The View from Washington

The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the US Department of Defense was Bill Gordon’s target organization for funding the construction of the telescope. ARPA was particularly interested in the cold war issue of ballistic missile defense (Project Defender) so clearly had an interest in the ionosphere through which ICBMs had to pass. ARPA, as a new agency, also had a significant budget, much larger than the National Science Foundation. After a year’s effort including shifting from a parabolic antenna to a spherical one, ARPA approved funding for the construction of the telescope in September, 1959. The Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (AFCRL), acting for ARPA, subcontracted Cornell to design and build the telescope and the US Army Corps of Engineers to construct the roads, buildings and utilities infrastructure. Within Cornell, the hiring of Thomas Gold as Chair of the Department of Astronomy led to the formation of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, which became the management organization at Cornell for the construction of the telescope. A major issue arose in early 1960; AFCRL made it clear that they intended to control the science program of the future telescope. This led to an extended tussle between AFCRL and Cornell which was finally settled in Cornell’s favor by ARPA and resulted in responsibility for the future operations funding for the Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory being assigned to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).