Alexander Kossiakoff was born on June 26, 1914 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He immigrated to the United States in 1923, and received a BS degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1936 and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1938. Kossiakoff worked for the Allegheny Ballistics Laboratory during World War II, and in 1946 joined the staff of the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). He became Director of APL in 1969 and remained in that role until his retirement in 1980. In this interview, Kossiakoff discusses how he came to study and work at Johns Hopkins and some of the major initiatives at APL during his tenure. In this interview, Kossiakoff discusses how he came to study and work at Johns Hopkins and some of the major initiatives at APL during his tenure. This oral history is a part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Kishin Moorjani was born in India. After working in France for a brief period of time, he became a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and worked there for more than thirty years. In this interview, Moorjani discusses the growth and development of the Applied Physics Laboratory. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Rear Admiral Thomas F. Connolly outlines Project Transit, the first operational navigation satellite system for the use of submarines and surface vessels. He gives credit for this idea to Dr. William Guier and Dr. George Weiffenbach, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL), who realized that after the launch of Russian Sputnik I they could track its position by observing the Sputnik's Doppler shift. Frank McClure, heard of research at APL, visualized that the opposite would then be true: a satellite in orbit could determine a point of reference on earth. Dr. Richard Kershner, former head of the Terrier surface to air missile program at APL, headed the designing and building of the Transit satellite. Dr. Kershner explains why the Doppler technique is highly accurate, and an animated segment simplifies this phenomenon. Using a chart and a mock up, Dr. Kershner describes the construction and sections of Transit I and how it functions, including its solar cells, radiation shield, and telemetering system. Film clips taken at APL show testing of weights on the satellite as well as the shake test, centrifuge test, and heat/cold tests. Additional film clips show the tracking stations, to monitor the satellite's received signals, in Maryland, New Mexico, and Texas, plus two mobile vans stationed in Washington and Newfoundland. Rear Admiral Connolly discusses the future of this project as it adds more satellites and notes that this television program is the first to reveal Project Transit, "the practical navigational system of the future." Host Lynn Poole concludes this twelfth anniversary program by pointing out that it is the oldest program on network television. He reminisces about the four stations on the network (Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York) when the first program premiered on March 9, 1948. Poole also shows clips from "Fear," the oldest program kinescoped (October 3, 1950), the 1952 three-part series on outer space featuring Heinz Haber and Wernher Von Braun, and APL's Dr. Ralph E. Gibson's orbital shots of "The World from 70 Miles Up" (December 17, 1948). Poole quotes Isaiah Bowman, Johns Hopkins' president in 1948: "Television is an exciting new medium by which we can extend the knowledge of a university beyond the confines of the classroom and the campus to those who are curious about the world in which they live."