Project
January 10, 1946 |
![](../photos/d-i-030.jpg") |
 |
Project Diana Site 1946 - Marconi Road, Wall, New Jersey
Diana RADAR is bedspring like device to the right of center Camp Evans Opened the Space Age in January 1946 with Project DianaIn late 1945, in the lull that followed the Japanese surrender, a
number
of scientists at Fort Monmouth's Camp Evans began working on a way
to pierce the earth's ionosphere with radio waves, a feat that had been
tried just before the war without success and which many thought
impossible.
Project Diana, named for the goddess of the moon, was designed to prove
that it could be done. Begun on an almost unofficial level by Evans
radar
scientists awaiting their Army discharge, the project was headed by Lt.
Col. John DeWitt. Operating with only a handful of full-time
researcherd,
the project scientists greatly modified a SCR-271 bedspring radar
antenna,
set it up in the northeast corner of Camp Evans, jacked up the power,
and
aimed it at the rising moon on the morning of January 10, 1946. A
series
of radar signals were broadcast, and in each case, the echo was picked
up in exactly 2.5 seconds, the time it takes light to travel to the
moon
and back.
The importance of Project Diana cannot be overestimated. The
discovery 
that
the ionosphere could be pierced, and that communication was possible
between
earth and the universe beyond, opened the possibility of space
exploration
that previously had been only a dream in adventure films and comic
books.
Just as Hiroshima opened the nuclear age in 1945, Project Diana opened
the space age in January of 1946. It would take another decade before
the
first satellites were launched into space, soon followed by manned
rockets,
but Diana paved the way for all those achievements. It even initiated
the
tradition of naming such projects after ancient Greek and Roman gods,
like
Mercury and Apollo. For Fort Monmouth Project Diana was a pivotal event
that built on World War II expertise, but pointed the way to the
future.
Page 24 &27.
Above summary from "Evaluation of Selected
Cultural
Resources At Fort Monmoth, New Jersey: Context For Cold War Era,
Revision
of Historic Properties Documentation, and Survey of Evan Area and
Sections
of Camp Charles Wood" by Mary Beth Reed and Mark Swanson, New South
Associates
June 1996 U.S.Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District
Accomplished at Camp Evans, the former Marconi Belmar High-powered Wireless Station...
A KEY link in the world's first wireless network...
Where Edwin Armstrong demonstrated his regenerative circuit to David Sarnoff in 1913, proving world-wide wireless reception was possible...
Where radio era greats like Ernst Alexanderson, A. Hoyt Taylor, George Clark, Roy Weagant, Dr. Harold Beverage, Dr. H. O. Peterson and many others worked to improve communications technology...
and the Diana team used equipment supplied by Edwin Armstrong!
Technical Articles by Project Diana Team...
1) Read the January 1946 technical article with photos - 'Radar Echoes From the Moon' By Jack Mofenson
Thanks to Harry Visser, who created the page and gave us permission to use it on our site.
The article is a... "Detailed description of the techniques underlying the first recorded radio transmission through outer space. Calculations show that the maximum range of the Signal Corps radar on lunar target exceeds one million miles".
2) Herbert Kauffman authored -- 'A DX Record: To the Moon and Back, How the Moon-Radar Feat was Accomplished' Thanks to Russ Brahn, AE2X we have a copy here.
3) First Radar Detection of the Moon (482-485), by E. King Stodola from: Some examples of post World War II radar in the USA', Thanks to Cynthia S. Pomerleau
Audio and film resources available...
Audio Radio Broadcast of Interview of Project Diana team, including replication of the moon shot (1946). Thanks to Cynthia S. Pomerleau
Audio October 3-4, 1979 Interview of E. King Stodola, conducted by Cynthia S. Pomerleau
Hear a 1946 WOR radio broadcast of the Diana Moonshot (727KB) Thanks to Cynthia S. Pomerleau
16mm Film "Radar contacts the Moon", on file Fort Monmouth Command Historian Collection
In 1958 NY Times Radio and Television Editor, Jack Gould authored a childrens book in the 'allabout books' seriers printed by Random House. Chapter 17 tells the story of radar and Project Diana. Thanks to David Mofenson who sent us this.
We now have a Project Diana Photo Gallery...also Thanks to David Mofenson.
A story on Diana by author Art Scott
In 1949 the Smithsonian Institution hosted a Project Diana exhibit for ten years, until the satellite era began.
Page updated January 20, 2007. Page created September 2, 1998