optical astronomers, objected fervently to Project Needles, and the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society formally protested to the U.S. President's Science Advisor' ('BEYOND THE IONOSPHERE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS'; article SP-4217 on NASA Web site). '[C]an be recommended as a detailed guide' (Martin Beech, 'W. F. Denning: In Quest of Meteors, a biography', p. 29). In 1962, Rafuse and Paul Penfield (b. 1933) published Varactor Applications (MIT Press), a subject central to Project Needles: 'In electronics, a varicap diode, varactor diode or tuning diode is a type of diode which has a variable capacitance that is a function of the voltage impressed on its terminals. Varactors are commonly used in parametric amplifiers, parametric oscillators and voltage-controlled oscillators as part of phase-locked loops and frequency synthesisers. It is principally used as a voltage-controlled capacitor, and its rectifier function is secondary' (Wikipedia). Rafuse served as chairman of the U. S. National Research Council Committee on Antennas, Satellite Broadcasting, and Emergency Preparedness for the Voice of America, whose report was published in 1988. N° de ref. del artículo 16671

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