USG-UAP-D002, Interagency Correspondence Concerning Space Fragments, 1962-1964
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A file of memoranda, meeting lists and successive drafts from October 1962 to May 1964, kept in the papers of National Security Council staff member Charles E. Johnson under the title “Space Vehicle Fragments – Responsibilities and Procedures.” Led by E. C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, NASA, the Defense Department, State, CIA, the Atomic Energy Commission and others tried to agree who would receive, analyze and dispose of space vehicle fragments.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
A file of memoranda, meeting lists and successive drafts from October 1962 to May 1964, kept in the papers of National Security Council staff member Charles E. Johnson under the title “Space Vehicle Fragments – Responsibilities and Procedures.” Led by E. C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, NASA, the Defense Department, State, CIA, the Atomic Energy Commission and others tried to agree who would receive, analyze and dispose of space vehicle fragments.
Why this is interesting
The drafts pair a short public statement, naming NASA as the agency responsible for fragments and saying foreign ones would be held pending return to the launching country or other disposition, with a confidential guidelines paper under which fragments from foreign launches were first to be made accessible to the Defense Department and other agencies “for intelligence purposes.” A Defense Department revision of March 1, 1963, went further: DoD would be solely responsible for its own fragments, and NASA and other agencies would deliver foreign fragments to DoD on a priority basis for analysis, with the Atomic Energy Commission handling radioactive and nuclear material and the State Department providing policy guidance on final disposition. Johnson’s notes show the friction – he argued in October 1962 that a hostile satellite would not be returned to its point of origin and called a December 1962 dispute between the Defense Department and CIA a “tempest in a tea cup” – and by October 1963 Welsh complained that more than enough time had passed for the agencies to agree. Later items include a December 1963 note on the SA-5 launch, for which NASA had replaced ballast with 13,000 lbs. of sand to reduce returning fragments, and NASA guidance from 1964 on answering press queries; the file contains no settled policy, and its subject is space debris, not unidentified phenomena. The paired record EOP-UAP-D002 is published separately.
Selected passages
- “It stands to reason that if we believe the satellite were hostile that we would not return it to its point of origin.”
- “To insure prompt analysis for intelligence purposes, NASA will give the DOD and other responsible agencies access, as expeditiously as possible, to fragments which are readily identifiable as coming from space vehicles launched from foreign countries.”
- “At this point there is no White House intervention that is either desirable or needed but, on the other hand, there is no guarantee that this could not become a White House issue on strictly jurisdictional grounds.”
Background
This file contains a series of memoranda and correspondence exchanged among senior Executive Branch officials between October 2, 1962, and May 26, 1964, concerning the development of a policy framework and communications strategy for the recovery, handling, analysis, and disposition of materials associated with U.S. and foreign activities in space. Over the course of multiple drafts and revisions spanning nearly two years, the file documents efforts to establish jurisdictional boundaries based on the suspected origin and character of recovered material. In general, the proposed framework contemplated that material associated with a U.S. Department of Defense mission or equipment would be received, analyzed, and disposed of by the Department; that foreign space material would be turned over to the Department of Defense or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), depending on the circumstances; and that the Department of State would coordinate with foreign governments to secure access to such material when recovered abroad. The correspondence also reflects efforts to assign responsibility for hazardous or radioactive materials to the Atomic Energy Commission. Various drafts alternated between assigning responsibility for handling materials whose origin could not be readily determined to the Department of Defense or to NASA. The correspondence also reflects concern with public perception regarding recovery activity and includes draft public statements describing the proposed framework. This public messaging included language designating NASA as the holding authority for foreign materials, while private correspondence described a parallel plan to exploit such materials for technical analysis. Ultimately, although these negotiations did not produce a settled policy framework, the correspondence illustrates interagency deliberations between senior officials in the context of the Space Race and the broader Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.