Moon Shot: A Study in Political Confusion

The recent wide-ranging debate over the United States moon-shot and the importance of the space program seems to have confused the American people. Before the debate began this fall, most of the country enthusiastically supported the race to the moon against the Russians. Now that the fireworks are over, the United States is still officially in the race--but with very little backing and with questionable justification. The Administration has failed to convince critics of the moon program that the United States should land a man on the moon before 1970, or even that we should land one there at all.

Treated as a political problem, the confusion over the "moon shot" has stemmed from the huge gap between the professed goals of the Administration and Congress, and what their programs have actually accomplished. The House cut $612 million from the NASA appropriations bill last month but also reaffirmed its determination to race the Russians to the moon. Kennedy, in equally mysterious fashion offered to cooperate with the Russians at the United Nations, and then said his speech meant nothing when he returned to the White House. Neither the Administration nor Congress has made clear why the United States should reach the moon so quickly at so great a cost.

The confusion began on Sept. 20, when President Kennedy spoke to the United Nations. He suggested that the U.S. and the Soviet Union consider cooperating in the exploration of the moon. The speech surpriased nearly everyone, including many of Kennedy's most "intimate" advisers. Democratic Congressmen who had supported the President on the urgency of beating the Russians to the moon were especially perplexed, suddenly he didn't seem to care if we beat them or joined them.

After the U.N. speech, the Administration went out of its way to deny the proposal's importance. On his return to Washington, the President immediately wrote a letter to the chairman of the House independent offices subcommittee explaining that his U.N. proposal had no effect on the priority of the moon shot in U.S. research and development plans. One high Administration spokesman suggested that the proposal at the U.N. was "a master stroke of diplomacy;" the President had made a significant gesture of peaceful cooperation while managing to avoid any change in American policy. A better explanation of the speech's rationale was offered by John Finney in The Reporter. He said the proposal had been conceived the day before.

Russian Ploy

In equally paradoxial statements, the Administration denied the validity of evidence that Russia had bowed out of the moon race. It claimed that Premier Khrushchev's disavowal of Soviet interest in putting a man on the moon was only a ploy to slow down American efforts. This suggested that the Administration was anxious to continue using the word "race" regardless of Russian intentions.

Yet many critics of the program have wondered what the Administration would say if the Russians made it absolutely clear they had no intrest in reaching the moon, or if they accepted Kennedy's proposal for a joint effort. White House policy would apparently remain unchanged. In his press conference following Khrushchev's denial of lunar aspirations, Kennedy said the U.S. would continue its effort to reach the moon before 1970 no matter what.

Effect on Congress

Administration fuzziness seemed to have significant effects on Congress, where the lack of guidance on whom the U.S. was racing and what it was racing for began to make itself felt. On October 10, the House approved the appropriation committee's slash of NASA funds by a vote of 302 to 32. The House bill allotted $5.1 billion to NASA, a reduction of $612 million from the original budget request. Since the greatest portionof the cut was taken from funds for industry contracts and not from administrative funds, the House action will apparently cripple NASA plans to reach the moon by 1969 or early 1970.

The intentions of the House in making such crippling cuts were slightly ambiguous. The major concern of the Democratic majority on the independent offices subcommittee was to insure that the U.S. would reach the moon by 1969 as planned. They carefully examined NASA schedules and were convinced that their cuts would not prevent the fullfilment of that goal. They made the cuts only because they were convinced that any budget can be pared a little without doing significant damage. Yet the record of the subcommittee hearings also indicates that they hesitated to appropriate money for projects such as the development of the M-1 rocket, which were not yet ready for production. They wanted to defer part of the NASA request until the next fiscal year. In doing so, they appeared a little less impressed with the crucial need for immediate action on the moon program than before.

"Military Space Gap"

During the floor debate on the bill, several other questions were raised by opponents of the moon program questions which put more pressure on the Administration to clarify its space goals. A number of Republican representatives voiced the fear that a "military space gap" had grown, that the Russians were far ahead of the United States in the development of space for military purposes. They urged a greater cooperation between NASA and the Department of Defense on space research, leading to a militarily-oriented man in space program. They asked, in fact, that the Administration completely "reassess its priorities in space."

At the moment there is very little cooperation between NASA and the Department of Defense. The Pentagon has conspicuously avoided the exploration of offensive military potential in space, despite Congressional demands for such developments. According to Dr. Robert Hall, assistant to the Director of Space Engineering in the Pentagon U.S. military objectivesin space remain centirely "defensive." They include, for instance, the perfectionof communications and "spy" satellites as part of American's extensive warning system. Hall compared the warning satellites to a policeman patrolling his beat. "Neither is for strictly agressive purposes, but both are quite necessary."

Very little of the $1.7 billion Defense appropiation for space exploration is spent on research on space development; most is used for the mere construction of ground facilities like launching pads. Although the Pentagon is interested in several aspects of the moon program, it has left management of the project completely in NASA's hands. It has watched the development of the Gemini project closely, however, because it sees some future military uses of rendezvous-in-space techniques. The Pentagon has also followed the progress of large boosters like the Titan II and the Saturn V-although it is not really sure what their military potential will be.

Limits of Cooperation

There are some signs of closer collaboration between NASA and the Pentagon, however. The two agencies have recently negotiated an agressment to cooperate on the development of a manned space station to orbit the earth, since both see needs for the station and each wants to study its possibilities.

Much closer links between the two agencies are unlikely. The Defense Department encounters absoulutely no opposition from Congress on its Budget requests and its would prefer to avoid the troubles surrounding NASA projects. The House cuts in NASA's funds not only limited the possibility of reaching the moon by the end of the decade, but they also cut into almost all of the NASA programs.

To Choose A Target

These wide-spread effects of the lunar debate would probably have been avoided if the Administration had not begun the race to the moon in 1961 in the way it did. When the National Space and Aeronautics Council first advised the President on U.S. needs in space, it proposed a wide range of space research and development. Kennedy expressed his support for such general technological research, but wondered how to get Congressional approval of such large Budget requests. The Space Council suggested focusing development on any "arbitrary target"--such as the moon or a manned space station--as a way of simplifying the program in the eyes of Congress and the public. The President agreed, made space research a matter of national prestige, and received all the funds he wanted.

The fundamental goals of the NASA projects remained the same, however, NASA did not only want to reach the moon; it wanted to experiment with large rocket boosters, with various orbiting techniques, and with prolonged manned space flights. Administration spokesmen, following the promotion strategy they had been given, publicized only the need to land a man on the moon. Now that the public is no longer convinced that a race to the moon is necessary, the Administration has no framework of over-all space research to fall back on. The entire NASA program has been tied to the moon project, and has no recognized justification for its existence outside the moon-shot context. It is apparently much too late to convince Congress that peaceful research in space a side from the lunar project is a very important thing; the entire space program has been jeopardized as a result