 The film you see on your screen at this moment was taken from the nose of the United States Air Force Reconnaissance Airplane flying across country, or down on the desk, as the flyers call it. This is one of the methods used to get the facts about the enemy. The Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright Field is now engaged in developing new and more effective ways of recording enemy movement, placement of arms, airplanes, and buildings. This is our story, the business of watching an enemy from the air and taking his picture. On tonight's edition of Technology for Tomorrow. To introduce at this time my first guest on tonight's program is Dan Groves, who is staff at Minnesota Officers Deputy for Technology at Wright Field. Mr. Groves, perhaps we can start it off here tonight by my asking you just how important is reconnaissance to winning a war, sir? Here we're told important, it's the one necessary ingredient. The mission of the Air Reconnaissance Laboratory is somewhat unique. By the way, just through some here at the base, developed such things as rockets, missiles, and so forth, things designed to physically eliminate an enemy. But our job is more basic. We try to provide the foundation that will allow such machines of war to operate efficiently. You see our product points out the what and where in enemy terrain. Now this military watching, whether in wartime or peacetime, is likely to be resented by an enemy. Well, tell your chief, Mr. Groves, I ask you now if you can recall any instance where the enemy may have objected to being watched. Yes, I will certainly do it as a newsman. I'm sure that you recall the now famous incident of a strange airplane called the U-2. It seems that someone on our side was trying to figure out what their side had been with war material and where it was located. Now this is a species of intelligence reconnaissance that usually shuns publicity. But in this case, something went wrong that hit the front pages. The techniques that you devised and the instruments you developed are actually the hardened soul of military intelligence. Could you give me that? Yes, the instruments we devised are quite necessary. Quite necessary. We just have to have them. Can you give me an example so the lack of reconnaissance may have changed the course of the military operation? Well, yes, I can give you a good example. I know that you are familiar with the famous Battle of the Boards took place during World War II. This cost me a thousand American lives and almost resulted in a complete military catastrophe. As you recall, this was a trip he made when the part of the Germans that called us totally unprepared. Now how was this surprise attack achieved and how could it have been prevented? We think the answer is very simple. For three days our reconnaissance aircraft had been grounded by a heavy cloud cover. The reconnaissance aircraft could not fly. Well, if they'd have flown, they would have brought back pretty pictures of pretty clouds. You see, our air power and ground power were completely paralyzed by a lack of information and the Germans simply took full advantage of this fact. Here's the point. One picture from one flying airplane just might have changed the whole course of history during World War II. Then, in the 1940s, we could not get that picture. But today, with devices in our hands, we can keep an eye on the enemy. We can see him in the right view cloud cover and we will find him with only hugs and a hole in the ground. And I mean that readily. Having worked with you for the past week, I know you mean that little animal demonstrate here in a moment. Let's go, it's my understanding that you're the reconnaissance people at right cutters and you just about every branch of science that you can get your hands on. Is that true? Oh yes, that's true. This laboratory will accept, use and steal any tool that modern science can offer in an attempt to get more military information concerning an enemy. We have me and you specialized in invisible light, high power microwaves, huge lenses and barrel cameras, higher techniques, explosives, TV, radio transmission of pictures, the correction of weather data. You know, the necessity for a weather reconnaissance satellite in orbit was recognized by this laboratory some six years ago. It is now the time. Mr. Gray is unfaithful for this brief background sketch that's given us on the business of watching the enemy and if you're permitting ourselves, I'll take leave of you for a moment and I'll introduce my next guest, who will kind of rub it quick. He's a photographic engineer with a deputy photographer at right field. How long has the business of reconnaissance been going on? Well, we can't claim to be the oldest laboratory at right field, but I think that we can show you that the value of reconnaissance was recognized some time ago by the alert intelligence pilot of a rather unique cargo ship. The ship happens to be the Ark and the gentleman's name, Nora. In the Bible, in the 8th chapter of Genesis, we find a passage that reads something like this. Again, he sent forth a barb out of the Ark. The barb returned to him in the evening and low in her mouth was an olive leaf. So Nora knew that the water had abated from the face of the earth. We'll note, though, that this was a over reconnaissance. I do know what to say. Down through history, we've had numerous instances of the value of reconnaissance. We find that Caesar, Napoleon, and Stonewall Jackson, among others, used it. And finally, it even took to the air in World War I. Mr. Gray discussed its value during World War II. And now, today, finally, we're installing reconnaissance devices in supersonic vehicles, actually designing it for space. It's for the moon, Mars, Venus, and the army. Come with this 1961 technology that I'd like to concern myself with at this time. I want to begin now by being specific and telling you just how you go about getting these unusual pictures. Yes, sir, we use devices, or instruments, that we call sensors. These are the eyes of our system, so to speak. And as you know, our bodies function more efficiently when our five sensors operate properly. So it is in a reconnaissance system necessary to use more than one sensor in order to get the complete job done. Now we have talked about cameras. We have the camera sensor, which gives us our sharpest pictures. It's weather-limited, of course. We have our radar device, which Mr. Gray had mentioned. It's this that permits us to see through weather, clouds, and so forth. And we have infrared, which gives us records of objects that radiate heat. We'll hear a little more about that later. Do you have an example of these three different types? Yes, we have very soon here, showing Manhattan Island, those viewed by all three of these sensors. On the left, we see the island, those recorded by a radar device. And the sun here, the same scene, this time with a conventional camera, aerial camera. And on the right, we see Manhattan recorded by infrared. It appears that the center section of the photograph, that's taken by a regular light type photography, is the best. That's the best image, is that true? It is the sharpest of the three, Phil. But as we mentioned earlier, it's necessary to have three different types of sensors in order to get the complete picture. What would determine whether you would use infrared or radar? Probably the type of target that we're going after, the type of weather conditions, whether it's day or night, or things of this sort. But generally we try to have as many sensors aboard as physically possible. Carl, you referenced the terms here that I believe need more explanation. And I now give that mention to Mr. Thomas Wilk. Mr. Wilk's presentation starts with further kind of some studies for technology. Mr. Wilk has referred, we call a reference such things or animals as IR or inter-world. All of you kind of give us an explanation of what is the nature of these IRs. Well, to begin with, we know that all objects above absolute zero radiate heat each at its own weight. And infrared device can detect the difference in these radiations and record them on film in picture form. Here is one such picture taken at night over one of the runways here at Wright Hill. Keep in mind that the hotter the object, the brighter it will appear. We see several. This is the X-Painter on the runway. And then right in front of that real bright airplane, we see a little bright spot. This is actually the tub which produced airplanes from the hangar where the environment was warmer. In this next slide, we have a group of five people. The center one being a woman. Because the nylon that she is wearing is retaining her body's heat, her loaves appear brighter than the other people in the picture. This is the type of sensor that looks down to the ground to locate objects. Another looks up or out. An important feature used of infrared will be airborne early warning of ICBM. Task conducted at Cape Canaveral have indicated that we can detect incoming ICBMs from great distances. In this next slide, we have synthesized a future early warning satellite. It is a system of detectors orbiting the Earth for the purpose of detecting, launching, or presence of incoming missiles. In space, the attenuation of infrared energy is negligible due to the lack of atmosphere. We therefore have a potential capability of detecting incoming ICBMs seconds after they are launched. This information can then be telemeted back to our early warning network and logical quantum measures initiated. If you, uh, close mentioned a moment ago that you'd have more to say about the U-2. You forgive my two occupations of cell planes, so you do have more to say about the U-2. Yes, sir, not only to say, sir, but something to look at. Not many people have seen this particular plane in flight. Here's a short piece of film showing its extraordinarily steep climbing angle. We are using it experimentally at the present time to extend the range of our infrared sensors. On top of this film, or on top of the Earth's plane, we will notice in a minute some of our IR detection equipment. We're about to see that now in a tight shot. This aircraft now will bank right and come down below the camera. And I'll ask our audience to make the unusual bubble on top of the, uh, just behind the top today. This is where the enemy weapon is in this plane. Yes, sir. Now, this is an IR device. This is an IR device. It is exactly the same type of device that I have here at my side. This here is our IR detection equipment. It's exactly the same type of equipment we have installed on top of our airplane. Now, this will record on film, if I can use that term, anything that comes within a scope, is that right? This is essentially correct. What our IR detector picks up is displayed on a cathode ray tube. And then we actually film what we see on this tube. I couldn't help noticing this work that the device was located on top of the U-2, and I was under the impression that the U-2 took pictures of the ground. Well, in this particular instance, well, this equipment was installed on the top of the airplane, mainly for the purpose of detecting missiles and ICBMs. And if you wanted to take the recording of the ground, we could essentially just put it on the bottom of the airplane. I understand. Now, you took the records tonight way back to Congress, so this is in itself a surprising thing to me. I think a way back is a scope with a book on it. So I wasn't aware that you could take a picture with it. Well, there I have here a picture of modern pictorial radar. This approaches the quality of low resolution photography. This record was made through clouds from a high-performance half-line aircraft. A trained operator can identify specific aircraft types located on the ramp. The range of this picture is dependent upon the altitude of the aircraft. That dark street down in the middle of the picture happens to be the flight path of the airplane. What type of aircraft deployed the radar photography device? Well, in this next slide, we have a D-58. And you will notice underneath the airplane is a long pod, 64 in length. This pod contains 250 probe antennas that look out laterally to either side of the aircraft. Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Now, if I may now, I will turn to Colonel Quick. How does the camera measure up to the other methods of recording Mr. Wolf with this weapon? Quite well. Well, the camera actually is in advance of these other two sensors as far as recording picture detail. And it's detail that gives us our intelligence value. We estimate this detail, or resolution, in what we call lines per millimeter. Meaning the number of lines that a photograph can separate within the one millimeter, or about a 24th of an inch. For example, here is an aerial picture of New York City. Made with a 24-inch, standard-aid aerial camera from an altitude of about 50,000 feet. In World War II, it considered this excellent quality. It resolves approximately 25 lines per millimeter. Colonel, what are some of the problems involved in taking pictures from the air? We have a number of problems. Actually, one of the most difficult are the vibrations. The small high-frequency vibrations that are caused induced by the moving parts of an actual camera. We have Mr. Wayne Siegel standing by to operate an aerial camera for us to show you what I mean. Mr. Siegel, if you could move, sir. Every time these parts move, though, vibrations are induced. And if these vibrations cause the image in the focal plane to shift by a little of the thousands of an inch, we'd literally have it on our resolution. Now, if you submit me to digress, sir, what bothers me is how you can get a clear picture of the ground from an airplane that's moving maybe 600 miles an hour. Why doesn't the picture blur? The answer to that is what we call image motion compensation. So, notice in the magazine section the two roles of film. One is the take-up, the other the surprise pull. As the aircraft moves across the ground, film is moved across the focal plane. Its velocity is synchronized to that of the ground speed of the aircraft. This essentially minimizes or reduces the relative motion between the film and the ground and keeps our picture sharp. So, you solved that problem, and how did you solve the other various moving parts of the camera that are distributed? We found an interesting fact, and that is that the shutter of the camera is one of the main culprits that still work quality. So, to overcome this, we extracted the shutter from the camera and placed it down next to the window in the aircraft and connected the shutter back to the lens with a light-type flexible bow as shown here. This enabled us to exceed 100 miles per moment in our resolution, which by the way is a must if we were to get sharp pictures from great distance. It's probably the shutter could affect movement in that large piece of equipment that it does. It does, and well, well, well. Can you give us an example of some of the photographs taken by this new modified camera? We have an aerial picture of Bolton made with this external shutter camera. It might appear just as an ordinary picture at first glance, but our interpreter was a Baton boy, and his attention was directed to the aerial within the circle near the bottom of the picture. A small spectre appeared to be a parked car. So, he had this section of the negative in large 30-diameters, and sure enough, it was a parked car. We later determined it was a 57-4, to be exact. Now, this is not another photograph. This is a blow-up of the spectre. This is a 30-times blow-up of the small section within that circle. Now, see the car and I'm trying to find the occupants. We found two of them. One turned out to be a fisherman. His fishing pole was extended over the water, as you can see, and he was a partner, and he appears to be boating his hook. Now, we're resolving here from an altitude of about three miles of fishing pole, one-half-inch in diameter. It's pretty good, well enough, but it's not good enough. And we're striving for the day when we hope we can show you the hook in the room. And when you do, I hope you'll call me with a scoop. Colonel, I'm led to conclude that there's no such thing as privacy anymore. That means, in my opinion, we do... That's right. There's no other way, Colonel, that we can get high-resolution, outside of the methods you just lesson. There's one other way that we might call a group force, in this case sheer size or focal length. In the earliest slide, we talked about high-resolution with focal length of 24 inches. And here's a picture that was made of New York City, with a camera whose focal length was some 20 feet in length. This picture, by the way, was made from a distance of 65 miles southeast of New York. I'll call your attention in particular to the objects along the Jersey shoreline and to this building in particular. Recall that previously we needed pretty diameter enlargement to pick up detail. With the focal length built in and with the very slight magnification, we could read on the building in question the words, The letters actually measure here 6 feet in height, and they're doing this from 65 miles away. Now, the focal length of the camera that took for the lens, it took that 20 feet in length. This is essentially a massive lens, right? This is quite a large camera. I'm sorry, we can't show you the actual mechanism itself. I do have, however, a big camera of an earlier image, this one 19-ton. As you can see, it took 15 minutes on a board just to change the focus. We call this one the Bessemer Browning. You, not only in the missile age, you're forced to reduce the size, mass, weight of the equipment. You have to have more capacity. Yes, we would like to get the biggest camera that we can inside of the vehicle. We'd like to put more power in that. We could, but there just isn't enough room. But we have to specialize in high precision optics and very good quality for our mechanism, but with limited size. Colin, getting more down to practice the examples of photographs taken during the war time, my question of you is, what are you looking for? What are you trying to find in a photograph? We try to find a great variety of things, both at range and size, actually, from the smallest, such as rivets on a tank, to entire airfields. We look for just about everything within those two limits. You have brought with you some examples of the war time photography in a service because if I ask you to, of course, as you're going to be very known, that you've seen a number of missions in Korea and elsewhere, taking pictures yourself in battle, I'm not so sure about it, but I kind of hope to have a part of that to make the weapon for what kind of photography continues. We have several here. We were taken in Germany during the war. The first one is an aerial view with after-photography annotations. And the next slide will show how an aerial photo that has been looked at carefully or by a trained interpreter would look after he has placed the matters of intelligence interest down. For example, we see here a number of aircrafts who's not only identified but counted. Could you point out some of the other details that the photographer was able to write? There are a number of other interesting features here. There are gun emplacements. We can notice gun emplacements. There are actual storage areas. There are gunways. The gunways, of course, are always of interest. The length of the gunways would indicate, for example, types of aircraft that would be used and so forth. So there's a wide variety of important intelligence information that can be gained from a single aerial photograph. You have an example of a photograph taken at night where it's used for red photography. This is a night photograph. This happens to be one of my favorite subjects, by the way, but this is a night picture made over the Irrawaddy River in northern Burma during the war with Japan. Now, I'd like to point out that photography or reconnaissance to be complete has got to be continuous. This means that we've got to fly around the clock and be able to detect things at war at night as well as in the daytime. The aerial daytime pictures showed the bridge had been bombed in this case. We can see that there is no bridge. We can see the clock marks representing the bomb craters. But intelligence had found that the Japanese were moving supplies and men across the river. How were they doing it? This was the question. To find out, we had to send a special aircraft at night, and this is one of the pictures that it took. And we found out the methods that were being used. There was a rope bridge that was being used to over which the Japanese were sending their troops. And there were a series of barges or row boats that looked like in this case, which actually floated the trucks and material across the river. Now, what happened during the day? We concealed these things during the daytime hours so that our eyes in the daytime could not reveal what was actually going on. Only at night, when they actually came out from undercover and went into our operations, did we actually find out what actually took place and how they were forming the river. So, black pop marks, six of the pop marks near the border, right? Sure. These are the craters that were left by the bombardment aircraft as they bombed and knocked out the main bridge. And it was these that actually we thought from these that we had done the job, but it was not complete. This was a sneaky enemy, then. It was indeed was, well. If we could have the next slide. This also was an actual war-time fill-up up, is it, Nelson? Yes, this was made during the Korean focus and is a dicing shot, a low-altitude photo, a blank picture in which we can practice to look into the front doors of these buildings that we find here. This gives you an idea of what a low-altitude dicing type picture can reveal to us. Next slide, please. Here's an interesting story. This was the Incheon in Beijing. The landing forces had a very important problem to face, and that was the height of the seawall for various times of the day. You see, the tide varies in height, and the landing forces needed to know at precisely the hour of the landing how high the wall would be if they had the scale. We took an aircraft with a dicing camera in it, and were able to evaluate and determine the height of this wall for the exact hour of the invasion within a matter of a few inches. This is the two-page spread that appeared in Life magazine showing the invasion at that actual time. Next slide, please. Here's another low-altitude photograph. The aircraft in front that we're looking at there is dropping its shells, its armament on an instant-looking hut. But inside that hut there was a tank. The hut was just below there, and we found that an enemy tank had been concealed. We found this by air photography, and we were able to actually send out a tanking aircraft to destroy in this case the tank. You said this was clear? This is also clear, yes, sir. We did quite a bit of picture taking during the period. Quite a lot of picture taking was in order in this practice, but our operation was safe. Well, I'm thankful to you for running account of some of the more important photographs taking during actual war time. Mr. Golds, if I may, sir, I'd like to return to you and ask you a question that perhaps has occurred to the viewer. I don't want to synchronize the program but bring you two into them as well. There are some among us who feel that us, you and I, as reconnaissance, is not a... but we shouldn't be. How do you respond to this type of philosophy? Well, everyone performs reconnaissance for every chance he gets. It's just one of the rules of the game. Now, when it comes to playing this game, I think our moral standards in this country are as high as anybody's. I'm confident that every American would be willing to die if it's necessary for his country, but there might be more wisdom in making the other fellow die for his country. What we see is a two-beded sword. It is not only of great value for fighting and winning wars as we've seen tonight, but we think it can be a powerful weapon in preventing other wars. Just think how wonderful it would be if all the big countries of this world could be made to see the wisdom of a round-the-clock photography so that everyone knew about the honorable intentions of his neighbors. I'm sure that we would all sleep better every night. Mr. Golds, my thanks to you and my gratitude this extended equally to Mr. Wolfson kind of quick and all the people who worked behind the scenes with C.R.O.D. who helped us quite a bit at the base and behind us are all these people who are kind to us. I'm thankful that you've supported us and informed us how this is going tonight and behind us now, Jeff, I give you good night. When you're American, you have become extremely complacent about our capability for fighting and winning wars. And one never enters our hubs. Other people, however, can always examine and consider, perhaps even worry. For example, a very wise Englishman said to Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, our hope that in war your country will never be defeated. I'm sure we all applaud that generous wish and hope that it will hold true in these dangerous times. And we believe most honestly that our presence is insurance against such defeat, safety against enemy surprise attached. The prevention of any of this overhearing within our borders, the approaching scream of an incoming death-laden enemy missile.