The Cold War origins of Kennedy's NASA space program

¶ … Maintain a Space Program

History of the Space Program

It all started in the early 60s when a former Massachusetts senator John F Kennedy ran for presidency flanked by Lyndon B. Johnson as a running mate. Kennedy's campaign strategy was hinged on his vicious attacks on the sitting president for failing Americans by sitting and watching as the country slid into socio economic abyss, locally and internationally. In particular, Fredrick Kennedy accused Eisenhower of staying lukewarm on the missile gap problem; a perceived lag by the U.S. to keep at par with their Russian counterparts in developing long-range missiles with robust destructive capacities. The latter accusation was later found to be false. He was vehemently opposed to the earlier ambitions by the communists to control the world. The installing of Fidel Castro as the de facto communist leader in Cuba was a great tinder in Kennedy's campaigns for the state seat, and against Eisenhower's party candidate Richard Nixon. Kennedy went on to win the election, albeit by a narrow number of votes; despite Richard Nixon's effort to defend Eisenhower's track record and the Republican Party. Kennedy won the election by extra 118 550 votes out of over 68 million votes that were cast in the election (Beschloss). Surprisingly, Kennedy showed little interest in the space program that had been initiated earlier by ambitious American dream proponents of adventure and discovery of the unknown worlds beyond the earth.

Conversely, Kennedy was in effect the Cold Warrior he had described his opponents to be; with unrelenting fervor for a piece of the pie in international politics. His most conspicuous focus was his efforts to uphold a balance of power by launching spirited exploits in far regions of the world away from America. He kept a keen eye on the Russian-American relations, while ensuring that he always got ahead of the game in cold war tactics.

The Soviet Union had been seen to be making leaps ahead of its main opponent and political rival, the U.S.A., because she had launched her first craft to space. This development forced President Kennedy to re-embark on the earlier American mission of exploring the unknown in space.

These developments were in response to what the American public expected. He consequently allocated a significant amount of the national budget to the NASA space exploration program. It is hard to precisely define NASA without the cold war shenanigans of the period. These political undercurrents served to develop NASA and its ambitious space explorations. Consequently, project Apollo was popularized as the central state exploration program. President Kennedy did not leave anything to chances, just to keep tabs on his enemies, during the cold war. He used the war as a reason to justify the prioritization of space exploration. He also focused more on the development of ICBMs and advancing the technologies that sought to build satellite reconnaissance systems (Logsdon).

Kennedy sought help to explore ways to develop the space program as he prepared to assume office. He set up a committee to collect and coordinate efforts to advance space explorations by the state. He chose Jerome B Wiesner to head the committee. Wiesner was by then the head of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as MIT. Wiesner later became the chief of PSAC, the President's Committee for Science Advise. He declared that the nation's prestige was a paramount consideration that could not be compromised. He expressed the need to overtake the Soviet Union with respect to space exploration efforts. This meant that the U.S.A. was supposed to spend immeasurable resources in space science research. He wrote a report to the president in January 1961 that space exploration was the focus of everyone around the world. He explained that the future positive image of the United States before the world was hinged on its ability to give the world more of space adventures and discoveries. In his plea, Wiesner emphasized to President Kennedy that there was need for the U.S. to explore more avenues for applying non-military space activities, such as the launching of satellites, communication and mapping. He underscored the need to use space exploration to safeguard the country military-wise. Wiesner downplayed the importance of a human space vehicle as had been earlier fathomed by space scientists in the U.S. He said that it was unlikely, then, to place man in space before the Soviet Union did so. He sought to convince America and its allies that it was more important for the U.S.A. to explore ways of using space exploration for state security purposes and for practical benefits to man. He further asked the U.S. to play a leading role in exploiting the established scientific research findings and take them to a higher level (J.B Wiesner).

President Kennedy received Wiesner's report, but was only willing to follow some of his recommendations. Kennedy had made a resolve to take the space exploration project much further than his predecessor had done. In a strange twist of events, Kennedy had more interest in taking man to space. This was a significant departure from what his science adviser and predecessor, the former president, had envisioned. President Kennedy's ambitions were fueled in part by the developments at NASA center. There were 7 astronauts being trained under the project Mercury. There was a lot of talk and excitement about this project. Kennedy was intent on helping it succeed, despite the odds.

Wiesner had explained to the president his role in promoting project Mercury. He cautioned the president that the importance of the project was blown out of proportion by the media. The public had been made to believe and indeed believed that taking man to space was the most important aspect of space exploration. Yet the realities pointed otherwise, explained Wiesner (J.B Wiesner 16). However, since Kennedy was a politician, he spared no opportunity to exploit popular support. He decided to pursue the goal of taking man to space just so his administration would gain mileage politically. Kennedy also understood the risk in pursuing the program. There was the possibility of the Project Mercury failing. There was also the real chance of astronauts crashing and getting killed in the experiment. Thirdly, it would be embarrassing if the Soviet was the first to take man to space before America. Kennedy addressed these concerns in his public speeches. He even offered cooperation with the Soviets and asked them to embrace cooperation, too, in the space exploration ventures. Indeed, Kennedy was so keen on realizing this dream of space flight and space exploration. All these moves were aimed at reducing the possible risks that project Mercury faced. He went on to address the Soviet Premier about the subject, and proposed cooperation in exploring the heavenly bodies. He is reported to have followed up on the request for cooperation with Russia, when he gave the State of the Union address, shortly after his conversation with Nikita Khrushchev. He particularly asked the Soviet leadership to join Americans in developing a weather monitoring and prediction space program. The need for exploring Mars and Venus was on his list of proposals for the Soviet Union. He was also quick to point out that the new horizons that space science was seeking to explore would be best used for peaceful reasons, and for the benefits of mankind rather than war. He pointed out that the exploration of the mentioned heavenly bodies would reveal deep seated secrets of the universe to man. He played his politics well on the world stage and created an impression of a statesman who sought peace rather than war. Analysts were fully aware of President Kennedy's political posturing. President Kennedy knew that the Soviet Premier was unlikely to accept his proposals, but he wanted the world on his side. He wanted to play the good man against Russian rivalry. The catch in his strategy was that the world would eventually see the Soviets as selfish people who wanted to exploit the benefits of outer space for war and selfish reasons. President Kennedy managed to punch holes in the goodwill and respect that the Soviet Union had earned from their successful launch of a spacecraft to the moon, earlier. On the other hand, President Kennedy knew that if the Soviet Union accepted his call for cooperation, it would look good to the world (NASA). Such a move would gesture to the world that the Soviet recognized the U.S. as an equal.

Benefits of Maintaining a National Space Program

The space age is ever more important; given the background of emerging technologies across the spectrum of human life and activity.

The Health Sphere

Early space scientists sought ways of capturing the accurate layout of the surface of the moon so as to enable them land securely. Consequently, digital imaging processing was born out of a NASA laboratory. They used these imaging technologies with computers to capture more accurate images of the moon and other space bodies. Later, medical research scientists realized that digital imaging can be used to capture clearer images of internal human organs for scientific analysis. Modern CT scans and Magnetic Resonance Imaging both use digital imaging technology.

Evolution of Medicine

The arrival of Dan Carter at NASA triggered a new perspective in the development of medicine for humans. He led a team of researchers to discover that components of albumin could be made with the help of crystals produced in space. Albumin is an essential protein in humans. This team of researchers is responsible for founding the Century Pharmaceuticals; a company that manufactures an important cancer treatment medicine that makes use of synthetic albumin and other combinations. The pharmaceutical company also manufactures an array of skin care formulas.

Developments in IT

Satellites launched by NASA were programmed to capture and store images of the earth's activities, including vegetation, oceanic activity, weather changes and other daily developments. This is a massive amount of data. In fact, NASA reports that the data is in the tune of approximately four and a half petabytes. By estimation, this is a humongous amount of data that would consume acres of space, if it was to be stored in paper form. In a bid to manage the huge amount of data generated by these space monitoring crafts, NASA worked with Archrivals Inc. to develop a storage system that could manage large volumes and still accord easy access and retrieval. Lately, the storage technology has been utilized by mobile phone companies, health care facilities and a range of business entities for data storage and retrieval from remote places. The data storage technology was inspired by NASA's need to create digital storage for large amounts of data.

Space Programs and Communication

If satellites were not there, communication in the world would probably be a century behind what it is now. The world relies on satellites for effective and fast communication. Some early communications companies, such as AT&T worked with NASA in the 60s to install satellites in the orbit. GPS systems, radio, television and mobile phone connectivity rely on satellites for effective communication. The GPS system was a gift from the sputnik mission of 1957. Radio frequency variations were the leading cue for the U.S. to discover where the Russian space craft was located in space. The Doppler Effect is based on the fact that changes in light or sound frequencies are indicative of a change in the position of the craft in space. Submarines now use this technology for naval navigation, without getting lost or losing track of their bearings. The Department of Defense started developing a GPS system for navigation, and launched it in 1978. It was fully completed in 1995.

Preservation and Maintenance of the Environment

The launch stand that was used in several Apollo missions was disassembled and left standing in the open. Years later, it was discovered that the stand had a poisonous coating of polychlorinated biphenyls, abbreviated as PCBs. The PCBs were beginning to seep into the soil and poisoning it. This incident led to research that culminated in the development of activated metal treatment that is now used to extract PCBs from paint, without scraping the paint from a surface. Agriculture has also benefited from notifications of this technology, and uses it to clear soils off poisonous chemicals.

Space Exploration and the Transport Sector

The material found on the parachute that took Vikings to Mars has been used to develop durable tires for automobiles. Good Year was the first to use the technology. It is now widely used to manufacture high quality tires by various tire manufacturing companies. The tires outlive the traditional counterparts by many years.

Safety Uses for the Public

The technology used to launch rockets far into space has been extrapolated to manage fires around the world. Orbital Technologies Cooperation worked with the Department of Defense to build fire extinguisher pumps that utilized the same technology to pump and break water into fine droplets, and put out fire remarkably fast. The pressure and the water form are cited as the main reason for the efficiency in these fire extinguishing pumps (Adamu).

Budget Citations in Opposing the Space Program- Financial Opposition

There were concerns by NASA leadership that the congress and the president might renege on supporting the project. Funding was a central element that would tilt the spoils in the programs objectives to launch in space. The chief of NASA at the time, made concerted efforts to get congress to commit to a long-term funding support for the program. These efforts were frequently met with indifferences.

The financial estimates for successfully launching Apollo 2 were in the range of 20 billion dollars. With some extrapolation, this figure is equivalent to approximately 200 billion dollars in the present day; inflation factors considered.

Owing to the concerns that were at the heart of the Space Center's chief, he designed a plan to exaggerate the figures so that if the state fell behind in funding, the Apollo project would still be completed successfully. Indeed, Webb's fears were soon confirmed, because the funding commitment was defaulted in the latter years of project development. NASA, under the leadership of Webb, managed through thick and thin, to complete the Project Apollo. The success is attributed to the healthy networks that Webb had with President Lyndon Johnson and members of the senate (Ezel). He fronted a 35 billion dollar funding request for the project so that it could be carried out through the seventies.

Generally, however, there were other reasons for the success of the Project Apollo. There was general paranoia among the populace about the progress of the Soviet Union in space exploration. Americans wanted to keep at pace in this new area of scientific dominance. Therefore, the project received support to guard the pride and security of the nation, against sworn rivals. NASA also knew that the project was tenable. However, they also recognized the need to accomplish their aims quickly. The budget, for instance, had multiplied many times over, between 1960 and 1965. This period saw an increase from 500 million dollars at the onset (1960) to 5.2 billion dollars in 1965. The funding from National Coffers constituted slightly over 5% of the total country's budget. More recent extrapolation suggests a budget of over 100 billion for NASA, if the funding would have been dine in recent years. It is also worth noting that a remarkable percentage of the budget allocation for NASA, half of it was dedicated to the human space-lift project. A huge percentage was directly spent on the Apollo project. Statistical data shows that NASA spent almost 27 billion dollars on the human space lift project; this figure excludes support and infrastructural costs. 20 billion, of the amount, was spent on Apollo (Ezel).

Webb used the opportunity to pursue other projects that were not directly in Apollo's pursuits. He, however, linked these to Apollo and claimed that they were Apollo support projects. In particular, projects such as Surveyor Satellite Probes, Ranger, and Lunar Orbiter, were incorporated in the Apollo budget. The reason for this was that Webb wanted to expand NASA and make it diverse, as opposed to just being attributed to Apollo.

Webb knew that for Apollo to succeed, he had to get involved in the Apollo politick. He made inroads and negotiated around and across divides, during President Kennedy's tenure. He understood that the whole funding issue was a matter of conceding and gaining ground at the same time (Lambright).

The end of the 60s was the culmination of achievements for NASA. The 60s were great years for project NASA. The space scientists could pat each others' backs for the achievements of the era. Most significant of these achievements is that in a span of about 10 years, the U.S. had overtaken their arch rivals, Russia and the Soviet Union, and became an undisputed leader in space exploration ventures. In 1969, NASA succeeded to take the first human spaceflight to the moon. There was hope that the next decade would see greater marvels for the Space Center. The Space Task Group gave the president the space exploration plan for NASA, for the next two decades succeeding 1969. There was a raft of proposals, including establishing a base on the moon, an orbital space for the earth, and a space station for the orbit, among others (NASA).