Reevaluating NASA’s Priorities

Two days after the Gagarin flight on 12 April, Kennedy discussed once again the possibility of a lunar landing program with Webb, but the NASA head’s conservative estimates of a cost of more than $20 billion for the project was too steep and Kennedy delayed making a decision. A week later, at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy called Johnson, who headed the National Aeronautics and Space Council, to the White House to discuss strategy for catching up with the Soviets in space. Johnson agreed to take the matter up with the Space Council and to recommend a course of action. It is likely that one of the explicit programs that Kennedy asked Johnson to consider was a lunar landing program, for the next day, 20 April 1961, he followed up with a memorandum to Johnson raising fundamental questions about the project. In particular, Kennedy 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 go to the moon and back with a man? Is there any other space program that promises dramatic results in which we could win?¹⁶

While he waited for the results of Johnson’s investigation, this memo made it clear that Kennedy had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to do in space. He confided in a press conference on 21 April that he was leaning toward committing the nation to a large- scale project to land Americans on the Moon. “If we can get to the moon before the Russians, then we should,” he said, adding that he had asked his vice president to review options for the space program.¹⁷ This was the first and last time that Kennedy said anything in public about a lunar landing program until he officially unveiled the plan. It is also clear that Kennedy approached the lunar landing effort essentially as a response to the competition between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. For Kennedy the Moon landing program, conducted in the tense Cold War environment of the early 1960s, was a strategic decision directed toward advancing the far-flung interests of the United States in the international arena. It aimed toward recapturing the prestige that the nation had lost as a result of Soviet successes and U.S. failures. It was, as political scientist John M. Logsdon has suggested, “one of the last major political acts of the Cold War. The Moon Project was chosen to symbolize U.S. strength in the head-to-head global competition with the Soviet Union.”¹⁸

Lyndon Johnson probably understood these circumstances very well, and for the next two weeks his Space Council diligently considered, among other possibilities, a lunar landing before the Soviets. As early as 22 April, NASA’s Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden had responded to a request for information from the National Aeronautics and Space Council about a Moon program by writing that there was “a chance for the U.S. to be the first to land a man on the moon and return him to earth if a determined national effort is made.” He added that the earliest this feat could be accomplished was 1967, but that to do so would cost about $33 billion dollars, a figure $10 billion more than the whole projected NASA budget for the next ten years.¹⁹ A week later Wernher von Braun, director of NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama, and head of the big booster program needed for the lunar effort, responded to a similar request for information from Johnson. He told the vice president that “we have a sporting chance of sending a 3-man crew around the moon ahead of the Soviets” and “an excellent chance of beating the Soviets to the first landing of a crew on the moon (including return capability, of course.)” He added that “with an all-out crash program” the U.S. could achieve a landing by 1967 or 1968.²⁰

After gaining these technical opinions, Johnson began to poll political leaders for their sense of the propriety of committing the nation to an accelerated space program with Project Apollo as its centerpiece. He brought in Senators Robert Kerr (D-OK) and Styles Bridges (R-NH) and spoke with several Representatives to ascertain if they were willing to support an accelerated space program. While only a few were hesitant, Robert Kerr worked to allay their concerns. He called on James Webb, who had worked for his business conglomerate during the 1950s, to give him a straight answer about the project’s feasibility. Kerr told his congressional colleagues that Webb was enthusiastic about the program and “that if Jim Webb says we can a land a man on the moon and bring him safely home, then it can be done.” This endorsement secured considerable political support for the lunar project. Johnson also met with several businessmen and representatives from the aerospace industry and other government agencies to ascertain the consensus of support for a new space initiative. Most of them also expressed support.²¹

Air Force General Bernard A. Schriever, commander of the Air Force Systems Command that developed new technologies, expressed the sentiment of many people by suggesting that an accelerated lunar landing effort “would put a focus on our space program.” He believed it was important for the U.S. to build international prestige and that the return was more than worth the price to be paid.²² Secretary of State Dean Rusk, a member of the Space Council, was also a supporter of the initiative because of the Soviet Union’s image in the world. He wrote to the Senate Space Committee a little later that “We must respond to their conditions; otherwise we risk a basic misunderstanding on the part of the uncommitted countries, the Soviet Union, and possibly our allies concerning the direction in which power is moving and where long-term advantage lies.”²³ It was clear early in these deliberations that Johnson was in favor of an expanded space program in general and a maximum effort to land an astronaut on the Moon. Whenever he heard reservations Johnson used his forceful personality to persuade. “Now,” he asked, “would you rather have us be a second-rate nation or should we spend a little money?”²⁴

In an interim report to the president on 28 April 1961, Johnson concluded that “The U.S. can, if it will, firm up its objectives and employ its resources with a reasonable chance of attaining world leadership in space during this decade,” and recommended committing the nation to a lunar landing.²⁵ In this exercise Johnson had built, as Kennedy had wanted, a strong justification for undertaking Project Apollo but he had also moved on to develop a greater consensus for the objective among key government and business leaders.