Electronics Research Center
Encyclopedia
The Electronics Research Center (ERC), was a NASA
research facility located in Cambridge, Massachusetts
, across the street from MIT at Kendall Square
. The ERC opened in September 1964, taking over the administration of contracts, grants, and other NASA business in New England
from the antecedent North Eastern Operations Office (created in July 1962), and closed in June 1970. The campus is now the site of the United States Department of Transportation
's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
.
era. A second key function was to serve as a graduate and post-graduate training center within the framework of a regional government-industry-university alliance. The ERC was just as important a NASA field center as the Langley Research Center
or the Marshall Space Flight Center
. By fiscal 1968, NASA planned for the ERC to be employing 1,600 professional and technical workers plus another 500 in administrative and support positions (Kelley, n.p.).
, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory, and the electronics industry located along Route 128
. At the time, the technical, industrial, and commercial aspects of microelectronics were ascendant, especially in the Boston
-Cambridge technopolis.
s, instrumentation research, space optics
, power conditioning and distribution, microwave radiation, electronics components, qualifications and standards, and control and information systems. Researchers investigated such areas as microwave and laser communications; the miniaturization and radiation resistance of electronic components; guidance and control systems; photovoltaic energy conversion; information display devices; instrumentation; and computers and data processing.
Although no publication to date has investigated the nature of the research or professional training conducted at the ERC, an internal NASA publication lists a few accomplishments identified with the center in passing:
"One particularly interesting development," the source added, "has been in the area of holography. At the Electronics Research Center, holography has been used for data storage, and has permitted a remarkable degree of data compression in the storing of star patterns" ( Preliminary History , 1:V-11, 1:V-34 & 1:V-35). A book on holography
written by one of the ERC's directors, Dr. Winston Kock, indicates some of the facility's contributions, such as Lowell Rosen's improvement of so-called focused-image holography (Kock, 80-82).
and Webb kept the project out of the budget process until after Ted Kennedy
's successful first election to the Senate. His campaign slogan had promised that he could "do more for Massachusetts." After the President belatedly put the ERC project in the budget process, Congress
rebelled. In addition to Republican
members, Representatives from the Midwest and other regions feeling swindled out of the NASA largesse repeatedly fought efforts to fund the ERC. The issue split the Congress along both party and regional lines. As a result, the ERC had the most deliberated and defended existence and siting of any NASA Center.
Although the only Center ever closed, the ERC actually grew while NASA eliminated major programs and cut staff. Between 1967 and 1970, NASA cut permanent civil service workers at all Centers with one exception, the ERC, whose personnel grew annually. Hardest hit by the cuts had been the Marshall Space Flight Center, whose future was then the subject of agency debate (Levine, 134-135).
NASA Administrator James Webb, more than any other individual, shaped the ERC. Webb saw it as fulfilling a broader mission as part of the nation's Cold War
struggle on the economic and intellectual battleground of the Space Race
. The ERC was an archetype for Webb's regional "university-industry-government complex" analogous to the military-industrial complex
, organized because Webb believed that no single institution had the requisite resources to fight this war. The ERC's training of critically needed engineers and scientists served the same Cold War aim (McDougall, 376 & 381).
The ERC has received hardly any attention as a subject of scholarly or lay studies. No single work, neither book nor article, has been devoted to the ERC itself. The few works that consider the ERC other than in passing focus on the turbulent political circumstances surrounding its creation (Murphy, 225-264; Hechler, 219-231). A thesis written for the MIT Sloan School of Management
is the only work that deals solely with the facility's closing (Rollins).
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
research facility located in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, across the street from MIT at Kendall Square
Kendall Square
Kendall Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the "square" itself at the intersection of Main Street, Broadway, Wadsworth Street, and Third Street...
. The ERC opened in September 1964, taking over the administration of contracts, grants, and other NASA business in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
from the antecedent North Eastern Operations Office (created in July 1962), and closed in June 1970. The campus is now the site of the United States Department of Transportation
United States Department of Transportation
The United States Department of Transportation is a federal Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with transportation. It was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967...
's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
The John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center or simply Volpe Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a center of transportation and logistics expertise, operating under the United States Department of Transportation....
.
Mission
It served to develop the space agency's in-house expertise in electronics during the ApolloProject Apollo
The Apollo program was the spaceflight effort carried out by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration , that landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Apollo began in earnest after President John F...
era. A second key function was to serve as a graduate and post-graduate training center within the framework of a regional government-industry-university alliance. The ERC was just as important a NASA field center as the Langley Research Center
Langley Research Center
Langley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base...
or the Marshall Space Flight Center
Marshall Space Flight Center
The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. The largest center of NASA, MSFC's first mission was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program...
. By fiscal 1968, NASA planned for the ERC to be employing 1,600 professional and technical workers plus another 500 in administrative and support positions (Kelley, n.p.).
Benefits of location
The location of the ERC allowed it to take advantage of the close proximity to MIT and (to a lesser extent) Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory, and the electronics industry located along Route 128
Route 128 (Massachusetts)
Route 128, also known as the Yankee Division Highway , and originally the Circumferential Highway, is a partial beltway around Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The majority of the highway is built to freeway standards, and about 3/5 of it is part of the Interstate Highway System...
. At the time, the technical, industrial, and commercial aspects of microelectronics were ascendant, especially in the Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
-Cambridge technopolis.
Nature of research
Research at the ERC was conducted in ten different laboratories: space guidance, systems, computerComputer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, instrumentation research, space optics
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
, power conditioning and distribution, microwave radiation, electronics components, qualifications and standards, and control and information systems. Researchers investigated such areas as microwave and laser communications; the miniaturization and radiation resistance of electronic components; guidance and control systems; photovoltaic energy conversion; information display devices; instrumentation; and computers and data processing.
Although no publication to date has investigated the nature of the research or professional training conducted at the ERC, an internal NASA publication lists a few accomplishments identified with the center in passing:
- a high-frequency (30 GHzGHZGHZ or GHz may refer to:# Gigahertz .# Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state — a quantum entanglement of three particles.# Galactic Habitable Zone — the region of a galaxy that is favorable to the formation of life....
) oscillator - a miniaturized tunnel-diode transducerTunnel diodeA tunnel diode or Esaki diode is a type of semiconductor diode which is capable of very fast operation, well into the microwave frequency region, by using quantum mechanical effects....
- a transistorTransistorA transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...
more tolerant of space radiationRadiationIn physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
"One particularly interesting development," the source added, "has been in the area of holography. At the Electronics Research Center, holography has been used for data storage, and has permitted a remarkable degree of data compression in the storing of star patterns" ( Preliminary History , 1:V-11, 1:V-34 & 1:V-35). A book on holography
Holography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...
written by one of the ERC's directors, Dr. Winston Kock, indicates some of the facility's contributions, such as Lowell Rosen's improvement of so-called focused-image holography (Kock, 80-82).
Controversy and funding
The Electronics Research Center was at the heart of political controversy from the start. The conception, siting, and shutting down of the ERC is an engaging political tale. President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Webb kept the project out of the budget process until after Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
's successful first election to the Senate. His campaign slogan had promised that he could "do more for Massachusetts." After the President belatedly put the ERC project in the budget process, Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
rebelled. In addition to Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
members, Representatives from the Midwest and other regions feeling swindled out of the NASA largesse repeatedly fought efforts to fund the ERC. The issue split the Congress along both party and regional lines. As a result, the ERC had the most deliberated and defended existence and siting of any NASA Center.
Although the only Center ever closed, the ERC actually grew while NASA eliminated major programs and cut staff. Between 1967 and 1970, NASA cut permanent civil service workers at all Centers with one exception, the ERC, whose personnel grew annually. Hardest hit by the cuts had been the Marshall Space Flight Center, whose future was then the subject of agency debate (Levine, 134-135).
NASA Administrator James Webb, more than any other individual, shaped the ERC. Webb saw it as fulfilling a broader mission as part of the nation's Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
struggle on the economic and intellectual battleground of the Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
. The ERC was an archetype for Webb's regional "university-industry-government complex" analogous to the military-industrial complex
Military-industrial complex
Military–industrial complex , or Military–industrial-congressional complex is a concept commonly used to refer to policy and monetary relationships between legislators, national armed forces, and the industrial sector that supports them...
, organized because Webb believed that no single institution had the requisite resources to fight this war. The ERC's training of critically needed engineers and scientists served the same Cold War aim (McDougall, 376 & 381).
The ERC has received hardly any attention as a subject of scholarly or lay studies. No single work, neither book nor article, has been devoted to the ERC itself. The few works that consider the ERC other than in passing focus on the turbulent political circumstances surrounding its creation (Murphy, 225-264; Hechler, 219-231). A thesis written for the MIT Sloan School of Management
MIT Sloan School of Management
The MIT Sloan School of Management is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
is the only work that deals solely with the facility's closing (Rollins).
External links
- NASA history of the Center
- American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) paper by Andrew Butrica
- NASA Office of Logic Design
- Works related to ERC research areas. PDF. NASA.