posted 03-27-2005 03:45 PM               

I heard about them on the nightly news, as network news editors rightly saw their great importance. The audio will blow listeners away.

It reveals an irked, no, ~deeply~ annoyed, JFK and NASA administrator James Webb who simply did not appear to understand that the lunar program as JFK imagined it was the very heart of a foreign policy designed to defeat the Soviets and win the cold war. And just months before JFK was giving his great speech at Rice University, "We choose to go to the moon. 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 . . ."

So hard, in fact, JFK knew, the Soviets might fail and falter while the Americans would not. And Webb had been there on the dais at Rice, clapping in apparent agreement.

But the transcripts tell a different tale. Of a visionary anti-communist president confronting skeptical, condescending NASA administrators and science policy advisers.

And history tells us that JFK prevailed, even after his assassination, with men on the moon before the decade was out and the Soviets defeated and bankrupt before the century was out.

posted 03-27-2005 04:23 PM               

Don't these high level people complete one sentence first before going on to the next topic.

posted 04-01-2005 06:05 PM               

JFK was a visionary, but he was also a politician who believed in our system of democracy. The "space race" was a real race to win the minds of mankind and to protect the future from communism.

posted 04-02-2005 05:11 AM            

There's a great book that I read once about JFK, NASA and the manipulation of the media during the 60s, that I'd recommend to anyone who is interested in reading more on this topic.

It might be out of date/print by now, but if anyone wants to know the title let me know and I'll dig it out of the loft!

posted 04-02-2005 08:59 AM               

Eisenhower was around for the beginning of the Space Race when Sputnik was launched. He had no options to respond, except experimental rockets. JFK somehow knew that it was possible to reach the Moon with a manned rocket. That is what vision is. We succeeded six times (1969-1972): Apollo 11, 12, 14 15, 16 and 17. In addition, we reached the Moon (but did not land) with Apollo 8, Apollo 10 and Apollo 13. We just as easily could have failed. Apollo 1 and Apollo 13 showed us what could go wrong. Skill, intelligence, modern technology and luck got us to the Moon.

Will we return and if so, when? It will cost a fortune, perhaps $100-billion. Do we have the funds, and the will and the goals to return to the Moon? One goal could be WORLD PEACE. All space-faring nations should be asked to join us in a return mission to the Moon to either establish a colony and explore the surface or to just explore the Moon for a few months and then return to Earth, with a return planned for five years or so to establish a colony. All supplies should be soft-landed in at least two locations BEFORE the manned missions. The crew should be ten astronauts/ cosmonauts/taikonauts. This will require a large spacecraft and new technology. It will put thousands of people to work around the world to build the spacecraft, with perhaps two shuttle landers for commuting to the Moon and for rescue if necessary.

Originally, I thought that it would be essential to establish a colony on our first return mission. Now I think that World Peace should be the goal. The US, Russia, Japan, Europe (ESA), China, and others should be asked to participate in a big way with either astronauts or funding. The UN should be asked to join in with negotiations and funds. This means that the US flag will not be alone on the Moon for long. The flags of all of other participating countries will be placed there, including the UN flag. Think of the effect that this mision will have. Is this realistic?

posted 04-02-2005 09:22 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by carmelo:
I like Ike,really.But he aren't much interested in space.

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Further Eisenhower's wisdom of not protesting Sputnik's flight over the U.S. essentially paved the way to modern satellite operations. Had he, as Commander in Chief, insisted that U.S. airspace reached high into orbit, the current use and viability of satellites may have been very different today.

posted 04-03-2005 09:57 PM               

I am not an apologist for JFK. I consider myself to be a realist. Are you saying that IKE had more vision than JFK because IKE approved a civilian space agency? Following the launch of Sputnik, IKE formed NASA to counter this first in space. JFK took this light years ahead by proposing that we land on the Moon within the decade of the 60's. We landed in 1969, six years after JFK's death. Where was the "political boost" that you mention as his motivation. To propose such a measure in the early 60's was viewed by many as foolhardy. I agree with James Oberg's view that "fear of Soviet successes in space" was a major motivating factor in our Moon program.

ALL actions by ALL politicians are meant to give them a "boost." But JFK was a visionary not a reactionary like IKE. I use the word reactionary in a good sense because that is what he was. IKE was a leader of men in war. He reacted to changes in his theater of operations, including his theater while he was in the White House. IKE and JFK were both great men.

Your contention that JFK "played chicken" with the Soviets is misleading. It is what is called "brinksmanship." JFK was trying to avoid an all out atomic war with the Soviets. The Soviets thought that they detected some weakness in JFK. After all, he was very young and he was elected by a close margin. They were wrong. We came close to a war until the Soviets saw that JFK was determined that the missiles should be removed from Cuba - 90 miles from our coast. If JFK had backed down, we would still have Soviet missiles 90 miles from our coast. Castro would see to that.

Some say that JFK agreed never to invade Cuba if the missiles were removed. My response is - who cares. The missiles are gone and we do not want Cuba for anything and we have an effective blockade. It is not necessary to invade Cuba.

JFK thought like a young man who wanted to avoid another world war. WW II took 50-60 million lives. Imagine how many lives JFK and his administration saved by their "brinksmanship" which you label as "playing chicken." Are you suggesting that JFK should have left the missiles in Cuba or that he should have sent the Marines or the USAF to support the exiled Cubans invasion of Cuba? The latter would have started an all our world war.

Please read "Thirteen Days" by Robert F. Kennedy and a few other books on the JFK administration before labeling a beloved President in that manner.

As for "overflights" of the US by Russia: What were IKE's choices? How could he tell the world that USA airspace extends into space? That is impossible. In addition, we were flying U-2 spy planes over the USSR at a much lower altitude. Therefore, IKE was also involved in brinksmanship with the Soviets. []

posted 04-03-2005 11:14 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Astro Bill:
Are you saying that IKE had more vision than JFK because IKE approved a civilian space agency? Following the launch of Sputnik, IKE formed NASA to counter this first in space.

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quote:

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JFK took this light years ahead by proposing that we land on the Moon within the decade of the 60's. We landed in 1969, six years after JFK's death.

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Second, I contend, as I know others do, that had JFK not met an untimely death, the Apollo program would have not reached a successful end, or at least not on schedule. Ultimately, it was the legacy of a fallen president, rather than the the president himself, that lent us the drive to reach the moon.

quote:

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ALL actions by ALL politicians are meant to give them a "boost." But JFK was a visionary not a reactionary like IKE.

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quote:

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Your contention that JFK "played chicken" with the Soviets is misleading. It is what is called "brinksmanship."

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My choice of calling it "chicken" wasn't meant to insult Kennedy but account for his own actions to try to exit the moon race before his own tragic loss.

quote:

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As for "overflights" of the US by Russia: What were IKE's choices? How could he tell the world that USA airspace extends into space? That is impossible. In addition, we were flying U-2 spy planes over the USSR at a much lower altitude.

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posted 04-04-2005 08:43 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by dss65:
And who warned Americans to "beware of the military-industrial complex." A more sophisticated man than he is sometimes given credit for.

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posted 04-04-2005 08:33 PM               

Both were great men who are rightly remembered in the history books.

posted 04-04-2005 10:16 PM               

You are playing symantics with announced/proposed. All Presidents have a staff that informs him of various proposals. He decides which to use (because "the buck stops here")and he makes an announcement. JFK announced/proposed the mission to the Moon. If it failed, he would take the blame.

How did you come to the conclusion, that if JFK had lived, the Moon Landing would either not be accomplished or would be late? Why is that? Where did you get the information that JFK wanted to opt out of the Moon Race? I never heard that he had a change of mind on this matter. If it is from a new book, almost anything can be written about anyone 42 years after their death. Where was the author in 1964? When did JFK change his mind during the 1000 days of his administration?

The dangerous situation that JFK saved us from was the Cuban Missile Crisis, not the Space Race. We came very close to nuclear war because Khruschev underestimated the determination and resolve of the young president. WW II resulted in the deaths of 50-60 million people (mostly civilians). Imagine how many American lives JFK saved by forcing the Soviets to remove the missiles in Cuba. []

posted 04-04-2005 10:29 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Astro Bill:
Where did you get the information that JFK wanted to opt out of the Moon Race? I never heard that he had a change of mind on this matter.

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From a SpaceDaily article by "New Moon Rising" co-author Frank Sietzen:

quote:

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Soviet Premiere Nikita S. Khrushchev reversed himself in early November, 1963 and had at the time, decided to accept U.S. President John F. Kennedy's offer to convert the Apollo lunar landing program into a joint project to explore the Moon with Soviet and U.S. astronauts, SpaceCast learned Wednesday from one of the last remaining participants in the decision still alive.

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quote:

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If these newest revelations are correct, the prospects of a visit to the Soviet Union by President Kennedy during the 1964 Presidential campaign, suggested by several former Kennedy administration staffers or a visit to Russia early in a Kennedy second term might well have cemented the joint lunar plan. And such a Kennedy/Khrushchev initiative might have staved off the planning of a coup that eventually removed Khrushchev from office in October, 1964.

"I think," Sergei Khrushchev said, "if Kennedy had lived, we would be living in a completely different world." But a week after the reversal decision was allegedly made, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas and the decision was dropped.

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quote:

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Some have also suggested that, given the political atmosphere of the time, the U.S. Congress of 1963/64 would not have looked too favorably on dropping a space program sold primarily as "beating the Russians to the Moon" for one that would, in essence, bring them along on a spacecraft and booster paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

But Kennedy fretted over the cost of the Apollo program almost literally until the day he died. A joint plan would have preserved the project while reducing the cost, further shifting its rationale onto foreign relations and superpower stability - goals now identified with the current US-Russian space partnership and a reason often given today for continuing the program. And had the President lived to conduct a 1964 campaign, U.S.-Soviet cooperation following years of tension may well have been a central element to the foreign policy espoused during that election effort. The available documentary evidence suggests that Kennedy was moving towards a new cooperative relationship with the Soviet government that he hoped to expand following a reelection in 1964.

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posted 04-05-2005 12:45 PM               

The NASM Gilruth oral histories are instructive on the issues raised upthread. I was told to read all of them by Guy "Tibby" Thibodaux a while back. Tibby and Max Faget were roommates at LSU and were hired together, after WWII, by Gilruth to be part of the PARD at NACA; Tibby was NASA's solid fuel expert.

Below please find some of the exchange between NASM historians and Robert Gilruth, from the fourth in the NASM series of interviews. Please note the context of the JFK-Gilruth conversation recounted by Gilruth below: It followed the wildly successful Shepard flight. Prior to Gagarin and prior to the American riposte in Freedom 7, Kennedy could not have cared less about spaceflight and a slight civilian agency called NASA. After Gagarin and Shepard, however, the clear threats posed to the U.S. across the board--propaganda, S&T preeminence, geopolitics, international prestige, freedom and democracy, and domestic electoral politics--made Kennedy a believer, with all the fervor of a convert.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

GILRUTH: I think that as this thing [the space race] unfolded, it wasn't going to be just one flight of man as the whole program. And that's why when Kennedy came along and said, "Look, I want to be first. Now do something." I said, "Well, you've got to pick a job that's so difficult, that it's new, that they'll [the Soviets] have to start from scratch. They just can't take their old rocket and put another gimmick on it and do something we can't do. It's got to be something that requires a great big rocket, like going to the moon. Going to the moon will take new rocket technology, and if you want to do that, I think our country could probably win because we'd both have to start from scratch."

DEVORKIN: I usually heard this kind of logic attributed to von Braun. Is that correct? Or were there many people who had that logic?

GILRUTH: Well, I think Wernher had that, too, but I was the one who was talking to Kennedy.

DEVORKIN: You were talking to him personally?

GILRUTH: Yes.

DEVORKIN: Now that's very important for us to know.

GILRUTH: I was talking to him. And I told him that very thing. If you really want to be first, you've got to take something that is so difficult we'll both [i.e., the United States and Soviets will] have to start from scratch.

DEVORKIN: And you knew that?

GILRUTH: Yes.

DEVORKIN: You knew that the Russians did not have that LEM capability?

GILRUTH: I didn't know, but I didn't think they did. They hadn't shown it yet. We didn't know anything about them, you know that. They wouldn't even tell us anything. So, anyway, Kennedy bought that. He was a young man... he didn't have all the wisdom he would have had. If he'd been older, he probably never would have done it [announced a lunar program].

DEVORKIN: You're speaking of Kennedy. Let's still stay in the Eisenhower Administration. Did you feel that you had a real program, or was it still a career risk for you during the Glennan years.

GILRUTH: Well, I was not really happy with Glennan and I wasn't very happy with Eisenhower, because Eisenhower obviously didn't believe in the program. He'd been talked into it and he was reluctant. You know, he took money away from the program in the last few months of his term. I've seen Eisenhower, but I never met him or talked to him about it.

DEVORKIN: But you did meet Kennedy?

GILRUTH: I saw Kennedy many times.

----------------------

I detect, above, adumbrations of JFK's unforgettable construction, "not because it is easy but because it is hard," in Gilruth's original 1961 counsel to Kennedy on how the U.S. could score a much-longed-for space first: "Well, you've got to pick a job that's so difficult, that it's new, that they'll [the Soviets] have to start from scratch."

This is a long post. I can add additional detail, and more on JFK, if any are interested. (I can't type worth a d*rn.)

[This message has been edited by KC Stoever (edited April 05, 2005).]

[This message has been edited by KC Stoever (edited April 05, 2005).]

posted 04-05-2005 03:01 PM               

In self-deprecating fashion, Gilruth confesses that in 1958 he believed a lunar program would be "very hard" to do. Dryden by way of contrast thought it was doable, eventually converting Gilruth, who then in 1961 shared his convictions with a young President Kennedy, also a convert following Shepard's hugely successful and politically popular flight. Spaceflight skeptic Wiesner plummeted out of favor.

And, yes, Eisenhower, descendant of Mennonite pacifists, was deeply suspicious of industrial-military alliances. He therefore directed the establishment of a civilian space agency. It was his science advisor, Jack Killian, however, who identified the NACA as "the best cadre for the job." And the rest is history.

Switching to the Kennedy adminstration, from the fifth Gilruth interview with NASM historians, there is the following exchange as well:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

MAUER: Some people are nostalgic for that Mercury period, because of it being so much freer, people making a lot of decisions quickly. How do you feel? How does it compare to the time before, and how does it compare to after you were already at Manned Spacecraft Center? Does it seem to be a better time, or is it just another stage in your career? How do you view it?

GILRUTH: I don't think you could live through many of these Mercury programs. It was something you do when you're young. You couldn't keep on doing that kind of thing. It was a case of working all the time, for the first year or so. But it was rewarding. It was great when Al Shepard flew, and when Glenn, and all the others flew--we were extremely fortunate to have all those things work.

It was the fact that it was so very successful, I believe, that we went on to the lunar program. Although it is true that Kennedy really got that going before we ever orbited John Glenn. I think the momentum of those Mercury flights had a lot to do with the success of the Apollo Program over those years, because it made it a lot easier to get the money that it took. It took a lot more money to build Apollo than it did Mercury. Apollo was 20 to 30 billion, and Mercury was, I think, closed out finally at about 400 million. We didn't think it would cost that much, but it did.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Later on in this fifth interview, Gilruth explains the reason for the wording "before this decade is out." JFK had originally wanted a lunar landing in 1967.

Kennedy also took pains to speak as frequently as he could with the Mercury astronauts--one on one or with the group. Kennedy's objective? To gather unvarnished anecdotal and theortetical information about spaceflight (and a moon landing) from the astronauts, without NASA policy-minders like Webb filtering and massaging the astronauts' views.

It is my impression, based on discussions with Rene Carpenter and Scott Carpenter, that JFK solicited the astronauts' views, and those of Gilruth and other moon-landing advocates, as a way of countermanding or canceling out the voices of tepid advisors you hear on the audiotapes mentioned in the OP.

posted 04-05-2005 03:14 PM               

You can get to different interviews by changing the arabic numeral after "Gilruth." Or go to the end of each document and click on the previous or succeeding interview.

posted 04-07-2005 09:04 AM               

I learn a lot from the cS debates, and from the extra research it makes me do, or revisit. I greatly enjoyed, again, imagining that walk Hugh Dryden took from the NACA hq at the Dolley Madison House, across Lafayette Park to the White House, having been summoned to meet with President Eisenhower.

It was March of 1958. A year later seven astronauts had been selected. Faget had by then come up with a design for the Mercury capsule . . . first presenting it even before NASA was formed, on November 1, 1957. Three weeks after Sputnik flew.

Amazing what people working together can accomplish.

posted 04-08-2005 02:33 PM               

Great threats. Great challenges. These, more than the raw talent of any generation, comibne to create great generations.

I hear a deflating question, sometimes, when appearing with my dad. It usually takes the form of, "Did you or any of your siblings want to . . ." fly, go into space? Do what your dad did?

I understand the question. It's about legacy.

What does one do with a legacy like that left by the first spacefarers? My response is that historic opportunities (like pioneering spaceflight) are not chockablock events.

They happen once in a century, or an era, or a millenium. And history calls only a few. That's just the way it is.