Project West Ford

[1] To mitigate the potential threat, Walter E. Morrow started Project Needles at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1958.

The goal of the project was to place a ring of 480,000,000[3][4] copper dipole antennas in orbit to facilitate global radio communication.

The dipoles collectively provided passive support to Project West Ford's parabolic dish (located at the Haystack Observatory in the town of Westford) to communicate with distant sites.

Using what he learned on the subject and citing the articles he had read, he successfully allayed the fears of most UN ambassadors from other countries.

He and the articles explained that sunlight pressure would cause the dipoles to only remain in orbit for a short period of approximately three years.