JFK and the Moon

Dr. Wernher Von Braun with President John Kennedy at the U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal in 1963, "feigning interest?"

Paul D. Spudis
The Once and Future Moon
Smithsonian Air & Space

The 50th anniversary of the tragic death of President John F. Kennedy has prompted examination of his presidential legacies and in particular, the role he played in our race to the Moon.  In an op-ed, Rand Simberg opines on how space buffs magnify and distort Kennedy’s space legacy – that in fact, JFK really didn’t care one whit for spaceflight and only challenged the Soviets to a Moon race for near-term, earthly political purposes.

No one conversant with the history of the Apollo program could seriously doubt that the impetus for setting the goal of a lunar landing within a decade was driven primarily by geopolitical considerations, rather than by a romantic notion of colonizing the Solar System.  But there’s a bit more to the story.  Simberg’s piece fails to recognize that close, hands-on experience with the unfamiliar often changes attitudes and that prejudices evolve over time.

Upon taking office, Kennedy had little interest in the space program but like Eisenhower with Sputnik, intervening events abruptly forced a change in his outlook.  In April 1961 Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth  – the first flight of a human in space – engulfing Kennedy in a press feeding frenzy as a triumphant Soviet Union laid claim to one of the most important laurels of the space age.  With recriminations still echoing throughout Washington, a second national security disaster emerged – the Bay of Pigs fiasco, a failed invasion of Cuba by American-sponsored anti-Castro exiles.  The new administration appeared both inept and indecisive.  The Gagarin space flight and the U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba occurred during the build-up of a devastating nuclear arsenal by the Soviet Union, amid bellicose pronouncements from its bombastic leader, Nikita Sergeivich Khrushchev – “We will bury you!”

June 3, 1961 - only two months following the Gagarin's pioneering orbital flight, and less than a month after Alan Shepard's 15 minute suborbital ride, President John Kennedy meets with Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev at the U. S. Embassy residence, Vienna, Austria [Deptartment of State/John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Boston].

Against this high-temperature political background, Kennedy looked for a significant technical project with which to challenge the Soviets.  Kennedy thought that the large-scale desalination of seawater would help win the hearts of emerging “Third World” nations.  A key consideration was choosing an effort that the Soviets could not win in the next few years.  True enough, space was not his original choice but in order to give the United States enough time to build up and use its industrial and technical might (as well as provide payback on politically realistic timescales), Kennedy needed a challenging long-term national goal.

By assigning his Vice-President Lyndon Baines Johnson to look into possible space projects and report back to him, Kennedy had placed the decision in the hands of someone already committed to an accelerated and vigorous space effort.  As Senate Majority Leader, Johnson – a vocal advocate for large-scale space projects – had previously helped shepherd the 1958 Space Act (that created NASA) though the Congress.  It was Johnson who asked NASA’s James Webb and Hugh Dryden for options.

In a memo to Johnson, Kennedy specifically asked,  “Is there a space program we can undertake and win?”   With Johnson’s committee working closely with Wernher von Braun on what was technically possible in the near- and far-terms, it became apparent that the Soviets had a clear advantage in rocket boosters, making any attempt to match Soviet space accomplishments in low Earth orbit within the next few years likely to fail.  On the other hand, if the U.S. were to pick a goal which neither country could achieve in the near-term, America’s edge in technology and resources might give them enough of an advantage to win in the long run – making it a real race.

A manned mission to the Moon emerged as the logical goal and was duly reported to the President.  Kennedy was willing but hesitant – initial cost estimates for Apollo were on the order of $40 billion (this was in a saner fiscal era, when a billion dollars meant real money).  Committing to spend that much, while not unprecedented, would give politicians of any stripe pause.  Nonetheless, Kennedy moved forward with the Moon landing challenge, announcing his initiative in a special Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961.

So we now have a picture of a U.S. President, due to political circumstances, forced into and agreeing to a program he was reluctant to undertake.  According to Simberg’s piece, this is the meaning of Apollo.  What’s missing is that (as they like to say in Washington) Kennedy “evolved” in his beliefs.  While initially willing (but cool) to the space program, his continued attention to “the race” over the remainder of his presidency suggests that he became more keenly interested over time.  Kennedy, often guided by von Braun who would brief him on technical details, made multiple visits to the new NASA field centers.  Kennedy became a “buff” – just like so many of us in the 1960s, drawn up in the excitement of the new space effort.  Enthralled by events like a static firing test of Saturn engines at the Marshall Space Flight Center in May of 1963, he began soaking up space knowledge.  He was hooked and in it to win it.

Kennedy’s speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962 has become inextricably tied to the American can-do spirit and cited whenever someone wants to capture the inherent romanticism and steely determination of the American effort.  Apollo was not some tiresome political task or a pork-shoveling boondoggle to JFK.  It was about winning a battle in a very real Cold War.  It is in this context that President Kennedy’s September 1963 offer to go to the Moon jointly with the Russians must be understood. Yet, part of a speech given at the United Nations, has been interpreted to show that Kennedy was ambivalent toward space and was attempting to dodge the heavy political and fiscal costs of building the Apollo system.  This notion has led some to surmise that had he lived, Kennedy would not have been as ardent a supporter of the space program as we space cadets believe that he was.

John Kennedy's seminal remarks at Rice University, Houston, Texas, September 12, 1962. It was this speech where, many believe, the 35th President succeeded in placing manned spaceflight in historic and definitively American context. "We choose to go to the Moon," he said, "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 we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win."

Words were effective weapons during the Cold War.  At every opportunity, Kennedy contrasted the open, non-military nature of the American space program with the secretive and presumably bellicose nature of the Soviet one.

This contrast was made explicit in Kennedy’s initial rationale for the lunar effort when he said, “Whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share” (emphasis added).  By 1963, Kennedy knew Khrushchev’s mind-set as well as any foreign leader.  He knew that Khrushchev and the rest of the Soviet Presidium would never accept a proposal for a joint lunar mission – they were suspicious, paranoid triumphalists, as their never-ending blitz of space propaganda illustrated.  Moreover, at this stage of the space race, the Soviets were clearly ahead, having racked up a number of headline-grabbing “firsts” including simultaneous multiple crews and spacecraft, four-day long missions, and orbiting the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova.

By making an offer for a joint American-Soviet lunar mission, Kennedy appeared reasonable and forthcoming.  “See?  America has nothing but peaceful intentions for space.  If our Soviet colleagues have similar intentions, as they claim, why do they not join us when we ask them to?”  Jack Kennedy, a decorated World War II veteran and the consummate Cold Warrior, knew how to play the propaganda card.  His offer did not represent a desire to back away from his U.S. commitment to space.  It was a calculated move by the United States in the ongoing war of words, threats and confrontations that constituted the Cold War.

It’s tempting to retrospectively apply today’s intellectual template to past events, but by doing so it distorts the historical record.  A look at Kennedy’s approach to the Soviet Union shows that his inclination was to confront them when necessary.  The Bay of Pigs fiasco early in his presidency followed by the Berlin crisis led Kennedy to believe that Khrushchev and the Soviets must be opposed on the world stage, up to and including space.  Initially cool to the very idea of human spaceflight, Kennedy took the concept to new heights of accomplishment by setting – and ultimately achieving – a goal that captured the imaginations of war-weary people around the world.

Originally published November 24, 2013 at his Smithsonian Air & Space blog The Once and Future Moon, Dr. Spudis is a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The opinions expressed are those of the author but are better informed than average.

Related:
John Kennedy's Final Address, Texas Hotel
Fort Worth, Texas, November 22, 1963

Former President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson witness the launch of Apollo 11 from the VIP stands at Kennedy Space Center, July 16, 1969 [NASA].

Hugh L. Dryden and the American Space Program

President John F. Kennedy is briefed by Wernher Von Braun (partly hidden) and Hugh Dryden (to the right of the President) at Pad B, Complex 37, Cape Canaveral, Florida, November 1963 [John F. Kennedy Presidential Library].

Paul D. Spudis

The Once & Future Moon

Smithsonian Air & Space

As a memorial to honor Neil Armstrong’s contributions to aeronautics and astronautics, a bill (HR 6612) was recently introduced by Congressman Kevin McCarthy and passed by the House of Representatives to change the name of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (a field center proximate to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert north of Los Angeles) to the Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center.  While I take a back seat to no one in regard to my respect and admiration for Neil and his life of accomplishment, I think that this effort is both mistaken and inappropriate.

Who was this Dryden guy anyway?  Hugh L. Dryden was an American aeronautical engineer who became the last head of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)* in 1947 and the first Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958.  Dryden had a long research career in the complexities of airflow and the boundary layer, critical subjects in the science of aerodynamics.  Dryden’s published work in this field became standard texts for upcoming aeronautical engineers and aircraft designers.  Dryden, a quiet man whose life story is filled with notable achievements and roles, took the lead in establishing the National Academy of Engineering, the sister entity of the National Academy of Science.

In 1958, an act of Congress established NASA which absorbed the NACA and its aeronautical research facilities, including the field centers of Langley Aeronautical Laboratory near Hampton VA, Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center in Cleveland OH, and Ames Research Center next to Moffett Field in CA.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower tapped T. Keith Glennan to be NASA’s first Administrator.  Hugh Dryden was asked to join the new agency as its first Deputy.  In his new role, Dryden was a key link to the immediate past, providing both institutional memory and continuity of service.  The NACA had been involved in space research, including the X-15 project, a rocket-powered, piloted aircraft capable of supersonic transport to the outer fringes of the atmosphere.  Neil Armstrong, a NACA test pilot, flew seven X-15 missions before his career as a NASA Gemini and Apollo astronaut.

Dryden and the NACA worked with the U.S. Air Force on the MISS (Man-In-Space-Soonest) project, which ultimately became Project Mercury, our first human spaceflight program.  This program was being developed and managed out of Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, a NACA facility.  The Space Task Group at Langley was headed by Bob Gilruth (later center director of Johnson Space Center), with Max Faget as one of his young, bright engineers grappling with the problems of hypersonic and orbital flight.

Hugh Dryden performed admirably the job of technocrat and manager during these early, exciting years, but perhaps his biggest contribution to space history is barely known.  The fate of Project Mercury was unknown in early 1961.  Recently sworn in as the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy seemed supportive of bold new technical endeavors but had been largely silent on his plans, if any, for the civil space program.  Although Kennedy made much about a supposed “missile gap” with the Soviet Union, this policy discussion was focused entirely on our parity in ICBM deployment (or rather, the alleged lack thereof).

This all changed in April of that fateful year.  The Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin on his single orbit flight, once again beating America to the punch by putting the first man in space.  In the same month, the United States suffered a humiliating military and diplomatic setback with the very public failure of an American-instigated invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.  The new President eagerly sought a high-visibility field of endeavor (preferably technological) in which America could demonstrate its superiority over the USSR.  Initially, the desalination of seawater was a leading candidate among the many projects Kennedy considered.  However, at the height of the Cold War, that challenge didn’t quite fill the bill.

On April 14, two days after Gagarin orbited the Earth, Kennedy met with his new NASA Administrator James Webb and his deputy, the holdover from the Eisenhower Administration, Hugh Dryden.  During this meeting, Dryden pointed out that while the Soviets could beat America to many different space “firsts,” a near-term human landing on the Moon was out of reach for both nations – that while declaring a “contest” with the Soviets on virtually any space goal ran the risk of America losing, odds were even for the first manned lunar landing.  America could not go to the Moon now, but likely we could within a few years.  Thus, if space was to be the chosen field for a superpower contest, Dryden believed the goal of a human lunar landing was the challenge we could win.

51 km-wide Dryden (33.215°S, 203.849°E), prominent among the craters named after Americans who pioneered lunar exploration in and around the Apollo basin. Simulated oblique view from 54 km altitude, LROC WAC mosaic over LOLA topography in NASA's ILIADS application [NASA/GSFC/LMMP/Arizona State University].

Kennedy received a detailed memorandum outlining all his space options from Vice President Lyndon Johnson on April 29, 1961, but Dryden had already forcefully made his case for a lunar landing to the President two weeks earlier.  It is often thought that Wernher von Braun was the one who convinced Kennedy that the Moon was the proper goal for Apollo, but Dryden had digested and presented von Braun’s technical arguments in policy terms that Kennedy could understand.  In the public’s mind, von Braun was “Dr. Space,” largely because of his work with Walt Disney in the 1950s popularizing the idea of space travel.  But it was Hugh Dryden who helped turn the dream of landing people on the Moon into a political commitment from the President and ultimately, a reality.

Hugh Dryden remained the Deputy Administrator of NASA until his untimely death in 1965.  He has been honored with a crater named for him on the Moon and as the namesake of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, an entirely appropriate memorial given his contributions to aeronautics and his key role in the establishment of the Apollo program.  He was at the right place (the White House) with the right President (Kennedy) at the right time (when America needed a challenging yet achievable space goal).  His life was one of service and excellence.  I think it does a disservice to the memory of Hugh Dryden to re-name the Dryden Flight Research Center and what’s more, I believe that Neil – the consummate gentleman – would also view HR 6612, the congressional bill passed to drop Dryden’s name and insert his in its stead, as unnecessary and wrong-headed.

I certainly agree that we should name a major facility for Neil Armstrong.   May I suggest that the first manned lunar outpost be named for Neil Armstrong – the first man to set foot on the Moon.

* Pronounced by saying each individual letter: “N-A-C-A,” not as a single word, as we do for its successor agency, NASA.

Originally published at his Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine blog "The Once and Future Moon," Dr. Spudis is a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The opinions expressed are those of the author and are better informed than average.

September 12, 1962

Some 50th Anniversary thoughts

President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) addresses a Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961, outlining his proposed commitment for the U.S. "of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth."

Paul D. Spudis
The Once & Future Moon
Smithsonian Air & Space

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s special address to Congress – a request for supplemental appropriation for a variety of projects but most famously remembered for the announcement of his Man-Moon-Decade goal of Project Apollo. That event, cited by space advocates and excerpted in space and history documentaries, is remembered as the pinnacle of American leadership in space policy.

When President Kennedy announced his Moon landing goal for America, no world power was capable of accomplishing such a feat. By winning the “Moon race,” America would demonstrate to the non-aligned (and supposedly undecided) world that a free, democratic system could win against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ repressive, communist regime. The Soviet’s then-advantage in rocketry did not give them a leg up on a manned race to the Moon as both countries would have to develop and build a new system to deliver men to the lunar surface. Congress and enthusiastic Americans accepted this audacious challenge, winning not only the race to the Moon (within the decade) but also developing a strong economy through technological and scientific breakthroughs.

The subsequent forty-year span since Apollo ended has seen space enthusiasts and policy makers searching for the “holy grail” of renewed greatness, believing (because of events following President Kennedy’s bold direction) that presidential statements can make it happen again. The most recent articulation of this belief comes from one of the most insightful students of the JFK decision, Prof. John Logsdon, whose new book (John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon) focuses on the Apollo decision and its subsequent impact on space policy. Logsdon places particular emphasis on a supposed change of heart by Kennedy after the Moon race was well underway. In citing two occasions where Kennedy publicly proposed to the Soviets that we go to the Moon together, Logsdon believes that had he lived, Kennedy would have retooled the race away from a nationalistic competition to joined hands with the Soviets in a cosmic Kumbaya reach for the Moon.

Though Logsdon recognizes that the unique aspect of Apollo came about as a manifestation of Cold War competition (something he believes does not prevail today), he sees JFK’s later comments regarding cooperation as providing us with the “holy grail” of continued space exploration going forward. “I kind of fall back on presidential leadership,” he said. “I doubt this is going to happen, but I would hope that on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s own speech, next Wednesday, President Obama has something positive to say about working together internationally to find a global strategy for exploration… I would not hold my breath on that happening, but something like that needs to be done.”

After years of reminding space students that the Apollo decision is not a good historical guide for setting a space agenda, Logsdon wants President Obama to resurrect space using the force of a Kennedyesque pronouncement – not as a national challenge, but as he believes Apollo would have developed had Kennedy lived to redirect it: an international project of cooperation that will financially support space exploration. By passing the JFK space leadership “torch” to President Obama, Logsdon envisions the Apollo presidential challenge resurrected and revitalized (this time to Mars, the long-held and sought after dream of many space advocates). But this vision rewrites history: Apollo wasn’t about space, it was about war, where presidential leadership is needed and required.

The problem with applying Logsdon’s reasoning to the current U.S. space policy morass is that, as with our endless debate about heavy lift vs. other launch vehicle options, it confuses means with ends. Whether we go into space with or without a bold presidential declaration is secondary to WHY we are doing it. Because we have not stated what we are trying to achieve, arguments about how we go about it, whether in terms of rockets, destinations, declarations or participants, leave us still sitting on the launch pad (soon, only on a Russian launch pad). Without an agreed upon national purpose, space has become a political toy, vulnerable to changes in direction with each new administration.

On the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s rightly famous speech, the real question before us remains unaddressed and in some respects, unasked. I ask it now: What are we trying to accomplish with our national civil space program? By answering that question and establishing a realistic and reachable national goal, America will establish a lasting space industry and presence, one undeterred or hobbled by changing political winds.

I have my own answer to this question, which I have discussed here and elsewhere in detail. Space development is an essential, irreplaceable part of everyday life in 21st Century America; we have charted a course whereby we must learn the skills of creating more capability in space, including the building and maintenance of larger, more capable space assets (as well as protecting existing ones). To proceed, we need a reusable and extensible Earth-Moon space transportation system. I believe that one can be created through the production and use of the material and energy resources of the Moon.

Such a transportation system will extend human reach into the Solar System beyond low Earth orbit. By demonstrating the viability of resource extraction off planet, individual and joint investments will materialize in many forms and from many sectors, spurring on a new and burgeoning space industry. This template contrasts significantly with an elitist, academic exercise in scientific data collection wrapped in the worn out mantra of “exciting” the public. Our national interests will be best served through cislunar development and space resource utilization.

If these are desirable goals, then how we go about achieving it can be the subject of legitimate debate. Until we address the objective of a large-scale national expenditure for space, presidential announcements will never possess the power or the effect Kennedy’s words had in bringing about a great era of American productivity and pride. The United States is at a critical crossroads. Will we lead or will we be content to follow?

Kennedy Library celebrates Apollo's 40th

"Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?"

The Rice students in the crowd cheered wildly, the schoolkids taken somewhat aback.

"We choose to go to the moon. We 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..."

John Kennedy, Rice Stadium
September 12, 1962
Video of the Address, Part 1 & Part 2

Paul Ring
Daily News Tribune

When President John F. Kennedy stood in front of Congress in May 1961 to propose "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth," the United States had just 15 minutes and 28 seconds of experience in space from the flight Alan Shepard's Friendship 7.

After the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1958 and the orbital flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Kennedy began looking for a way to best the USSR and show off America's technological prowess.

"The launch of Sputnik was a real wake-up call for America," said Stacey Bredhoff, curator of a new exhibit at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston. "The thought was if they could send a satellite into orbit," their missiles could reach the United States.

"President Kennedy sent out a memo asking, 'Do we have a chance of beating the Soviets (in space)?"' Bredhoff said.

That memo is on display next to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson's reply.

"...With a strong effort," the Vice President wrote, "the United States could conceivably be first (in a manned trip to the Moon) by 1966 or 1967."

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing, the Kennedy Library has launched "Moon Shot - JFK and Space Exploration" that tells the story of the earliest days of America's space race with the Soviet Union.

Read the article HERE.

Presidential Space Out

JCR Principal Investigator
Lunar Pioneer

Over at the Space Coalition, another report has been posted to show where the probable next U.S. president stands on space exploration, regarding federal spending in general and obligatory congratulations to NASA's on its 50th anniversary in particular.

In less than 100 days either Senator John McCain (R-AZ) or Senator Barack H. Obama (D-IL) will be president-elect of the United States.

Their positions will not decide which of the two will be elected, of course, but at least a hundred thousand among 140 million voters will cast ballots based these positions on America's steadfast commitment to manned space exploration. Both camps feel it is important enough for them to make their positions pretty clear. It wasn't always a priority in presidential politics.

Most reports posted in the blogosphere on McCain and Obama's respective visions for manned spaceflight have mostly been posted by younger Americans who, tending toward the fashionable and also the socially liberal, are loath to report Senator Obama's unconcealed hostility toward NASA and its present policy and seem equally unaware of the reason for the Illinois Senator's ambivalence toward NASA.

No effort better symbolizes "American Exceptionalism."

Senator McCain is presently an enthusiastic booster, though his statements reflect either an ignorance or indifference to certain details of NASA Space Exploration Policy, addressing as he or his Space Policy Guru does the supposed, impending Gap in NASA's logistic support for the International Space Station after Discovery and Atlantis are mothballed in 2010.

Neither nominee is thought likely to bring major changes to NASA or the immediate timetable of the Constellation program. After a divisive battle for the White House and Congress, it's unlikely either would expend precious First 100 Day political capital on making expensive quick changes in NASA's present commitments. The "Out Years," however, are a different story.

President Obama has made clear his belief that NASA no longer "inspires," and has said he would fund expanded social programs with a decade delay in manned lunar exploration, and increase international support, and his supporters in Congress hint at an increased reliance on "automation" in the design of the lunar South Pole-Aitken Station, scaling back permanent manned presence in favor of advances in virtualization. His overall statement ignores NASA's recent history since the Columbia disaster, however, as though the past seven years of near "sea change" in NASA's operations had never occurred.

Obama's statement on NASA seems better suited to 2000 than 2008.

President McCain's statement seems to show that its author is slightly shy of being fully-informed of NASA's full range of function, involving JPL and Aerospace as well as Outer Space, and some the fault for that belongs to the Agency. An increasingly atomized media has done a poor job also of reporting on SpaceX and the progress, even the existence, of NASA's funding for COTS.

Both candidates are in need of a full briefing on just what NASA is and does. Could either name four of NASA's operational centers? A reporter with nothing to lose could have a lot of fun asking some basic questions about the Apollo program, before being banned from the press plane.

Obama may have been just out of diapers when Dr. Armstrong stepped onto the Sea of Tranquillity in 1969. How much the first-term Illinois Senator could have been directly inspired by seeing this live on television past his bedtime is a mystery.

McCain, of course, was in a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam at the time. Just when and where he first received the news of Apollo 11 would be interesting to know, whether or not he heard the news from his brutal captors and what effect, if any, that news might have had on his jailer and fellow POW's should be a part of our national historic record.

McCain obviously knows what Obama and most Americans do not, that NASA is a creature of Congress, and is associated with presidents in our thinking only because of John Kennedy's remarkable Man on the Moon challenge in front of Congress in 1961. The assassination in 1963 made the matching of his challenge, its incredible fulfillment in those daring manned moon missions later during the Nixon Administration as much a memorial to America's lingering emotional trauma for a murdered president as they were demoralizing to the Soviet Union.

Lyndon Johnson, again, through Congress, was easily the most influential figure in NASA's history. This week NASA remembered President Eisenhower's signing of the NASA charter in 1958, but, as Senate majority leader, Johnson created NASA, and it was to Johnson that Eisenhower deferred.

The statements from McCain and Obama reflect popular opinion about the future of our manned space program as it was six months ago. Since then Congress, controlled by Obama's Democrats, has answered with a billion more in funding than NASA requested, in the midst of the most bitter partisanship in Congress since 1860 iconic Washington liberals like Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) "worked the pork" for Greenbelt through Appropriations.

And NASA is deliberately spread through the United States because Johnson, in designing NASA in the Senate, tied long-term self-interests in influential States to what he had to know would have to become long-term policy in a short-term nation. As Vice President Johnson led the rarely mentioned National Space Council he had created, and only later, as President he accelerated funding for Gemini and Apollo at a breakneck pace; almost too fast, in retrospect.

Johnson's personal interest in launch schedules in NASA's formative years, added to the legendary power of presidents over space policy. (He died a month after Apollo 17.)

Congress and its half-dozen Representatives of districts where NASA's centers are, and the Senators who represent Florida, Texas, California, Maryland, Ohio, Alabama, etc., together have much more to say about American space policy and funding for NASA than even NASA does, let alone the man or woman who, for a brief time, occupies the White House.