Supporting New Horizons : The Evolution of the Military Satellite Command and Control Systems, 1944-1969

Like every large technological system, military or civilian, the Air Force Satellite Control Facility evolved because of the interaction of human beings with technology. The Air Force Satellite Control Facility did not simply turn out the way it did because the technology evolved autonomously. The United States Air Force purposefully built the Air Force Satellite Control Facility to support the National Reconnaissance Program. In his large body of writing, historian Thomas Parke Hughes has shown that large technological systems evolve as social constructions according to a pattern of systems development. The Air Force Satellite Control Facility grew in the early 1960's into a true satellite command and control network following this Hughesian pattern of development. The air force system of satellite command and control, therefore, provides an example of how a large technological system, designed not for the marketplace but for government needs, still evolved as a socially constructed technology. The Air Force Satellite Control Facility illustrates a pattern of systems development that applies whether the system is a large private venture like an electrical power network or an important government project like a satellite command and control system. In the case of the Air Force Satellite Control Facility, however, there was an extraordinary player in the background pulling strings. The Air Force Satellite Control Facility had a unique relationship with the National Reconnaissance Office, a secret organization that the government officially concealed into the 1990's. In the special relationship between the National Reconnaissance Office and the Air Force Satellite Control Facility, one sees a social construction of technology at the behest of a particular interest group most clearly revealed.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH is the author of 'Supporting New Horizons : The Evolution of the Military Satellite Command and Control Systems, 1944-1969', published 2002 under ISBN 9781423510062 and ISBN 1423510062.