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>> DARPA. Shaping the future, creating opportunities
for new capabilities -- strategically, tactically.
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DARPA takes on the most difficult technical challenges
for the Department of Defense and finds solutions.
Its role was set at inception.
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1957. We are ensnared in an arms race with the Soviet Union.
Then in October, the Soviets launched Sputnik, an implicit threat that shocked the nation.
>> Today a new moon is in the sky,
a 23-inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket.
>> Our satellite program has never been conducted as a race with other nations.
>> Eisenhower instructs his new Secretary of Defense, Neil McElroy,
to coordinate our national space program.
The Soviets had surprised us.
>> We thought of them as being dangerous, and to have them show up ahead of us in this new,
seemingly terribly important technology was a shock.
>> ARPA was formed in February 1958 as a special agency
in the Pentagon reporting directly to Defense Secretary McElroy.
Its charter: maintain U.S. technological superiority over potential adversaries.
>> And the way he put it was, he said, I want ARPA to do those things
which otherwise fall between the stools.
>> ARPA's initial focus was three presidential initiatives: get us into space,
protect us from Soviet missile attacks, and detect Soviet nuclear tests.
Under its first director, Roy Johnson, ARPA succeeded.
ARPA used Explorer 4 and its Argus satellite to see if it was possible
to detect nuclear explosions in space.
>> Explorer 4 was launched from Cape Canaveral and went into orbit successfully.
>> This is a rocket engine --
>> ARPA was developing a new class of rocket boosters strong enough to carry men to the moon.
Once the space program was on track, it was transitioned out of ARPA.
Part of it went to the newly formed civilian agency, NASA.
The rest moved to NRO.
With the transition of the space programs, ARPA was shaken.
Personnel and funding had been moved out.
It was a blow to the morale of the fledgling agency.
Major General Austin Betts became ARPA's second director in 1959.
>> Well, I think that my primary assignment from Herb York were to calm things down,
keep the work going, and from time to time he would assign some new tasks, which he did.
>> General Betts bridged the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.
Nuclear warfare was a major national security concern.
ARPA's new director, Dr. Jack Ruina, inherited the beginnings of Project DEFENDER and Vela.
Vela detected Soviet nuclear tests; DEFENDER was our missile defense.
>> We were worried about the Russians' testing in outer space,
in the atmosphere, and underground.
There was Surface Sierra, Uniform, and Hotel was the outer space.
But also if they test underground, the only way to test the, detect the testing underground is
by looking at the seismic signal that emanated from a nuclear explosion.
>> ARPA was a little over three years old.
DEFENDER and Vela were high-profile programs.
Beneath those two umbrellas, new, rewarding science was emerging:
geology, seismology, and radio astronomy.
ARPA was also opening the door to the information age.
Computers were doing what they did best: crunch numbers.
ARPA was curious: could they be used to improve field operations
and secure command and control communications?
Dr. Ruina hired JCR Licklider to head up the new Information Processing Techniques Office, IPTO.
>> The computer technology has been moving in a way
that nothing else people have ever known has moved.
>> ARPA was putting the information pieces together, facing the nuclear threat,
and collecting the information critical to our national defense.
>> The partial nuclear test ban was, of course,
the first real success leading to an end of the Cold War.
It was, it was only a step, but it was the first step.
And I think it was important, and I think ARPA's role was important in having prepared
for the services to say, yes, we can assure the safety of the country
in a nuclear test ban environment.
>> When Dr. Charles Herzfeld became director in 1965,
computer networking had been gaining momentum.
>> I had the pleasure of signing the first few ARPA orders for the ARPANET.
And we sort of knew what we were doing; it was a gamble, but it was an important one.
>> The challenge was linking several computers together,
forming a network using the first router, the IMP.
>> From the ARPANET came the Internet, from the Internet came the Web -- changed the world.
When we worked on the ARPANET, we did so in part because we knew it would help --
in the long run -- the military command-control systems.
But we also did it because -- in part -- it helped scientists do science better.
And so it came to be.
>> In 1965, Dr. John Foster became the director of defense research
and engineering -- the direct supervisor of ARPA.
>> I asked the secretary, if I were to be the replacement for Harold Brown,
what would he like me to do about the war that was going on in Vietnam?
Changing the programs in ARPA was pretty straightforward.
>> Under Foster's direction, Dr. Eberhart Rechtin refocused ARPA
to address the challenges of the war.
>> I said, we're in the middle of a war; we're supposed to be doing things to help.
>> Rechtin's assistant, Dr. Steve Lukasik, became director in 1971.
ARPA began working with the field commanders
to better understand the operational challenges they faced.
>> The organization has got to have a set of understandings with the larger world.
You talk to these people not because you're broadcasting solutions
to them; they're feeding problems to you.
>> In a little over 10 years, ARPA opened the door to space exploration,
established reliable nuclear detection, laid the groundwork for a missile defense system,
advanced scientific disciplines, aided our troops in Vietnam, and invented the ARPANET.
ARPA moved from preventing technological surprise
to creating surprise for our adversaries.
In part two, we'll see how DARPA adjusts to the intensification
of the Cold War and the consequences.
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