appointed a special committee to evaluate the project extensively. The SSB concluded that "the first experiment involving 75 pounds of material would not be damaging to astronomy."[1] In November 1960 and again on 3 January 1961, Leo Goldberg, a Harvard University professor of astronomy, wrote to Lloyd V. Berkner, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Space Science Board and father of the IGY. [2] Professor Goldberg challenged the SSB findings, complaining that the board had failed to evaluate the West Ford proposal sufficiently. Goldberg's main concern was not that the SSB had not recommended that West Ford be stopped, but that the SSB should have more carefully evaluated the Air Force proposal. The SSB discussions and decision regarding West Ford were classified. As a result, Goldberg noted that if the astronomy community had the burden of demonstrating why the project should not be carried out, then the data supporting the project, which had previously not been made available, needed to be circulated among concerned astronomers.[3]
Berkner responded to Goldberg by noting that "mere unsubstantiated expressions of fear of the experiment or its successors" would not suffice and asked that the astronomy community substantiate its concern. Subsequently, Berkner did raise the astronomers' concerns in correspondence with other members of the SSB. Further, the SSB continued to recommend that the technical aspects of the project be made public and offered astronomers the opportunity to observe and measure West Ford.[4] The SSB issued a report in August 1961.
Contained in the SSB report was a letter from Jerome B. Weisner, the special assistant to President Kennedy for science and technology, commending the SSB for its study of Project West Ford. Weisner noted that, as a result of the SSB's actions, the government had established a policy regarding the project. The government concluded that the project would be a one-time shot of short-lived duration and that any further launches of similar experiments would wait until the results of the first effort were fully evaluated, including feedback from astronomers worldwide. In August the Kennedy White House issued the following statement:
No further launches of orbiting dipoles will be planned until after the results of the West Ford experiment have been analyzed
and evaluated. The findings and conclusions of foreign and domestic scientists (including the liaison committee of
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