{"id":1614,"date":"2019-07-06T17:07:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-06T17:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2019-07-06T17:09:57","modified_gmt":"2019-07-06T17:09:57","slug":"ftv-apollo-11-50-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1614","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Apollo 11: 50 Years On"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0On Sunday July 13, 1969, the Russian space program launched a robotic craft toward the Moon called Luna 15.\u00a0 It was not a coincidence that this craft would be in orbit two days ahead of NASA\u2019s first attempt at a manned lunar landing with the Apollo 11 mission.\u00a0 Clearly, the Russians were going to attempt scooping up a lunar soil sample and return it to the Earth ahead of the USA\u2019s manned mission. At the least, it would keep the USSR in the conversation with its arch rival in the long running soap opera dubbed \u2018The Space Race\u2019.\u00a0 While the first manned landing returned 47.5 pounds of lunar material, the Luna 15 probe collected a mountain. Luna 15 orbited the Moon 52 times while the control center back on Earth searched for a safe place to land. The Soviet controllers were surprised viewing the rugged lunar surface and eventually selected a target on the Sea of Crisis, 540 miles away from the Apollo 11 landing site.\u00a0 The Jodrell Bank Observatory in England was monitoring the signals from both Apollo 11 and Luna 15 and reported that the Luna 15 signals had abruptly ceased. Apparently the mission planners had missed a mountain in the descent path to the robot craft\u2019s landing site. Luna 15 did indeed collect a mountain of lunar material, but the planned \u2018sample return\u2019 flight did not happen for obvious reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fifty years after an event that many see as a defining moment in human history, we are now looking back at the Apollo 11 Moon landing of July 20, 1969 with the perspective of time.\u00a0 Then, the world\u2019s focus was firmly fixed on the culmination of a decade of triumph and tragedy in the Space Race, but many of the dramatic events took place in the background or behind closed doors.\u00a0 As we celebrate this remarkable event, it is also interesting to examine some of the events that were not common knowledge at the time of the Apollo 11 mission. <\/span>The Smithsonain <\/span><\/i>magazine (June 2019 – <\/span>Inside America\u2019s Greatest Adventure<\/span><\/i> by Charles Fishman taken from his upcoming book <\/span>ONE GIANT LEAP:\u00a0 The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon <\/span><\/i>(Simon & Schuster)) has done a marvelous job digging a little deeper into the story of the Apollo program.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the first surprising elements in this story was the impatience displayed by President John F. Kennedy as he monitored NASA\u2019s manned space program.\u00a0 On May 25, 1961, Kennedy famously prodded the United States to send men to the Moon and back by the end of the 1960s: \u201cWe 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.\u201d\u00a0 Make no mistake about it; JFK was excited about the manned space program. It provided an opportunity to give the United States a much needed kick in the pants at a time when the country needed a goal to stimulate education and industry. He also was excited about the possibilities it brought to beat the Russians at something during the Cold War without necessarily going into battle. He pushed to fully fund NASA\u2019s efforts and as Fight Director Chris Kraft recalled, \u201cWhen Kennedy asked us to do that in 1961, it was impossible.\u00a0 We made it possible. We, the United States, made it possible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Transcripts of taped meetings in the Oval Office show Kennedy\u2019s growing frustration – the program was not moving along as fast as he would have liked (you didn\u2019t think Richard Nixon was the only president that recorded meetings, did you?).\u00a0 The mounting costs and looming 1964 presidential elections put Kennedy between a rock and a hard place. Each space spectacular validated his challenge to the country, but he did not understand why it was taking NASA so long to show tangible progress.\u00a0 There were gaps between rocket launches as NASA solved one impossible problem after another. Kraft was correct; JFK had asked NASA to do the impossible, but the president now saw the political investment he made in the program giving slower returns than he expected.\u00a0 It is shocking today to read what he told NASA Administrator Jim Webb, \u201cIt\u2019s been a couple of years and . . . right now, I don\u2019t think the space program has much political excitement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As the discussion with Webb continued, Kennedy asked if the congressional committee\u2019s proposed budget cuts would affect the time-line:\u00a0 \u201cIf we\u2019re going to cut that amount . . . we slip a year? If I get re-elected, we\u2019re not going to the Moon in our period, are we?\u201d Webb replied, \u201cNo. No. You\u2019re not going.\u201d\u00a0 At best, Webb felt a reduced budget would allow a lunar flyby mission, but not a landing. Kennedy\u2019s assessment in the gap between space flights was blunt: \u201cSo, I\u2019m going into the campaign to defend this program, and we won\u2019t have had anything for a year and a half [until the next launch]?\u201d\u00a0 Even more surprising was a revelation that belied what the public perceived about Kennedy\u2019s interest in space: \u201cI don\u2019t care about space. I just want to beat the Russians.\u201d Publicly and politically, Kennedy was still an ardent supporter of the space program right until his tragic trip to Dallas in November.\u00a0 It would be blind speculation as to how the Apollo program would have unfolded had he lived and continued to juggle his re-election campaign while trying to get Congress to keep funding the program.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The president wasn\u2019t the only one who questioned the increasingly expensive program.\u00a0 Early in 1964, only 26 percent of Americans polled responded \u2018yes\u2019 to the question, \u201cShould America go all out to beat the Russians in a manned flight to the Moon.\u201d\u00a0 Norbert Wiener, the legendary professor and mathematician from MIT, began referring to the whole program as a \u2018moondoggle\u2019 and the derogatory term began appearing in print frequently.\u00a0 Even polls conducted by the American Astronomical Society revealed only 36 percent of their respondents saw \u2018great scientific value\u2019 in manned Moon landings versus 66 percent favoring robotic missions.\u00a0 The editor of the journal <\/span>Science, <\/span><\/i>Philip Abelsen, spoke critically about the resources being directed into a project more for the propaganda value than the scientific returns:\u00a0 \u201cThe diversion of talent to the space program is having and will have direct and indirect damaging effects on almost every area of science, technology, and medicine.\u201d\u00a0 Former President Eisenhower told Republican members of Congress that, \u201cAnybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the Moon for national prestige is nuts.\u201d The media grabbed the story but shortened the statement into a more concise headline:\u00a0 \u201cIke Calls Moon Race Nuts.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Eisenhower overshot the mark using a figure that fell on the extreme side of the estimated cost of the program – the entire Apollo program did not come anywhere near that amount.\u00a0 Even after the Apollo 8 mission successfully circumnavigated the Moon in December of 1968 (FTV: Apollo 8 – Part I (12-12-18) & II (12-19-18)), only 39 percent of Americans polled favored a manned Moon landing.\u00a0 Asked in another 1968 poll, \u2018Is the space program worth the $4 billion a year?\u2019, 55 percent said \u2018no\u2019. By contrast, the cost to conduct the War in Vietnam was $19.3 billion for 1968 alone, more than the total cost of the entire Apollo program.\u00a0 I would often remind my students that every billion dollars spent on the space program generated ten times that amount in industrial and technological innovation in the United States. Computer technology, for example, would have eventually progressed in the private sector, but the rapid fire development needed for the space program put us on the track to enjoy the level of digital technology we enjoy today (and at a much lower price for consumers than the \u2018private sector\u2019 route).\u00a0 The educational push that the space program provided proved equally important in preparing the United States to compete on the world stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Again, the effect of Kennedy\u2019s death on the Apollo program is an unknown.\u00a0 The speech that he never got to deliver in Dallas was to be about the \u2018pride and reinvigoration\u2019 that the space program had given the country.\u00a0 The program was, \u201cmaking it clear to all that the United States of American has no intention of finishing second in space.\u201d As proof that Kennedy felt, \u201cSpace is a source of national strength,\u201d he could have pointed out that the space program was now spending as much per year as the entire program had expended in the 1950s.\u00a0 During his administration, the United States had launched 130 spacecraft including weather and communications satellites, all cornerstones of our modern technological age. He had no plan to mention the Moon race in this speech. None of this made the public record when Kennedy fell to an assassin on November 22, 1963, but it was clear that he wasn\u2019t going to let wrangling with Congress over the cost of the program become an issue in the next election cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Meeting the 1960s deadline in the wake of eroding public and Congressional support was going to be a problem until the succession of Vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson to the Presidency.\u00a0 As the VP, Johnson served as the White House representative on the important Space Committee and he was a bigger space geek than JFK. Utilizing his capacity as a policy maker on the Space Committee, it was no accident that Houston became home base for NASA\u2019s Manned Space Center.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of LBJ\u2019s first Presidential acts was to rename the Cape Canaveral space center the John F. Kennedy Space Center and the name of the Cape itself was changed to Cape Kennedy (at the request of JFK\u2019s widow, Jacqueline).\u00a0 In January of 1964, Johnson submitted a budget that trimmed $500 million from JFK\u2019s last budget proposal, but with a twist: he raised NASA\u2019s budget to $5.3 billion and returned an additional $141 million that had been trimmed the previous year.\u00a0 LBJ recommitted the country to reach Kennedy\u2019s deadline, saying, \u201cNo matter how brilliant our scientists and engineers, how farsighted our planners and managers, or how frugal our administrators and contracting personnel, we can not reach this goal without adequate funds. There is no second-class ticket to space.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Four presidents played a role in America\u2019s space program.\u00a0 Eisenhower got the ball rolling when he established NASA in 1958.\u00a0 Kennedy, of course, pushed the fledgling NASA Manned Space Program out of the nest by setting the goal of reaching the Moon.\u00a0 Nixon just happened to be the man in the chair who got to make the historic phone call to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they stood on the Moon.\u00a0 The president who should get the most credit for human\u2019s walking on the Moon by Kennedy\u2019s deadline is Lyndon B. Johnson.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Incidentally, Luna 15 did manage to collect something positive for both the US and Russian space programs.\u00a0 When NASA contacted their counterparts in the Roscosmos program with concerns about the two craft orbiting the Moon at the same time, the Russians supplied all of the orbital data NASA needed to make sure that neither craft would interfere with the other.\u00a0 We may have been racing the Russians to the Moon, but in the end, the program opened a new era of cooperation – a more positive outcome than one could have predicted after a decade of competition to land the first men on the Moon. In Part II of <\/span>Apollo 50 Years On,<\/span><\/i> we will look at some of the impossible problems NASA had to tackle to place men on the Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Top Piece Video:\u00a0\u00a0Moon\u00a0 Shadow\u00a0<\/em>works for me – I really don’t like\u00a0Fly Me to the Moon!\u00a0<\/em>