The Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship was a 1946 proposal, by Project RAND, for a US satellite program.
The Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship states, "A satellite vehicle with appropriate instrumentation can be expected to be one of the most potent scientific tools of the Twentieth Century. The achievement of a satellite craft would produce repercussions comparable to the explosion of the atomic bomb..."
