Creation of a fundamentally new technical capability ideally begins with the recognition of some future need, a careful description of requirements, development, testing, and operational implementation. In contrast to this ideal situation, the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite on 4 October 1957 created an immediate need within the United States to track and maintain a catalog of orbital elements for artificial Earth satellites. This required inventing a solution to a problem that did not even exist prior to 1957. Thus, the initial effort was driven both by external circumstances and by highly...