Location
Holiday Inn, Manatee Room C
Start Date
29-4-1997 2:00 PM
Description
Why did we go to the moon? Even the astronomers who worked on Project Apollo could not pretend that it was inspired by a driving love of science. It is hard to believe that the urge to explore was the motive; less than one-percent of the surface was ever explored by man. Three out of ten missions were canceled before the program was abandoned twenty-five years ago, with no plans to return. What did Project Apollo mean?
President Kennedy proposed Project Apollo at a special session of Congress on May 25, 1961 after only four months in office. His campaign claims of Soviet superiority in missiles and space had raised alarms about declining American influence. While many of his claims about weapons were fabrications, the public had not forgotten the panic caused by Sputnik I, launched by the USSR on October 4, 1957. President Eisenhower was bemused by all the hand-wringing and cries of doom, and impatient with the mad rush to drain the national treasury. Eisenhower knew that Sputnik was not a serious security threat because it could not be maneuvered in orbit, and that the US could have launched more sophisticated satellites before the Soviets. But the US had been concentrating its efforts on its missile system. Eisenhower was concerned with building a strong defense without getting deeply into debt. After that was in place he was interested in a modest space program, but insisted that it be strictly scientific. Perhaps in retrospect Eisenhower’s vision can be appreciated as being more accurate, but Kennedy’s hectoring of Eisenhower for a ‘Missile Gap’ and Sputnik was more persuasive, and probably was a decisive point in his election over Nixon. Why did the public believe Kennedy’s interpretation of looming catastrophe instead of accepting Eisenhower’s reasonable assessment of the facts?
Paper Session I-C - Project Apollo & the Cold War: Understanding the Space Race as Ritual Combat
Holiday Inn, Manatee Room C
Why did we go to the moon? Even the astronomers who worked on Project Apollo could not pretend that it was inspired by a driving love of science. It is hard to believe that the urge to explore was the motive; less than one-percent of the surface was ever explored by man. Three out of ten missions were canceled before the program was abandoned twenty-five years ago, with no plans to return. What did Project Apollo mean?
President Kennedy proposed Project Apollo at a special session of Congress on May 25, 1961 after only four months in office. His campaign claims of Soviet superiority in missiles and space had raised alarms about declining American influence. While many of his claims about weapons were fabrications, the public had not forgotten the panic caused by Sputnik I, launched by the USSR on October 4, 1957. President Eisenhower was bemused by all the hand-wringing and cries of doom, and impatient with the mad rush to drain the national treasury. Eisenhower knew that Sputnik was not a serious security threat because it could not be maneuvered in orbit, and that the US could have launched more sophisticated satellites before the Soviets. But the US had been concentrating its efforts on its missile system. Eisenhower was concerned with building a strong defense without getting deeply into debt. After that was in place he was interested in a modest space program, but insisted that it be strictly scientific. Perhaps in retrospect Eisenhower’s vision can be appreciated as being more accurate, but Kennedy’s hectoring of Eisenhower for a ‘Missile Gap’ and Sputnik was more persuasive, and probably was a decisive point in his election over Nixon. Why did the public believe Kennedy’s interpretation of looming catastrophe instead of accepting Eisenhower’s reasonable assessment of the facts?
