The Arecibo Antenna

By Helias Doundoulakis

The Arecibo Radio Telescope (Arecibo) has made amazing findings that would otherwise have remained undiscovered. Yet, Arecibo’s inception is shrouded in mystery: unknown is the true story behind its creation, secret for all these years. Until now.
In his final book, Helias Doundoulakis demystifies Arecibo for the novice, from dreams to drawings. The chronological account of the iconic telescope is made plain for all to see, which spanned six decades. Read how his brother, George Doundoulakis, undertook its conception and fielding, finally winning patent rights for his brother Helias, CIA director William Casey, and Gus Michalos. Follow the inseparable brothers on their journey of courage, inspiration, and brilliance that advanced the design of Arecibo and inspired generations of space scientists for years to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669810414

Helias Doundoulakis

Helias Doundoulakis was only two years old when his family moved from America to the Greek island of Crete. He was twenty-two when the war ended in 1945, during which time he was transformed from resistance fighter to soldier in the American Army. Due in part to his experience with the SOE and fluency in Greek, English and German, he was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (the OSS). This would be his life-changing moment. After the war, he became a civil engineer and inventor, holding the patent for the world’s largest radio telescope, the “Arecibo Antenna.” Aside from the present narrative, he is the author of two books, published in Greek, and three others: I Was Trained To Be A Spy Books I and II, and My Unique Lifetime Association With Patrick Leigh Fermor. The author lives with his wife of sixty years, Rita, in Freeport, New York. They have four children and ten grandchildren. Gabriella Gafni is an acclaimed ghostwriter and owner of GMG Ghostwriting Services. She holds a B.A. in foreign languages and cultures, and a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. She and her family presently reside in North Carolina.

Book preview

"With memoir elements, Helias Doundoulakis’s The Arecibo Antenna is the exciting history of the construction of the world’s most powerful radio telescope. The Arecibo Antenna is a humane account of the people behind an engineering marvel."

— Matt Benzing, Foreword/Clarion Review

Doundoulakis carefully recounts the powerful antenna’s path from its germ of an idea in the mid-20th century to its construction in a remote jungle just outside Arecibo, Puerto Rico. History books are often dry and pedantic, but Doundoulakis delivers an engaging writing style that will please physics enthusiasts and non-scientific readers alike. In sum, this is a well-constructed, accessible read, and a worthy addition to the Arecibo antenna’s legacy.

— BlueInk Review

A comprehensive insider’s history of a cutting-edge radio telescope. The text is admirably descriptive, and its density of information is likely to appeal most to readers who are already familiar with the science of astronomy. A scholarly presentation of an architectural wonder.

— Kirkus Reviews

... the book is neither a witch hunt nor a claim to fame. On the contrary, it is an ode to brotherly love, a heartwarming and authentic text that is exceedingly successful in bringing the telescope back into the limelight and demonstrating the instrumental role played by the author’s brother in the advent of the Arecibo Antenna.

— Mihir Shah, US Review of Books

"Insightful, entertaining, and engaging, The Arecibo Antenna is a must-read nonfiction, memoir-style and historical story. The expertise and passion for which the author writes, as well as the incredible detail that went into the events leading up to and after the development and conception of this piece of technology made this author’s story so captivating to behold."

— Tony Espinoza, Pacific Book Review

The Arecibo Antenna

The Truth Revealed

A Primer for Designing the World’s Greatest Radio

Telescope and a Memoir of William J. Casey,

Constantine Michalos, and George Doundoulakis

001.jpg

Helias Doundoulakis

Copyright © 2022 by Helias Doundoulakis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Overleaf: Original patent drawing of birds-eye view of circular and azimuthal trusses.

Rev. date: 06/23/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

702311

image003.jpg

Original drawings for patent submission, showing

circular feed with movable truss.

image005.jpg

Original drawings for patent submission, showing side view

of circular (stationary) and azimuthal (spinning) trusses.

For Rita,

with whom my conversation will

never cease.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

What does man gain by all his toil?

—Ecclesiastes 1:2–3

For He knows our frame,

and is mindful that we are but dust.

—Psalms 103:14 (NIV)

image006.jpg

George Doundoulakis: Arecibo’s true mastermind, 1946.

Pencil drawing by Helias Doundoulakis

image009.jpg

George Doundoulakis, Long Island, 1962

CONTENTS

Acronyms

Foreword

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1     Formidable Expectations and American George, 1921–1940

Chapter 2     The SOE and the Battle of Crete—1941

Chapter 3     Leigh Fermor and Cretan Blackmail—1942

Chapter 4     SOE to OSS: James Kellis and Jump in the Jeep, 1943

Chapter 5     Captain Kellis and OSS—It’s All Voluntary, 1943

Chapter 6     Major Vassos—Spy School, OSS (1943–44)

Chapter 7     Salonica: Spy versus Spy (1944)

Chapter 8     Volos, 1944

Chapter 9     City College to Brooklyn Poly, 1947–1950s

Chapter 10   Bill Gordon, Keeper of the Flame (1958–61)

Chapter 11   Scattered Electrons in the Ionosphere (Gordon)

Chapter 12   DOD in the Ring with Sputnik, 1957

Chapter 13   General Requirements of a Radio Antenna

Chapter 14   A Sinkhole in Paradise

Chapter 15   A Child’s Tire Swing

Chapter 16   EE Report—August 1959

Chapter 17   The Gordon Knot

Chapter 18   George and General Bronze, 1956–1957

Chapter 19   First Bronze Meeting—1959

Chapter 20   Second Bronze Meeting: of Mice and Men

Chapter 21   George, We Can Do It—Brooklyn, NY, 1958–1959

Chapter 22   George Doundoulakis—An Idea Hatched

Chapter 23   Like Opening a Curtain

Chapter 24   Third Bronze Meeting—In the Ring with RCA!

Chapter 25   Hanging the Feed—1958–1959

Chapter 26   Working at Bronze

Chapter 27   Undetected Radiation from Remote Space—Bill Gordon, 1958

Chapter 28   Manifesting a Vision—Fourth Meeting

Chapter 29   Briefing Conference, Announcement of RFPs, and AFCRL Contract to Cornell: November–December 1959

Chapter 30   Fighting Lions in Cornell’s Coliseum—December 10, 1959

Chapter 31   The Cornell Shuffle—June 1960

Chapter 32   EE Reports and Herald Tribune—January 1960

Chapter 33   Bronze in Hot Water—1960

Chapter 34   William J. Casey and ADI

Chapter 35   Patent Limbo—Saphier Leaves Bronze

Chapter 36   The Unpredictable—August 1960

Chapter 37   The Morris Debacle—October 1960

Chapter 38   Constantine Michalos

Chapter 39   Patent Dreams rekindled

Chapter 40   Rubinstein Intermezzo—1961

Chapter 41   The Gordon-Gold Tango—1959–1966

Chapter 42   Baldwin, Long Island, and Grumman Aerospace—1962

Chapter 43   The Assertion of Patent Rights—1965-1966

Chapter 44   The Rise of Bill Casey—Postretirement

Chapter 45   The Patent Game—1975

Chapter 46   Patent Game’s Stormy Weather

Chapter 47   Cherry on Top of the Cake

Chapter 48   Patent Triumph

Chapter 49   IEEE Letter to the Editor—Non Exitus

Chapter 50   Patrick Leigh Fermor

Chapter 51   George’s Letter to Donald Altschuler—1982

Chapter 52   Freeport, NY, and the Belcher Conundrum

Chapter 53   Honor Fight, VA Hospital, and OSS Society

Chapter 54   Documentary Evidence—Tell the Tale

Chapter 55   The End of an Era—One by One

Epilogue

Afterword

My Life in Pictures

Appendix A   December 1958—EE Report 395

Appendix B   February 1959—Belcher’s EE Appendix to August 1959 EE 435

Appendix C   August 1959—EE Report 435

Appendix D   September 1959—EE Report 446

Appendix E   October 30, 1959—Proposal for Radar Exploration of the Ionosphere

Appendix F   November 6, 1959—Technical Research Group

Appendix G   January 1960—RCA Interim Report

Appendix H   July 1960—Levinthal Reports

Appendix I   August 1960—Space Technology News

Appendix J   NY Herald Tribune—October 25 1959

Appendix K   IEEE Letter to Editor

Appendix L   Archives of Rare and Manuscripts Collection, Kroch Library—Arecibo

Appendix M   George Doundoulakis—King’s Medal and Legion of Merit

Appendix N   George Doundoulakis’s letter to Donald Altschuler

Appendix O   John Vassos

Appendix P   Arecibo’s Life in Pictures—1960

References

ACRONYMS

FOREWORD

T he Arecibo antenna , also known as the Arecibo Observatory , or simply, Arecibo , is recognized formally as the NAIC—the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center. It lies nine miles southwest from the sleepy town of Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Scientists, historians, tourists, and even pagan worshippers from around the world have made their pilgrimage to the Caribbean to gaze upon the iconic radio telescope.

What connection can a boy from Canton, Ohio, and raised in Greece have to this region of the world—and this structure? Furthermore, what connection does CIA boss William J. Casey, Gus Michalos, or my brother George Doundoulakis have to the Arecibo antenna?

Possessing a dramatic feat of engineering, it is the climactic scene between James Bond and rogue MI6 agent Alec Trevelyan in the 1995 movie GoldenEye. As the villain hangs upside down from Bond’s grasp at the tip of the antenna, he plunges 435 feet to his death as Bond lets go.

My association with the Arecibo antenna is not surprising. Throughout my life, I have found myself in many areas of the globe and in the most unlikely of places and under the strangest and even the most dangerous of circumstances. Fortunately, I survived to tell the tale and helped my brother, George Doundoulakis, design and patent Arecibo’s novel suspension system, which was a direct outgrowth of his original idea. William Casey and Gus Michalos were with us from the beginning as well. And the Arecibo antenna has since been parlayed into the greatest radio telescope of all time.

George was not only my next of kin—along with my wife, Rita; four children; and ten grandchildren—but was, and always will be, my hero, confidante, and trusted friend. He was by my side during life’s most pivotal moments. I still mourn his passing. That goes for Bill Casey and Gus Michalos too.

One profoundly significant event was the conception and development of the Arecibo antenna. As long as I have lived, there has not been one single book written specifically on it. The reason for this may not be entirely clear. What is clear, however, is that the Arecibo antenna’s suspension system has always been contested, belying its true claim of authenticity.

In academic reports on the antenna’s construction, a segment of the story is missing. Gone are a set of meetings—which occurred over five days during December 1959—at Cornell University. Given that the Cold War was a unique period in our history—after WWII and the Korean War—these meetings probably registered a mere blip in tabloids where more important stories of global communism were making headlines. In fact, these meetings probably didn’t make it past Cornell’s campus newspaper. Perhaps, their obfuscation was intentional.

These meetings occurred at the height of the Cold War, at a time when there were far more serious matters to consume journalists—small potatoes next to the famous Eisenhower/Khrushchev dinner, Alaska and Hawaii’s entrance as our forty-ninth and fiftieth states, or Hollywood’s release of Walt Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People. The meetings were meant to choose a design for an upcoming radar antenna that Cornell intended to build. Since the missing meetings were meant to assist our military, putting a lid on it would have been prudent to conceal it from the Soviets. Or so one would think.

The key requirements for that antenna were proposed during the last month in 1958. Subsequently, a request for proposal (RFP) was mailed out in 1959. An RFP is a scientific inquiry when technology is new or unknown. Some forty companies or joint ventures jumped into the contest. They competed for a spot in the final round, which occurred during December 1959. At the closing bell, some sixteen antenna companies or joint ventures made it to the end. Those contestants were then invited to Cornell to prove why their RFPs were superior. But where has the selection process for the meetings gone?

As far as that is concerned, I am not the only one in the dark. Alan Love, the antenna guru who reconfigured the antenna feed after Bill Gordon left for Rice University, was baffled, too. In 2004, when asked to write an article on Arecibo’s history for its upcoming fortieth anniversary celebration, he described the antenna’s conception but did not know why or how the RFPs were chosen, even though he had submitted an RFP. Both General Bronze Corporation (represented by my brother George) and Alan Love were perplexed as to why our designs were passed over. Both made it to the Sweet Sixteen round. But as far as the meetings’ paper trail? It has evaporated like water in the desert.

In the Arecibo Observatory 40th Anniversary Celebration, Love described the meeting’s results, but he could not reference any specific decision-making or why.¹ He does, however, go on to state that the antenna was overdesigned much like the Brooklyn Bridge. Nonetheless, the antenna was built, and no one stopped the project. But Love was in the dark on the meeting’s results. He represented Wiley Electronics and, like anyone, wished to know why his RFP was not up to snuff. In regard to his proposal,² Love’s own words describe the mystery:

My association with the Arecibo antenna goes back to the time 45 years ago when the idea of such a large instrument was but a dream in the mind of William E. Gordon, a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Comell [sic] University. He wanted to build a powerful radar, requiring a very large antenna, in order to measure the backscatter from the Earth’s ionosphere. With a diameter of about 1,000 feet, it would transmit (and receive) with a very narrow stationary beam at 430 MHz, pointing straight up through the ionosphere. At that time, I was working at Wiley Electronics Co., in Phoenix, Arizona, where we had successfully developed a line-source feed for a scanning microwave radiometer using a spherical reflector. Along with the owner of the company, Carl Wiley, we described the antenna design at a meeting of people from Associated Universities interested in large scanning antennas for radio astronomy, in New York, on December 12, 1958. Two members of the group were from Comell [sic]: Henry Booker, eminent electromagneticist, and radio astronomer Marshall Cohen. They invited us to give the same presentation to Prof. Gordon and his group at Comell [sic], which we did in the following week. As a result, we were invited to submit a proposal in response to an open hid for a 1,000-foot-aperture spherical reflector that would satisfy Dr. Gordon’s requirements. Our bid was not accepted, but the concept of a spherical – rather than a paraboloidal – reflector was retained.³

References, correspondences, or memoranda of those 1959 RFP meetings have mysteriously disappeared, not only to me, or Love, but to other academicians. This included Cornell’s professor Marshall Cohen. He, too, wished to know more but was stymied by his lack of knowledge. Both Love and Cohen were not alone.

If Love or Cohen were stupefied, what about us? George and I concluded that the details of those December 1959 meetings must have been hijacked. Cohen, like Love, knows little of what transpired at Cornell—and only superficially—during those frigid days in December of ’59. He states:

The dish was over-designed by a large factor for its original task, which was the measurement of ionospheric electron density and temperature. This came about because Gordon used an incorrect assumption for the density fluctuations in the plasma, and this led to the 1000-feet diameter of the dish. People then began thinking about a 1000-foot reflector, and the remarkable power of that swamped the original task when the error was discovered less than a year later.

Apparently, neither the designers nor the funding agency looked back. No discussion on this point is in any of the Cornell reports available to me. The reports published in 1958 and 1959 do not make reference to Bowles’ 1958 paper, although the result was known to the Cornell people and must have been known at ARPA. The entire program remained focused on the 1000-foot dish, with all the enhanced possibilities that entailed. It appears that ARPA, whose interest centered on studying missile wakes, found the 1000-foot dish interesting and worth funding, whereas a 100-foot dish was not interesting.⁴

If correspondences relating to these meetings were unavailable to Alan Love and Marshall Cohen, then I and the lay public have little or no access. Their whereabouts are anyone’s guess.

So, what happened to this treasure trove of secrets? Secrets whose institutional memory have faded before their success could be lauded and to this day lay unearthed? Early on, my hunch was that Cornell paid lip service to keep the results of these meetings quiet and away from the press. After all, they could say that the walls of censorship were in the interest of national security.

Over the years, and after numerous denials, I’ve come to believe that those meetings have been put away permanently: destroyed. But if anyone was given permission to look inside Cornell’s precious vaults, for starters, I would peek into the archives from 1958 to 1966 under the reign of Cornell’s president Dale Corson. Noteworthy is the Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory Box #53-7-3581, or Box 1, Folders 9-10 (Correspondences 1959) in Cornell’s Rare and Manuscript Collections (see Appendix J).⁵ I’m willing to bet that you would have more luck pulling a royal straight flush at Caesars Palace or finding extraterrestrial conversations between Carl Sagan (Cornell’s SETI professor) and Martians.

The chronology of events that inspired this book has been nothing less than a whirlwind. Those events have occupied my subconscious since its inception. Everyday life has been a tangled web of intrigue. Phone calls and emails to Cornell for access to information remain stonewalled. The curt response was, The archives are sealed, and restricted, and Opened only by authorized access or By the discretion of Cornell’s president. I’m sorry to say that that access has always been denied.

The extent of our participation has gone missing. They are hidden from the world that also includes documents and correspondences already mentioned. Missing, most of all, to quote Churchill, was our blood, toil, tears, and sweat. Over the years, credit was given to others. Furthermore, we were summarily cast aside, discounted, and marginalized for attempting to collaborate with Professor Gordon.

Cornell’s pundits have always affirmed that Gordon was the Father of the Arecibo antenna, and rightfully so since the entire scheme from beginning to end was dependent on his relationship with the military. No one refutes that premise. But as far as the suspension system is concerned, we were intentionally left out. George Doundoulakis never received any recognition for his involvement in devising the most practical solution of suspending Arecibo’s antenna feed.

This monumental achievement, referred to as the pride and joy of radio astronomy, and that which the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated as an IEEE Milestone in 2001, occurred without anyone’s knowledge of the facts. To this day, Cornell refuses to acknowledge George’s contribution, which sought his intervention on the project in 1958. In fact, George’s RFP presentation was the climax of the show.

Those who prevented George from receiving due honor must search their own souls. Cornell still will not allow anyone access to its cryptic vaults where detailed information regarding the antenna’s suspension designs is tucked away. This has spawned a myth of other designs outranking ours at the RFP meetings. It is a myth that this book seeks to dispel, for the truth is far less straightforward and much more interesting.

Sensitive Arecibo antenna documents are shielded from the public’s eyes. They are conveniently hidden within Cornell’s vast archives like the Holy Grail. Among these sequestered boxes are letters and documents catalogued for the Arecibo antenna.

The shielded documents include those from George to (1) Professor Gordon while under the Department of Engineering at Cornell, (2) the contracting office of Cornell from 1958 to the present, and (3) technical reports, bids, and Arecibo’s 1/300th model from General Bronze and its subsidiary, GB Electronics (General Bronze). They are imprisoned under lock and key. There they lie, unless, of course, by permission and grace of the office of Cornell’s president and the archives are released. Although any logical individual would view this stance as an example of unnecessary intransigence or an unwillingness to accord two brothers their due, this book will not be a referendum on right or wrong. Rather, it is a declaration of the truth.

The suspension design has always been refuted. Dangling a huge behemoth antenna feed by cables high above a large hole in the ground—in the manner that we did—was unique and, furthermore, was not disclosed—by anyone else in that fashion—during the 1959 meetings. When I think about how our idea was used without credit, I cannot help but hear Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra.

Gordon spearheaded Arecibo’s construction as its supreme arbiter. However, alongside the other troops in the trenches, George and I completed the task laid out without receiving the laurels. Those troops include Gordon Pettengill, Ward Low, Kenneth Bowles, Alan Love, and most of all, a remarkable individual, who like George, a man ahead of his time—Thomas Gold. Their omission would be as much a travesty of justice as our omission and can only be highlighted by their inclusion in this book. Other individuals passed over by Gordon’s selective blindness are now silent since in the very meteoric nature of Gordon’s rise, the seeds of his nemesis were sown. This book highlights the paths taken by Gordon and Cornell. For sure, a dichotomy of paths developed—A for assemblage but F for failure of moral value.

Over the course of seven decades, George and I yearned for self-expression. We were a team that worked diligently and in good faith on the Arecibo antenna. We did not allow unkind words toward Gordon or anyone at Cornell who worked on the project simultaneously. In the same vein, there was no reason for Gordon or Cornell to act in a manner they chose, picking their position carefully and in secret, quite unbefitting for anyone of their rank.

Our meetings and correspondences with Cornell, most notably with Tommy Gold, further exemplified our belief that institutions of higher learning hold dear to the mantra of encouraging others to promote intellectual ideas and visions. The universally held maxim that men of science maintain transparency to promote science—like Einstein—is what I naively believed. Brooklyn Polytechnic’s motto—our alum—will forever ring true: Perstare et Praestare (persevere and excel). Early on, George cared less about hidden agendas or hiding his design from anyone. He thought, like others, that scientists collaborating with men of science were transparent. Despite a professional relationship with Cornell, his association became marred by distrust. Cornell’s opaqueness was anything but transparent.

It is often said that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. Unquestionably, the Arecibo antenna was the single most important event in our lives but has faded into historical obscurity. It did not credit George from receiving due credit for the antenna’s design he so much deserved. Instead, Gordon received the credit in its entirety, which included the suspension system. For George, it was a defeat. For Cornell, a success. Yet it was no clear-cut victory. Gordon, the Father of the Arecibo antenna, was banished to Rice University, ending his Ivy League career as Cornell scientists balked on its promise of finding Soviet warheads, more so since its first antenna feed was a failure.

This book is the never-before-written chronology of the behind-the-scenes development of the Arecibo antenna. This writer fulfills two extremely crucial credentials. Firstly, along with my brother George, I was a speaker and presenter at the RFP meetings in December 1959. Secondly, I am the only one who ever filed a patent for the design eventually implemented for building the Arecibo antenna. As a result, no one can find this historical account anywhere. Cornell’s forceful suppression of documents is substantiated by the correspondences we have in our possession and in my memory. For that reason, it is a book over sixty years in the making.

Countless dog-eared notes, recalling personal meetings with William J. Casey, Gus Michalos, my brother George, and many others became the capstone of this book. Hours upon hours of phone conversations with my indispensable writer-friend and taped conversations of the incidents recounted here were eventually compiled and translated into this writing. The purged and redacted data available to the public are all I possess.

Therefore, as a disclaimer, it has absolved me from writing a totally objective review of its history due to Cornell’s suppression and forbidden access. Cornell has prohibited me from speaking with the few remaining alumni connected to the antenna. Moreover, the possession of only a limited knowledge given to our archivist is used as a road map. Consequently, Cornell’s Engineering Department libraries produced equally limited and filtered reports. Those reports, which were not under lock and key and were given permission to publish, are henceforth referenced and also found at the book’s conclusion with corresponding footnotes.

Nonetheless, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent and other facts now bared, previously refutable information has been made plain to see. What remains irrefutable is that the Arecibo antenna has had a far-reaching scientific impact on the world. And though I had attempted to temper this writing with fewer details, just enough so that the reader could act in any manner they so wished, I switched gears and gave the reader all the necessary details to enhance the aforementioned statement.

With that said, as the unique patent holder for the radio telescope, I can attest that the present-day Arecibo antenna was eventually granted exclusive use to Cornell University. The patent lies in the USPTO. Both were not easy. What is easy is that it was none other than my brother George’s brilliance. ⁶ His avant-garde design cannot be overemphasized. The genius of this true design, George Doundoulakis, must therefore be properly acknowledged and lauded.

This book is not about the telescope itself or a lesson on Aristotelian debate. Rather, it uncovers the contribution of George’s implacable devotion to science and exploration of the mysteries of the universe. This premise had always been front and center for George, but not only for the Arecibo antenna’s cable suspension design but the numerous other inventions he patented and shared with longtime friends, colleagues, and business partners William J. Casey⁷ and Constantine Michalos.

More than a recapitulation of Arecibo’s story, this book is a personal memoir. At times, I chose not the logical sequence of the journey but rather digressed where I knew the reader would benefit with the necessary background in order to avoid spreading the story too thin. Without that, Arecibo’s inception would be incomplete. I avoided burdening the reader with other details and delved deeper only when details were necessary. Transmitting the story to the reader in a cogent manner was always my goal. Hopefully, the book is not too melodramatic.

But that is why the book evolved into a memoir of Casey, Michalos, and my brother. The patent for the Arecibo antenna was used here as a road map that guided our lives and, therefore, became the framework of the book. Our lives went on regardless of Arecibo’s fate. We had our own families, birthdays, Christmases, summers, winters, and moments of joy and personal sadness. Moments of reflection and melancholy surfaced now and then. But in the end, Arecibo was the undercurrent that always ran deep.

In the end, this book is a reflection not only of George’s sublime mastery of physics, da Vinci–like cleverness, and brotherly love. It is also the story of William Casey’s sleuth-like intelligence, his unrestrained Odyssean resourcefulness laced with Celtic charm. Last, but by no means least, Gus Michalos’s dogged determination, Hellenic pride, and constant smile graced our times on countless evenings.

I am grateful to my journalist friend and writer, who, over the years, has been cardinal. By taking the reins at times in my life when my health forbade me from proceeding, showing overall confidence in the writing of this book to its end has proved nothing short of inspirational.

Notwithstanding, I owe much to our archivist at Cornell, without whose assistance in writing this book would have left it seriously incomplete and bereft. Many thanks to Ricardo Correa at the NAIC for graciously allowing the use of photographs of the timeline of Arecibo’s construction and development. Ricardo, muchisimas gracias. I wished I had met you personally when I sojourned to Arecibo with Rita on that rain-soaked day.

Many thanks to Cornell University and its individuals as follows: Eisha Neely of the Division of Rare and Manuscripts Collection; Anita Hall, executive assistant to the Department of Engineering; and Alyssa B. Apsel of Cornell’s Engineering Department for their gracious permission in allowing me to include the partial 1958–1960 Electrical Engineering reports, RCA and Levinthal letters.

The article by Henson in Space Technology News and the similar article in Space Age News, from now-defunct home-spun, space-age newsletters, are implemented only for comment as directed by attorney counsel. It is under the Fair Use Section 107 of the US copyright laws—to promote freedom of expression by permitting unlicensed use of copyright-protected works for comment, criticism, teaching, or research—which always were the goal. My purpose was never commercial. Only the minimal amount of material—fair use—was implemented in order to make a point.

Lastly, many thanks to the paid use of the IEEE editorial as well as for the NY Times article of George and the condensed New York Herald Tribune article by Gordon through Parsi International. Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders, but if there are any omissions, Xlibris and the author will make every effort to insert the appropriate acknowledgment in any subsequent printing or editions.

In closing, the idea for this printing sprung from my brother’s unfailing commitment to make safe the passage of the Arecibo antenna’s patent to me and his friends—William J. Casey and Gus Michalos—and out of the reach of those who would otherwise claim it as their own. This is the story of the Arecibo antenna’s suspension system as it was conceived by four WWII veterans: two unknown Greek American brothers, a well-known Irish American lawyer, and a Greek American lawyer, who invested heart and soul in its undertaking, only to be eclipsed at the final moment.

In George’s, Bill’s, and Gus’s absence, I take up the torch to articulate the truth, which they would have wholeheartedly endorsed. Before I leave this good earth over which this iconic radio telescope presides, I claim my right to speak that truth and reveal its mysteries. The failure to do so would be a negation of my efforts and would operate as an undue restriction on my rights to freedom of speech.

It is the reason for this book’s printing.

Helias Doundoulakis

Freeport, NY

January 1, 2016

PROLOGUE

Time.

What is time?

I had always thought to ask an atheist to define time just before the big bang. Then I would follow up with another thought-provoking question.

Did time exist before the big bang?

If he answered in the affirmative, I would counter.

Please explain how time could exist without a universe … within emptiness?

He remained silent.

Hmmm. An empty universe? Emptiness means just that, I said.

Empty? was the atheist’s response.

Yes. Empty. Nothing, I said.

No sun? Earth? Moon, planets, no stars? he asked.

That’s right. Nothing fixed. And there isn’t anything to fix anything to.

Okay. How about energy? he asked.

Better still. There is no energy. And no flow of energy. There are no velocities because there’s nothing around to measure. No acceleration either. One cannot calculate acceleration since there are no fixed points of reference to measure, I answer. "The reason being is that there is no ... time."

That question begs others.

How, when, who, or what created our universe?

What was the big bang?

Was the big bang a specific time?

If the big bang occurred without a creator, then what existed beforehand?

I would ask those questions and not necessarily in that order.

Scientists have concluded that if an explosion occurred—the big bang—it must have been an explosion of cataclysmic proportions. It has become more of a fact than a theory, that which we have heard so much about lately. Turn on your TV sets, and science news programs are awash with Oscar-winning actors taking turns informing us how the big bang occurred. It is pervasive, found not only on TV but also in our classrooms as well as our newspapers.

Why else would stars and galaxies appear to be fleeing from us at tremendous speeds? Science formed an opinion that those stars and galaxies were the debris and gases from that big bang. They quickly followed up with beginning of time theories, proposing that time had begun the moment that that big explosion occurred, from a small, dense, subatomic particle—which scientists say was trillions of times hotter than our sun. Our learned academicians seemed satisfied.

I am not.

The beginning of our universe is best left for God. For God is just that—the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. He is divinity: omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Our frail humanity cannot comprehend it. We cannot outthink or grasp this concept.

Neither will