The Race Begins

In the six months between December 1960 and May 1961, the status of the U. S. civilian space program was elevated from a scientifically oriented effort with an uncertain future for human space flight to a key instrument of national strategy. This shift was the end result of a process in which many factors were involved. The change in administrations was clearly vital. In addition to putting a new president and his advisers into the White House with a clearly different set of values and objectives than their predecessors, the new administration meant new leadership for NASA. NASA planners convinced James Webb, who probably needed little convincing, that human space flight was key to the agency’s future, and Webb became an effective advocate of NASA’s interests. The support of the Space Science Board helped allay some of the scientific criticism that the human space flight program had little scientific value. The success of Alan Shepard’s flight demonstrated both human capability to survive and function in space and the great public enthusiasm for human space flight. The ability of NASA to withstand an Air Force and industry challenge to its role as the nation’s primary space agency strengthened NASA’s claim that it could undertake new, ambitious mis­sions. Lyndon Johnson’s personal conviction about the strategic importance of space, coupled with his assignment as head of the Space Council, placed a forceful advocate of a larger space effort at the side of the president. The consistent call from the Congress, particularly from the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, loosened one constraint on the president’s free­dom to choose a bold course of action. The flight of Yuri Gagarin and the world’s reaction to it provided a strong impetus to make space decisions quickly; the Bay of Pigs added to that pressure.

Walter McDougall suggests that “how this change occurred in so short a time is not a mystery,” but rather an “overdetermined event.”

New men arrived and brought with them those ideas of the “seed time” of the 1950s. Among those ideas were the notions that the Third World was the main theater of the Cold War and that in that contest prestige was as important as power. Their ideas validated a far greater role for government in planning and executing social change. The new men also cared more for imagery and felt increasing pressure to display their control over affairs in the wake of early setbacks in foreign policy. Finally, each of the major figures in space policy—Kennedy, Johnson, Webb, Dryden, McNamara, Welsh, Kerr, and others—saw ways in which an accelerated space program could help them solve problems in their own shop or serve their own interests. . . They were technocratic, applying command technology to political problems.

* * *

We will probably never know precisely what was in Kennedy’s mind when he decided that Americans should go to the moon. What may have tipped the balance for him and for many was the spinal chill attending the thought of

leaving the moon to the Soviets. Perhaps Apollo could not be justified, but, by

God, we could not not do it.34

All of these factors converged on the White House and particularly on John F. Kennedy. In the weeks between the Gagarin flight and his May 25 speech, Kennedy had “fired off” to his advisers “a constant stream of written questions. . . on costs, risks, manpower, alternatives, and administrative responsibility. He had heard from hundreds of individuals in the process of making his decision—scientists, engineers, experts of all kind—and became convinced that the United States must not remain second in this race.” From “a tentative premise” in the aftermath of the Gagarin flight there emerged in Kennedy’s thinking a “firm conclusion” about the importance of space achievement, but “only after it had been carefully studied, the estimated costs calculated, the risks weighed, and the responsibilities allocated.”35 Robert Kennedy commented that his brother thought that winning the space race was “very important. As he used to say, it compared to the explor­ers in our country, Lewis and Clark. . . He thought we needed to do it for our position throughout the world, that our efforts should be for excellence and that we should do whatever was necessary.”36 Willis Shapley, the longtime staff person from the BOB who was directly involved in the decision process, suggests that “after having been through quite a few major decisions, there was never a major decision like this made with the same degree of eyes-open, knowing-what-you’re getting-in-for” character.37 President Kennedy, at first uncertain but finally convinced that the United States should accept the Soviet challenge in space, decided that “whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.”