Following the end of World War II, Col.
John H. DeWitt Jr., Director of the Evans Signal Laboratory at
Camp Evans (part of
Fort Monmouth), in
Wall Township, New Jersey, was directed by the Pentagon to determine whether the ionosphere could be penetrated by radar, in order to detect and track enemy ballistic missiles that might enter the ionosphere. He decided to address this charge by attempting to bounce radar waves off the Moon. For this task he assembled a team of engineers that included Chief Scientist
E. King Stodola, Herbert Kauffman, Jacob Mofenson, and Harold Webb. Input from other Camp Evans units was sought on various issues, including most notably the mathematician
Walter McAfee, who made the required mathematical calculations. On the Laboratory site, a large
transmitter,
receiver and
antenna array were constructed for this purpose. Project Diana marked the birth of
radar astronomy later used to map Venus and other nearby planets, and was a necessary precursor to the
US space program. It was the first demonstration that terrestrial radio signals could penetrate the
ionosphere, and previously by the Ocean-Monmouth Amateur Radio Club. The antenna array was removed earlier and is now presumably lost. ==References==