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A Moment in Time: 1960—The Winter Study September 2008
The year was 1960. It was the dawn of a fresh, new decade and a new way of looking at the world. For the first time ever, millions looked on as presidential candidates battled each other on national television. The way we communicate and forecast weather forever changed with the launch of two small satellites, Echo and Tiros I. And the heralding of a future information revolution sounded out with the publication of Man-Computer Symbiosis by J.C.R. Licklieder. In 1960, MITRE was in the midst of a revolution of its own called electronic command and control. In 1953, MITRE's forebears at MIT had pioneered the first-ever electronic command and control center in Room 222 of the Barta Building in Cambridge, Mass. By 1960, MITRE was about to institutionalize electronic command and control throughout the United States Air Force. It all began on paper during six months of meetings that came to be known as the Winter Study. Pioneers of Command & Control SAGE—the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment—with its plotting scopes, workstations, radar data processing, and computer control had given the military a new way of preparing for and conducting operations. In October of 1959, Lt. General Bernard Schriever met with MITRE, Lincoln Laboratory, and Air Force staff to discuss integrating electronic command and control throughout the Air Force and "hardening" those systems against enemy attack. MITRE was asked to manage the study and to assume the role of chief engineer on any resulting projects. Also in October, the Air Force created the Air Force Command and Control Development Division. The very next month, the Air Force high command called a halt to the development of all of its electronic systems until the MITRE-led study was complete. For the next six months, until June of 1960, 115 people from industry, academia, and government met under the direction of AT&T's Gordon Thayer. The Winter Study reviewed all of the then-existing command and control systems, known as "L-Systems." The results of that study were broad, sweeping, and a revolution in military affairs. One program, called BUIC—for Back-up Interceptor Control—would become a less vulnerable alternative to SAGE. It was followed by BMEWS, for Ballistic Missile Early Warning System; and then Spacetrac for cataloging objects in space. Recommended as well was the creation of a hardened command and control center 2,000 feet within the granite of Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain. Called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, it guarded, beginning in 1966, all of the airspace above the United States and Canada for the next three decades. Another revolutionary project from the Winter Study, an idea known as the Olympus concept, called for a completely airborne command and control center that could mirror the Air Force's ground-based systems. Olympus became the Strategic Air Command's famous Looking Glass command post. For 29 years, beginning in February 1961, Looking Glass soared non-stop, 24-hours a day, as the country's flying command center. Reorganizing Integration: 1960 The process of the Winter Study also served to focus MITRE's vision of the future of engineering. MITRE showed itself to be flexible, responsive, and adaptive to change. MITRE's work in radar, digital computing, and communications networking was more closely formalized with systems engineering. MITRE reorganized itself from technical groups into four systems groups, and then integrated those systems groups together. The results of the Winter Study spilled into the civilian world as well. Electronic command and control quickly led the young company to electronic air traffic control—and a bond with the Federal Aviation Administration that has lasted nearly 50 years and counting. The Winter Study established precedents of change and adaptation that still drive the company's thinking and the way it does business. And a half-century later both the Air Force and the FAA still look to the same trusted friend for insights and guidance into what's new and what's next. —by Tom Green Editor’s note: On July 21, 1958, The MITRE Corporation was founded. As we celebrate our 50th anniversary, we look back on that moment in time. This story can also be viewed as a video. Related Information Articles and News
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