Editing Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (section)

===Project Charles===
With this successful demonstration, [[Louis Ridenour]], chief scientist of the Air Force, wrote a memo stating "It is now apparent that the experimental work necessary to develop, test, and evaluate the systems proposals made by ADSEC will require a substantial amount of laboratory and field effort."<ref name=valley/> Ridenour approached [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] President [[James Killian]] with the aim of beginning a development lab similar to the war-era [[Radiation Laboratory]] that made enormous progress in radar technology. Killian was initially uninterested, desiring to return the school to its peacetime civilian charter. Ridenour eventually convinced Killian the idea was sound by describing the way the lab would lead to the development of a local electronics industry based on the needs of the lab and the students who would leave the lab to start their own companies. Killian agreed to at least consider the issue, and began Project Charles to consider the size and scope of such a lab.<ref name=charles>{{cite web |url= https://www.ll.mit.edu/about/History/projectcharles.html |title= Project Charles |website= Lincoln Laboratory |date= 1995 |url-status= live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160224153432/http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/History/projectcharles.html |archive-date= 2016-02-24 }}</ref>

Project Charles was placed under the direction of [[Francis Wheeler Loomis]] and included 28 scientists, about half of whom were already associated with MIT. Their study ran from February to August 1951, and in their final report they stated that "We endorse the concept of a centralized system as proposed by the Air Defense Systems Engineering Committee, and we agree that the central coordinating apparatus of this system should be a high-speed electronic digital computer."<ref name=charles/> The report went on to describe a new lab that would be used for generic technology development for the Air Force, Army and Navy, and would be known as Project Lincoln.<ref name=charles/>