[privong]

> Radio astronomy was an accidental offshoot of this project: they noticed the reflected microwave signals from space came back with some extra noise...

Perhaps you're conflating Project Echo with Karl Janksy's Bell Labs research in the 1930s? Radio astronomy's "birth" is probably best set to when Jansky detected radio emission from the Milky Way in 1932-1933 while trying to identify the source of noise in wireless telephone transmissions.

Grote Reber picked up radio astronomy in the pre-war (WWII) years and then the advancement of RF technology for radar during WWII led to some further discoveries (e.g., radio emission from the Sun). After WWII, radio astronomy initially had good participation from radar folks.

Many national radio observatories were already in existence before Project Echo. Jodrell Bank Observatory (UK) was established in 1945. ASTRON (Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy) was founded in 1949. The US's Green Bank Observatory was created in 1956 and this led to the creation of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in 1959. Parkes, in Australia, was completed by 1961.

Radio astronomy was well under way before Project Echo.