DID THE UNITED STATES ORBIT THE EARTH BEFORE THE SOVIET UNION?

There are several reasons to believe that the United States orbited the Earth before the Soviet Union. First according to a U.S. Senate report Germany was just 6 months away from fielding an ICBM. It says on page 3 of the report, "It appears that if Germany had held out 6 months longer she would have been sending more destructive V-2 bombs to smash New York." So, Germany was very close to getting into outer space. They would have done it in 1945 had the war gone more to their favor. America had captured Germany's best  rocket scientist Werner Von Braun and his team. His research continued in America. It is not inconceivable that America secretly orbited the earth in the 1940's using Von Braun's team. 

In May 1954, nine years after the German surrender, there were reports of there being up to two satellites in a polar orbit. This satellite has been given the moniker "Black Knight" in UFO circles. They believe that it represents E.T. technology. Given the nine year time frame it certainly is reasonable to believe that United States had placed a satellite in orbit. This is especially easy to believe if Germany was only six months away from fielding an ICBM. In fact the mystery is why it took 12 years for America to launch a satellite into orbit, if Germany was only six months away from doing it in May of 1945. 

So the more mundane explanation for the Black Knight is that this was a U.S. Military satellite. The reports of the Black Knight come two months after a March 1954 RAND report calling for a spy satellite. There is reason to believe that the United States used the Black Knight spy satellite information to plan their U-2 and B-57 Canberra overflights of the Soviet Union. When you look at the story of how Richard Bissell claims the CIA found Baikonur Cosmodrome accidently. A U-2 pilot strayed off course and stumbled upon the secret missile site (Bissell, 119). This story is  highly suspect. The planes were rigged to explode, if they went off course. The pilots corrected the autopilot or they died. 

The U-2 technology was considered so important that there were explosives on board to destroy the plane. The fact that the plane strayed off course at all is contradicted by Gary Powers. Powers laid out how the plane flew mainly by autopilot (Powers, 81). The role of the human on board was to make course corrections when the U-2 went off course. You realize that it makes more sense that the USA was mapping all of Russia by satellite then sending U-2's and B-57's to take a closer look, all the while showing the Russians that America could bomb them with impunity at any time. 

There is also reason to believe that the United States orbited a manned vehicle in the 1950's as well. In the March 6th, 2006 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology they quote a test pilot that claims America could have orbited a manned two stage to orbit vehicle in the 1950's. America did not do it because, "the expendable guys got out ahead of us." When you look at the programs being developed in the 1950's it is abundantly clear that the United States was developing the technology to put man into space well before the Soviet Union. I believe that this is what the American Military did in the mid-1950's. 

Sources: 
79TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION} SENATE {SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT NO. 6
PRELIMINARY REPORT ON GERMANY'S WAR POTENTIAL
REPORT FROM THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON WAR MOBILIZATION TO THE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE PURSUANT TO S. RES. 107 (78TH CONGRESS) AND S. RES. 146 (79TH CONGRESS) AUTHORIZING A STUDY OF WAR MOBILIZATION PROBLEMS JULY 10, 1945 

Scott, William B. 'Spaceplane Shelved?'. AVIATION WEEK &SPACE TECHNOLOGY 2006: 48-53. Print.

Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs: Bissell, Richard M., Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo: New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 296 Pp., Publication Date: June 1996.


Powers, Francis Gary, and Curt Gentry. Operation Overflight : The U-2 Spy Pilot Tells His Story for the First Time. [New York]: [Holt, Rinehart and Winston], 1970.

Newspaper Articles:

San Francisco Examiner,

Friday, May 14, 1954, p.14

1 or 2 Artificial Satellites Circling Earth, Says Expert

WASHINGTON, May 13, -

(AP) Donald E. Keyhoe, who writes about such things, said tonight the earth is being orbited by one or two artificial satellites, and Air Force Secretary Talbott, personally has seen a “large silvery, disc shaped object” in the sky.

                But Talbott promptly denied he had ever seen a flying saucer. Not, he added, that he had not had his chances.

                “I have never seen a flying saucer,” said Talbott.

                “I am convinced it is not from lack of opportunity. During the last 15 months my official travels have taken me more than 150,000 miles without encountering one.”

                Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major, wrote the best seller, “Flying Saucers from Outer Space.” In a radio interview with Frank Edwards, he said three “very important developments” concerning unidentified flying objects have been kept from the public.

                These he said, are (1) the artificial satellites he reported, (2) what he said Talbott saw and (3) notice from Canadian Government scientists to all official sky watchers within the paid two weeks “to be especially alert and to report immediately any unidentified aerial objects.”

                United States government scientists at White Sands, N.M. Keyhoe said, are making an intensive effort to locate and chart the course of the satellites in an attempt to determine what they are and where they are from.

                He said Talbott and the crew of his plane sighted a disc shaped object late in March near Fresno, Calif. “After watching the object for several minutes, Secretary Talbott ordered his plane to swing around and approach it,” Keyhoe said. “The object immediately accelerated and disappeared at high speed.”

Notes:
August 1957 Tyuratam is first photographed by a U-2.
04 October 1957 Sputnik is launch from Tyuratam.