Dem
47
GOP
53
Today's reminiscence comes to us from D.M. in Santa Rosa, CA:
My father Jim helped win the Cold War. He was a civilian, working for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the 1970s and 80s. I knew him as an adventurous, but difficult, father/man afflicted by alcoholism, a "bum" hip and finally a severe brain injury. His colleagues knew him as a genius engineer with little patience for bureaucracy or official limitations on what he could learn and/or make.
My image of his work came from visits to his lab on the docks of the Woods Hole, and maybe a sea story or two from those times he went to sea. But what he was really doing was improving navigation on the ocean. When the military inserted an error into the early Global Positioning System so that they would have an advantage over civilian users, he developed a cheap, easy way to correct for the error, much to the consternation of the brass. After my father's death, his boss sent me a very funny recounting of the meeting in Washington, DC, in which my father explained his solution in terms so simple that even the general understood it. There was much huffing and puffing, but the artificial error was useless and was eventually removed.
His boss also told me about Dad's final project, which he credits with helping to win the Cold War. It was a contract with the U.S. Geological Survey in which my dad created, refined and deployed a way to measure variations in the earth's gravity at sea. That project required a team of scientists and engineers to figure it out. And when they did figure it out, it allowed our submarines to have minute gravitational measurements which were then input to our submarine-based nuclear missiles. If you know all the factors at launch, especially gravity, your missile will be much more accurate at the other end.
That accuracy allowed American submarines and missiles to be smaller and less expensive. The Soviets, lacking the science and engineering that the U.S. had, compensated by making larger and more expensive submarines and missiles. Over the 45 years of the Cold War, these incremental scientific and engineering advances and advantages built up. And eventually the Soviet Union could not keep up. So, the Cold War ended, with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As the bunker-buster bombs fell on Iran and all of them went down two small ventilation shafts, we all knew about the pilots and other people who supported the mission. But I also marveled at the engineers and scientists who made that accuracy possible. They work on projects often far-removed from the final result. But it is their contributions that build up over time to make our military the most effective force in history. I was proud to learn of my father's contributions to that effectiveness, so many years ago. I am only sad that I learned it after he died.
Thanks, D.M. (Z)