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JFK's legacy: Setting America on course for the moon

11/21/2013 12:33 PM 

By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

In May 1961, John F. Kennedy, a charismatic young president with bold dreams for a re-energized America, stood in the eye of a perfect geopolitical storm.

A few weeks earlier, on April 12, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to fly in space, a feat that generated world-wide admiration and, in some quarters, near hysterical fear that the United States had been surpassed by its Cold War rival.

The Soviet Union had already shocked the West with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in 1957. Using the world's most powerful rockets for their space spectaculars, the Russian launches clearly demonstrated an alarming ability to impose the Soviet Union's nuclear will around the world.

President John F. Kennedy addresses a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, saying "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth." (Credit: NASA)

Not to mention the propaganda value of besting the West with feats of high technology that might convince other nations that the socialist state, with its values and goals, was superior to the "decadent" western democracies.

As related by space analyst John Logsdon in his 2010 book "John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon," Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev told Gagarin in a congratulatory phone call "let the capitalist countries catch up with our country!"

As Logsdon outlines in fascinating detail, Kennedy met with his top advisors two days after Gagarin's flight to discuss the goals of America's budding space program and what steps might be taken to counter the perceived threat posed by the Soviets.

It was a decidedly pragmatic approach by a president who had expressed little previous interest in space beyond concern about the so-called "missile gap," the disparity between large Russian boosters and lower-power American rockets.

But with the advent of television and mass communications, the missile gap and subsequent space race played out in the glare of TV lights and Kennedy was quick to seize the stage.

"Kennedy fully and completely understood that whether he paid any attention to it or not, the rest of the world was paying attention to it," former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said in an interview. "And if the rest of the world was paying attention to it, then he was, by God, not going to pull an Eisenhower, he was going to win."

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, created by the Eisenhower administration in the wake of Sputnik, already was mapping out a variety of long-range strategies, including possible moon missions. There was no obvious support for any sort of emergency effort and Kennedy had not given the issue any serious thought.

But Gagarin's history-making flight changed all that. Lawmakers and the media, reflecting public opinion -- or, perhaps, fueling it -- demanded quick action to counter the perception, at least, that the United States was in second place on the high frontier.

During the April 14 meeting with senior advisors, Logsdon said Kennedy listened to a variety of proposed initiatives, saying at the end "when we know more, I can decide whether it is worth it or not. If somebody can just tell me how to catch up. Let's find somebody -- anybody."

Three days later, the perfect storm intensified when 1,400 Cuban exiles launched what became known as the Bay of Pigs invasion on the southern coast of Cuba. President Eisenhower approved the program and Kennedy signed off on the invasion plan shortly after his inauguration.

But a bombing raid to disable the Cuban air force failed, and Fidel Castro's army, with devastating air support, easily overwhelmed the CIA-trained exiles in a disaster for them and for American foreign policy, another black eye on the world stage.

President Kennedy, his wife and advisors watch the launch of Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space on May 5, 1961. (Credit: Cecil Stoughton/White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

 

On April 20, with the Bay of Pigs fiasco still front page news, Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon Johnson, chairman of the National Space Council, listing five major questions and ending with a directive to report back "at the earliest possible moment."

The memo asked "do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space, or by a trip around the moon, or by a rocket to land on the moon, or by a rocket to go to the moon and back with a man. Is there any other space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win?"

The memo asked how much such a program might cost and wondered "are we working 24 hours a day on existing programs? If not, why not? If not, will you make recommendations to me as to how work an be speeded up."

The president also asked about what sort of propulsion new U.S. rockets should use and concluded by asking "are we making maximum effort? Are we achieving necessary results?"

The memo reflects Kennedy the pragmatist in no uncertain terms.

"One wants to maintain some element of Kennedy as a visionary," Logsdon said in an interview with CBS News. "But the reality of the man is that he was not really that much of a visionary. I think the vision was imposed upon him because he was young and charismatic and spoke in visionary rhetoric. But his actions weren't visionary."

Against this backdrop, NASA successfully launched its first manned space mission on May 5, sending astronaut Alan Shepard aloft on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight.

The brief mission gave the United States its first space triumph, and while the Mercury Redstone rocket was much less powerful than the Russian booster that lifted Gagarin into orbit, the success was a shot in the arm for an administration reeling from public setbacks. Shepard became an instant hero.

"You think about Alan Shepard going up and he became a folk hero and John Glenn in February of '62 was given a ticker tape parade like nobody had seen since Charles Lindbergh in 1927," said historian Douglas Brinkley. "And so Kennedy was able to make cowboy heroes, myths, out of (the) Mercury astronauts and led the way for Neil Armstrong's moonwalk for 1969."

Three days after Shepard's flight, as Logsdon relates, a 30-page report prepared by NASA Administrator James Webb and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was presented to Johnson who, in turn, passed it on to the White House.

The report listed five primary goals for a re-vitalized U.S. space program: a manned lunar mission "before the end of the decade," development of communications satellites and orbital weather stations, establishment of a vigorous science research program and development of new, heavy-lift rockets. The projected cost was around $20 billion.

After mulling it over, Kennedy signed on, setting the stage for a dramatic nationally televised speech before a joint session of Congress on May 25 to discuss "urgent national needs."

After addressing economic issues, assistance to developing nations, increased military spending and related topics, Kennedy turned his attention to space, delivering a line that will forever be remembered as the birth of the Apollo moon program.

"I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth," the president said. "No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

President outlines his vision for space exploration during a speech at Rice University on Sept. 12, 1962, saying "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." (Credit: Cecil Stoughton/White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

By this point Congress was fully on board and on Aug. 7, a $1.67 billion budget was approved for NASA, an 89 percent increase over the previous Eisenhower administration appropriations request. The quick congressional approval was the result, Logsdon says, of Johnson's efforts to consult with leading lawmakers throughout the process as well as the near hysteria Gagarin's flight generated.

Looking back from the perspective of five decades, it seems almost beyond belief that at the time Kennedy called for a manned lunar mission "before the decade is out," the United States had launched a single astronaut on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight.

But NASA's management was confident they could deliver on the president's promise and as the money flowed, the growing agency quickly expanded with new facilities sprouting up across the country, helping secure long-term political support with jobs across dozens of congressional districts.

Despite the early momentum, criticism slowly grew with some questioning the enormous cost and others suggesting unmanned exploration would be cheaper and more scientifically productive.

But Logsdon shows Kennedy never lost confidence in his long-range goal. While he repeatedly questioned the program's execution and seriously explored the possibility of joint exploration with the Soviet Union, he remained a stalwart supporter of the moon program.

"We choose to go to the moon," Kennedy said during a speech at Rice University in Houston on Sept. 12, 1962. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

"It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the presidency."

Over the next few weeks, NASA engineers and the president's science advisor debated the architecture of the moon program, discussing the pros and cons of different scenarios for getting a spacecraft to the surface of the moon and back again.

But the debate never made it to the president's desk. In October 1962, Kennedy was consumed by the Cuban missile crisis and had no time for NASA.

But he soon returned to form, Logsdon writes, monitoring the program's progress and repeatedly questioning its objectives and methodology. Up to this point, it's not clear just how much Kennedy actually understood about the inner workings of the moon program/

But during a visit to Cape Canaveral on Nov. 16, 1963, he marveled at the scale of the Vehicle Assembly Building and the launch infrastructure rising on Florida's "space coast." He was especially impressed by a huge Saturn 1 rocket being prepared for launch that December, a booster with 1.5 million pounds of thrust that finally would give America the lead in sheer launch power.

Logsdon quotes NASA Associate Administrator Robert Seamans saying Kennedy "maybe for the first time, began to realize the dimensions of these projects."

A week later, on Nov. 21, 1963, the day before an assassin's bullet cut him down in Dallas, Kennedy delivered what would be his final speech regarding the space program at the dedication of an Air Force aerospace medical center in San Antonio, Texas.

Looking forward to the launch of the Saturn 1, Kennedy said "we have a long way to go. Many weeks and months and years of long, tedious work lie ahead. There will be setbacks and frustrations and disappointments. There will be, as there always are, pressures in this country to do less in this area as in so many others, and temptations to do something else that is perhaps easier.

"But ... this space effort must go on. The conquest of space must and will go ahead. That much we know. That much we can say with confidence and conviction."

Six years later, on July 20, 1969, Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin fulfilled the president's promise, landing on the moon to become the first humans to visit another world.

At mission control in Houston, flight controllers celebrating the successful conclusion of the Apollo 11 mission put up a sign with Kennedy's famous May 25, 1961, vow to mount a manned moon mission "before this decade is out."

Below that, two words were appended: "Task accomplished." 

© 2011 William Harwood/CBS News 

 

 

JFK's legacy: A race worth winning

11/21/2013 12:38 PM 

By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

President John F. Kennedy's decision to commit the United States to "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth" within a single decade, with only rudimentary ideas about how to do it and almost no space experience, was by today's standards an unimaginably daring -- and expensive -- gamble.

America won the bet, successfully carrying out six lunar landing missions between 1969 and 1972, leaving 12 sets of footprints on the moon's airless surface and returning 842 pounds of lunar rock and soil for detailed laboratory analysis.

The Apollo moon program cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering $25.4 billion, which translates to around $159 billion in 2012 dollars, according to John Logsdon, author of "John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon."

Six days before a tragic trip to Dallas, President Kennedy tours Cape Canaveral on Nov. 16, 1963, visiting launch complex 37 where a powerful Saturn 1 rocket awaited launch. (Credit: Cecil Stoughton/White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

That's roughly how much it cost for construction of NASA field centers, the precursor two-man Gemini program, development of the huge Saturn 5 rocket and the lunar landers and command modules that carried U.S. astronauts to and from the moon.

With 50 years of hindsight, one can question the wisdom of Apollo, whether it was worth the high cost and even whether NASA was ever in a real "space race" with the Soviet Union.

But few challenge the sheer majesty of Kennedy's bold vision or how it will be remembered.

The historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. believed "the 20th century will be remembered, when all else is forgotten, as the century when man burst his terrestrial bounds."

Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the Naval War College and an expert on the Chinese space program, said Apollo "will forever be symbolic of the greatness of America."

"I mean we stepped off the planet," she told CBS News. "That's pretty big. Neil Armstrong ... has a place in history that no one else will ever have, and he was a one-of-a kind, first person to step on another celestial body. And I think that's the kind of thing that makes you endure in the history books."

Marcia Smith, editor of Space Policy Online, an expert on Russian space operations and a veteran NASA analyst, agreed, saying Apollo will long be remembered "as a highlight of the 20th century, the first steps of humankind off of Earth. I do consider it a watershed event in human exploration."

"If we continue to move off the planet and become a multi-planet species as people like (entrepreneur) Elon Musk would like to see, then that's going to really be the beginning of something," she said in an interview. "Even if we don't, if a hundred years from now we've taken the ancient China approach and just decided to give it all up, it will still be viewed as a tremendous technological, and I would say, socially transforming feat.

"I don't want to overstate the case for what it meant in terms of how people view our planet -- the 'pale blue dot' and all the other stuff people talk about -- but I do think that there is an element of truth to that, and I think we view our planet differently having seen it with human eyes from the moon."

But does that alone make Apollo worth the high cost?

"I think it depends on what happens in the next few centuries," Logsdon said in an interview. "If it were a one-shot venture (and) 200 years from now we haven't gone back to the moon, we haven't gone into deep space -- and I think that's a real possibility -- then I think the assessment by Schlesinger is over blown.

"If it's like the Vikings making the initial foray to the shores of North America and then another 200 or 300 years before Europeans came to stay, then it will be viewed as like the Viking voyages, as a first step in a long-term historical movement."

If humanity eventually becomes a multi-planet species, "if we move off of this planet at some point in the future, then Kennedy will have started it," Logsdon said.

But many argue Kennedy's gamble created an unsustainable space program that left NASA rudderless after the agency won the space race. By setting a clear deadline and couching the endeavor in terms of a Cold War space race with the Soviet Union, Kennedy made no provision for post-Apollo space initiatives.

In that sense, Apollo was a one-shot program that could not be sustained once the race was won. But that wasn't Kennedy's concern when he went "all in" on Apollo.

"He never thought about it," Logsdon said. "It's another way he was not a visionary. He didn't think, as (then NASA Administrator James) Webb did, that he was building the capability for a long-term, expanding space program. I don't think he ever thought one way or the other about that.

"It was not only custom-built hardware, but defining it as a race. Once you win the race, there's no need to keep racing. And so yes, I think Apollo was a phenomenon of the '60s, it was remarkable for those of us who got to see it happen, it was a great thing. But it was not sustainable at all."

Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin doesn't blame that on Kennedy.

"Many people have said, well, Apollo was a dead end, Apollo was a flag and footprints," Griffin said. "I don't agree that is the case, but to the extent that that argument can even be made the fault is, in my view, with those who failed to follow up, failed to consolidate the gains of Apollo rather than the program itself."

Griffin agreed that setting up the Apollo program as a "race" with a clearly defined timetable "does contain those seeds of potential (for) its destruction, but I don't see that as inevitable. I see that as a choice that was made."

"The pattern of behavior that you cite, that when you have an urgent national goal and you win, it sort of automatically causes people to say OK, now we can do something else, I'm saying yes, I agree, that is a pattern of human behavior. I personally think that is a rather destructive pattern of behavior, but I would point out it's not inevitable."

In any case, given that Apollo was set up as a race with the Soviet Union, it's worth considering who, or what, NASA was actually racing against. The Soviet Union did not have a declared moon program until 1964, well after Kennedy's assassination.

But Kennedy and his advisors did not know that at the time, which makes the decision even more astonishing by today's political standards.

"The Soviets did not have a human lunar program at the time," Smith said. "They were, of course, sending robotic probes to the moon, they were the first ones to do that, but they did not start (a) manned lunar landing program until '64. Throughout Kennedy's lifetime, America was racing against itself."

But that doesn't mean it wasn't a race worth running.

Discussing Apollo and how it will be remembered in his 2010 look at Kennedy's decision to go to the moon, Logsdon writes that "Apollo was a product of a particular moment in time. Apollo is also a piece of lasting human history. Its most important significance may well be simply that it happened."

© 2011 William Harwood/CBS News

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores

'We Choose ... ': 50 Years After Kennedy's Assassination, the Torch of Apollo Still Burns Brightly

By Ben Evans

 

On 25 May 1961, President John F. Kennedy made one of the most remarkable speeches in U.S. political history, by setting his nation on a course to land a man on the Moon. Photo Credit: NASA

When we think of heroes in the early Space Age, our minds are naturally drawn to the likes of Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepard, to Alexei Leonov and John Glenn, to Valentina Tereshkova and Neil Armstrong, and to Sergei Korolev and Wernher von Braun. These brave heroes, and thousands like them, charted our first course away from the Home Planet and—after millions of years of simply gazing upward and wondering—they enabled us to see new visions and visit new worlds. Their sacrifice and contribution remains incalculable, but one other man enabled the single step to be taken which may define us a thousand years from now. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, killed in Dallas, Texas, 50 years ago today, was responsible for providing the political direction for America to land a man on the Moon. His actions, to be fair, were deep-rooted in the politics of his time, but their long-term effects have transformed him into a true hero of the Space Age.

Kennedy's hideous murder remains one of the most dramatic, pervasive, and mysterious events of the 1960s, coming midway between the conclusion of Project Mercury and the dawn of Project Gemini. The president had been in Texas for several days and, tanned and wearing sunglasses, had visited and been photographed at NASA's new Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), near Houston, in the days before his death. His decision to visit Dallas and tour the streets in an open-topped motorcade on 22 November 1963 had come about in the hope that it would generate support for his 1964 re-election campaign and mend political fences in a state just barely won three years before.

The plan called for Kennedy's motorcade to travel from Love Field airport, through downtown Dallas—including Dealey Plaza, where the assassination would occur—and would terminate at the Dallas Trade Mart, where he would deliver a speech. Shortly before 12:30 p.m. CST, the motorcade entered Dealey Plaza and Kennedy acknowledged a comment from Nellie Connally, wife of the Texan governor, that "you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." Indeed, all around him, adoring crowds thronged the streets.

As the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository, the first crack of a rifle sounded from one of its upper windows. There was very little reaction to the opening shot, with many witnesses believing that they had heard a firecracker or a backfiring engine. Kennedy and Governor John Connally turned abruptly, and it was Connally who first recognized the sound for what it was. Yet he had no time to respond. According to the Warren Commission, which investigated the case throughout 1964, a shot entered Kennedy's upper back and exited through his throat, causing him to clench his fists to his neck. The same bullet hit Connally's back, chest, right wrist, and left thigh.

President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jackie Kennedy, and Texas Governor and Mrs. Connally in the open-topped limousine, seconds before the assassination. Photo Credit: United States Library of Congress

The third and final shot, captured in horrifying detail by a number of professional and amateur photographers, caused a fist-sized hole to explode from the side of the president's head, spraying the interior of the limousine and showering a motorcycle officer with blood and brain tissue. First Lady Jackie Kennedy frantically clambered onto the back of the limousine; Secret Service agent Clint Hill, close by, thought she was reaching for something, perhaps part of the president's skull, and pushed her back into her seat. Hill kept Mrs. Kennedy seated and clung to the car as it raced away in the direction of Parkland Memorial Hospital.

John Connally, though critically injured, survived, but Kennedy arrived in the Parkland trauma room in a moribund condition and was declared dead by Dr. George Burkley at 1 p.m. No chance ever existed to save the president's life, the third bullet having caused a fatal head wound. Indeed, a priest who administered the last rites told the New York Times that Kennedy was dead on arrival. An hour later, following a confrontation between Dallas police and Secret Service agents, the president's body was removed from Parkland and driven to Air Force One, then flown to Washington, D.C. Vice-President Lyndon Baines Johnson, also aboard Air Force One, was sworn-in as the 36th President at 2:38 p.m.

One of Johnson's earliest official acts was the establishment of the "Warren Commission" to investigate the president's death. Chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren—the very man who had sworn Kennedy into office—the commission presented its report to Johnson in September 1964. It found no persuasive evidence of a domestic or foreign conspiracy and identified Lee Harvey Oswald, located on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, as the murderer. It concluded that both Oswald and his own killer, nightclub owner Jack Ruby, had operated alone and without external involvement.

Immediately after the publication of the Warren Commission's report, doubts surfaced over its conclusions. Although initially greeted with widespread support by the public, a 1966 Gallup poll suggested that inconsistencies remained. An official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976-1979 concluded that Oswald probably shot Kennedy as part of a wider conspiracy and, over the years, countless theories have emerged, variously blaming Fidel Castro, the anti-Castro Cuban community, the Mafia, the FBI, the CIA, the masonic order, the Soviets, and others. An ABC News poll in 2003 concluded that 70 percent of respondents felt that the assassination was the part of a broader plot, although no agreement could be reached on who may have been involved. To this day, Kennedy's death remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the modern era.

The dramatic impact of Gagarin's flight is highlighted by the front page of "The Huntsville Times." It should have been a time of celebration for all humanity, but political relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were at a low ebb, and the immediate reaction was how to respond to this Communist challenge. Photo Credit: The Huntsville Times

Sworn in as president on 20 January 1961, after a long-fought campaign with Richard Nixon, one of Kennedy's immediate goals was to address a perceived "gap" in missile technology between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both nations were racing to place a man into space—America through Project Mercury and Russia through its Vostok program—and the stakes were high. The success of Yuri Gagarin's orbital mission on 12 April left Kennedy with the urgent need to do something to restore his nation's credibility and technological muscle. A suborbital Mercury flight was almost ready to go, but a fully orbital mission was not expected until at least the end of 1961, and a CIA-backed attempt by a group of Cuban exiles to topple Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs collapsed in catastrophic fashion and proved hugely embarrassing for the United States.

Although he admitted responsibility for the bungled invasion, on 20 April Kennedy refined his plans to draw the Soviets into a space race and perhaps gain more credibility for his government. "Is there any space program," he asked Vice-President Lyndon Johnson in one of the 20th century's most influential memos, "that promises dramatic results in which we could win? Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space or a trip around the Moon or by a rocket to land on the Moon or by a rocket to go to the Moon and back with a man?" His motives, of course, were chiefly political, but he was clearly pinning his colours to the space flag.

One of the main personalities approached by Johnson as he weighed up the options was the famed rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who, in a 29 April memo, felt that the "sporting chance" of sending a three-man crew around the Moon before the Soviets was higher than putting an orbital laboratory aloft. Others, including Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, even pushed for a landing on Mars, although his motivations for such a proposal have been questioned. Von Braun, who had designed Nazi Germany's infamous V-2 missile before coming to the United States in 1945 as a key player in its rocketry and space programs, felt that a lunar landing was the best option, since "a performance jump by a factor of ten over their present rockets is necessary to accomplish this feat. While today we do not have such a rocket, it is unlikely that the Soviets have it."

The rocket to which von Braun alluded was known as "Saturn" and remained in the early planning stages, but a commitment to its development had been one of the conditions he had applied before agreeing to join NASA in October 1958. "With an all-out crash effort," he told Johnson, "I think we could accomplish this objective in 1967-1968." Von Braun's judgement won the day for Johnson. Three weeks later, still smarting from Bay of Pigs humiliation, Kennedy delivered the speech which would truly define his presidency.

Astronaut Al Shepard is winched to the recovery helicopter, minutes after splashdown from America's first piloted Mercury flight. Photo Credit: NASA

Several days later, on 5 May, Al Shepard became America's first man in space, completing a 15-minute suborbital mission aboard Freedom 7, which Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev lambasted as a "flea hop" in comparison to Gagarin's flight. In the aftermath, Kennedy wanted to talk of nothing but space, and some cynically speculated that his motivations centered upon beating the Soviets and overcoming the Bay of Pigs humiliation. However, when Shepard met the president shortly after the flight, he saw a true statesman and believed that the attraction of space exploration was very real for Kennedy. "He was really, really a space cadet," Shepard told the NASA oral historian, many years later, "and it's too bad he could not have lived to see his promise." Three weeks after Freedom 7, Kennedy nailed his colors to the space mast in one of the most rousing and inspiring addresses ever given in U.S. political history.

On 25 May, the president stood before a joint session of Congress and publicly declared his vision. He knew, after recommendations from both NASA Administrator Jim Webb and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, that the presence of men in space would truly capture the imagination of the world. The first part of his speech focused upon ways in which the United States could exploit its economic and social progress against Communism, then called for increased funding to protect Americans from a possible nuclear strike … and lastly Kennedy hit Congress with his lunar bombshell. "I believe," he told them, "that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period would be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space … and none would be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

Expense was the major stumbling block. By the end of 1961, NASA's budget would grow to more than $5 billion, 10 times as much as had been spent on space research in the past eight years combined and roughly equivalent to 50 cents per taxpayer. Kennedy acknowledged that it was "a staggering sum," but reinforced that most Americans spent more each week on cigars and cigarettes. Still, he would have to face harsh criticism by placing the lunar goal ahead of educational projects and other social welfare efforts for which he had campaigned so hard during his years in the Senate. He would admit in his speech that he "came to this conclusion with some reluctance" and that the nation would have to "bear the burdens" of the dream.

The Saturn V and Apollo spacecraft were both audacious in their scope and unparalleled in their complexity. Photo Credit: NASA

Some did not wish to accept such burdens. Immediately after the speech, a Gallup poll revealed that just 42 percent of Americans supported Kennedy's push for the Moon. Yet he also gained immense support, both as a risk-taker and as a statesman. The decision, said his science advisor Jerome Wiesner, was one that he made "cold-bloodedly." It was also a decision that he firmly stood by. Only hours after Virgil "Gus" Grissom flew America's second suborbital mission on 21 July 1961, Kennedy signed into law an approximately $1.7 billion appropriation act for Project Apollo. In a subsequent address, given at Rice University in September 1962, he admitted that Apollo and Saturn would contain some components still awaiting invention, but remained fixed in his determination to "set sail on this new sea, because there is new knowledge to be gained and new rights to be won."

The overall picture still seemed to show that Kennedy was broadly supportive of the lunar goal, although taped conversations with Jim Webb, now ensconced in the Kennedy Library, imply otherwise. In November 1962, at a meeting to discuss the space budget, Kennedy categorically told Webb that he was "not that interested in space" and that his stance in support of the program was based purely on the need to beat the Soviets. Nonetheless, he had approached Khrushchev on two occasions—in June 1961 and again in 1963—to discuss space co-operation; in the first case, his entreaties fell on deaf ears, but in the second case, the Soviet premier responded with greater warmth.

Still, there remained doubts in large swathes of the American populace about the lunar goal. In April 1963, Kennedy had asked Vice-President Lyndon Johnson—in his capacity as head of the National Aeronautics and Space Council—to review Project Apollo's progress. "By asking Johnson to conduct the review, Kennedy was virtually assured of a positive reply," wrote space policy analyst Dwayne Day in a November 2006 article for The Space Review. "Furthermore, Kennedy's request in effect ruled out cutting Apollo so as not to 'compromise the timetable for the first manned lunar landing.'" In his report, Johnson advised that, if cuts were to be made to NASA, they ought to be diverted to safeguard Apollo.

A few days after Kennedy's speech to the United Nations in September 1963, Congressman Albert Thomas, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Independent Offices, wrote to the president and asked if he had altered his position on the lunar landing. Kennedy replied that the United States could only co-operate in space from a position of strength, but shortly before his assassination he asked the Bureau of Budget to prepare a report on NASA. A draft of this report, which addressed the question of "backing off from the manned lunar landing goal" was written in early 1964 and still exists. In his analysis, Day posited that this was the very question that Kennedy had asked them to consider. The bureau's ultimate consensus: the only basis for backing off from Apollo, aside from technical or international situations, would be "an overriding fiscal decision."

John F. Kennedy with NASA Administrator Jim Webb at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC)—today's Johnson Space Center (JSC)—in Houston, Texas, in November 1963, only days before the president's assassination. Photo Credit: NASA

Throughout the Sixties, and long after Kennedy's death, the road to the Moon remained fraught with danger and risk. Several astronauts lost their lives in training accidents, and the Apollo 1 crew died in a cabin fire during a "plugs-out" ground test in January 1967, putting the program on hold for almost two years. The pace at which the United States moved from suborbital missions in early 1961 to Earth-orbital rendezvous in 1965 to the first piloted voyage to the Moon in 1968 to the landing itself in 1969 remains one of the most phenomenal feats in the history of human accomplishment. Four percent of the federal budget, to be fair, had much to do with this pace, but it puts several of our subsequent efforts to return humans to the Moon to shame.

Twenty-four hours before the paths of the president and the assassin tragically intertwined, on 21 November 1963, Kennedy recounted a story to a San Antonio audience. Reminding them that it was still "a time for pathfinders and pioneers," he told the tale of a group of Irish boys who reached an orchard wall and were dismayed that it was too tall to scale. Throwing their caps over the wall, they presented themselves with no choice but to force themselves to scale it. "This nation," Kennedy told his rapt audience, "has tossed its cap over the wall of space and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome."

And six years after his death, they were. Today, on the half-century anniversary of Kennedy's death, it can be hoped that the difficulties and challenges which lie before humanity today can be similarly overcome and a return of humans to the Moon, and perhaps also to Mars, can be accomplished in our lifetimes. Only then can we humans cement our credentials as a truly spacefaring civilization.

 

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