by Robert Stone
“I’ll tell you what,” Minow replied. “If you teach me, and if you are right, I promise you I’ll get on it.”
As someone who’d practically flunked physics in college, Minow was a bit daunted by this new area of study. But he sensed that it might be something important.
Craven suggested Minow read two books by Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space and The Making of a Moon: The Story of the Earth Satellite Program. He also told his boss to take a trip to Bell Labs in New Jersey to see the prototype of something they were working on called Telstar, an experimental communications satellite developed with ATT in conjunction with the national post offices of the U.K. and France. The plan was to place it in orbit over the Atlantic Ocean to relay television pictures, telephone calls, and telegraph images from one continent to the other. Minow soon learned that everything Craven had told him was indeed correct and that the Russians weren’t working on anything remotely like this. At the height of the Cold War, communications satellites were a technology that had the potential to actually bring countries closer together, providing a dramatic demonstration of how the United States could use space for peaceful purposes.
In the immediate aftermath of Gagarin’s flight and the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy sent an April 20 memo to Vice President Johnson, directing him to recommend the best long-range American space initiative that would a) decisively surpass the Soviet Union, and b) demonstrably increase the United States’s standing in the eyes of the world. Kennedy said he was open to possible options including the construction of a space laboratory, a trip around the Moon, and an actual crewed moon landing. But weighing heavily on the fiscally conservative president was the expense of such an initiative. Estimates of between 20 and 40 billion dollars were being mentioned in the press that week. (Half a century later, this would be the modern equivalent of 140 to 280 billion dollars.)
Even before the news of the Bay of Pigs invasion broke, pressure had been building on Kennedy to counter the Soviet advances in space. NASA associate administrator Robert Seamans told the House’s Committee on Science and Astronautics only two days after Gagarin’s flight that NASA believed an emergency all-out national effort could get men to the Moon by the end of the decade, maybe as soon as 1967. But Seamans also criticized the Kennedy White House for its recent decision to cut 200 million dollars from the NASA budget for America’s piloted space program. News of Gagarin’s flight had come as a blow to others at NASA too. Robert Gilruth, the director of the Space Task Group assigned to putting the first American in space, had hoped to schedule the first piloted suborbital Mercury flight for March 1961, which would have beaten Gagarin into space. However, in this instance Gilruth had run into opposition from Wernher von Braun, who wanted one last unpiloted test of the combined Mercury Redstone before an astronaut was aboard. The missed opportunity felt like Sputnik all over again, although this time von Braun had been the voice of caution.
The press also revealed that, despite assurances that von Braun’s powerful Saturn rocket had been deemed a national priority, the government was refusing to approve paying any overtime on the project. “If we are going to get to the Moon first, then we are going to have to allow for some moonlighting,” an irritated congressman told reporters.
Questions about overtime on the Saturn project arose as Kennedy returned to face journalists at his next televised press conference, during the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs debacle. In contrast to his performance nine days earlier, the president’s delivery was defensive and uncertain. Even though he hoped to dramatically challenge the Soviet Union in space, he could make no announcement until Johnson gave him a solid recommendation and the expense could be justified.
The reporters began hammering him: “Mr. President, you don’t seem to be pushing the space program as energetically now as you suggested during the campaign. In view of the feelings of many people in this country that we must do everything we can to catch up with the Russians as soon as possible, do you anticipate applying any sort of crash program?”
“Mr. President, don’t you think we should try to get to the Moon before the Russians, if we can?”
Newspaper columnists were no less forgiving. The Pulitzer Prize–winning military editor of The New York Times declared in an opinion piece that there was an essential flaw in the nation’s space policy: a lack of urgency. He bemoaned that Kennedy appeared to be just as complacent as the Eisenhower administration had been. “So far, apparently, no one has been able to persuade President Kennedy of the tremendous political, psychological, and prestige importance, entirely apart from scientific and military results, of an impressive space achievement,” he pointed out, asserting that Soviet space accomplishments had damaged the image of American power abroad. “Only a decision at the top level that the United States will win this race [to the Moon]; only Presidential emphasis and direction will chart an American pathway to the stars.”
After receiving Kennedy’s memo, Johnson had spent three days in meetings with business leaders, Capitol Hill politicians, generals, and NASA officials to assess the feasibility of political, military, and corporate support for such a huge national undertaking. Notable among the trio of corporate businessmen Johnson had invited to these meetings was the president of CBS, the network that was to become most closely associated with television coverage of America’s space missions during the next decade.
Present, but largely silent, was the usually gregarious new administrator of NASA, James E. Webb. Webb’s appointment had been one of the last major administration positions announced by the Kennedy administration. Having little formal scientific or engineering training, Webb did not consider himself an ideal candidate for the administrator’s job. A veteran New Deal Democrat, he had been absent from Washington during the Eisenhower years, working for the oil industry in Oklahoma. By the time his name was suggested for the NASA post, it was rumored that seventeen candidates had already declined the job.
Webb noted that from the very first hour of the meetings with Johnson, the vice president was pressing to reach a consensus for a dramatic decision that he could give to Kennedy. The space-station idea was quickly eliminated, since there was a reasonable possibility that the final result would never live up to the exalted original concept; budgetary and technical constraints would likely produce something far less impressive than the initial proposal. On the other hand, the moon landing offered no possibility for half measures—either the country accomplished it or it did not. And if it could be achieved, America would demonstrate to the world it could do nearly anything in space.
Landing a man on the Moon would require an ambitious integration of the United States’s economy, educational community, and industry. It would be such a massive national undertaking that Johnson’s group of business and military advisers believed it was unlikely that the Russians could get there first. Moreover, since getting men to the Moon would require that both the Soviet Union and the United States develop an entirely new generation of heavy boosters, such an undertaking would nullify the Soviets’ earlier advantage in missile development. With von Braun’s Saturn already under way, this time the Soviets would be forced to play catch up. Von Braun’s rocket, coupled with the country’s superior industrial base and advanced technology, looked to set the stage for a realistic triumph.
On the third and final day of meetings, Johnson turned to the new NASA administrator and put him on the spot.
“Are you willing to undertake this?” Once again Webb’s response was silence. And then Johnson asked him a second time, “Are you ready to undertake it?”
Webb wasn’t concerned about developing the engineering and technology to land a man on the Moon. Rather, he was worried that the national uproar surrounding Gagarin’s flight would subside and the public’s interest would move elsewhere.
“Yes, sir,” Webb finally replied. “But there’s got to be political support over a long period of time. Like
ten years. And you and the president have to recognize that we can’t do this kind of thing without that continuing support. The one factor that’s come out of all the studies we’ve made of the large systems development since World War II is that support is the most important element in success. If the people who are doing it really feel they have strong support, you have a much better chance of getting it done.”
Leaving the meeting that afternoon, Webb and his associate administrator, Robert Seamans, walked through a parking lot and across Lafayette Square to the Dolley Madison House, the temporary home of NASA’s headquarters.
Stopping for a moment in the parking lot, Webb looked at Seamans. “Are you ready to take a contract to land a man on the Moon?”
Seamans thought about it briefly and then nodded. That was it.
Within a few hours Webb got back to Johnson. “I want you to know I’m all for this. I’m ready to go. But I must repeat to you that this will require the long-term support of you and President Kennedy. Otherwise, you will find [Defense Secretary] McNamara and me running like two foxes in front of two packs of hounds—the press and Congress—and we’ll surely be pulled down!”
At the same time as these decisive meetings of Lyndon Johnson’s group were taking place, the final launch preparations for the first piloted Mercury mission were playing out at Cape Canaveral. Important details about the mission remained shrouded from journalists covering the flight, particularly the identity of the first American to rocket into space. Weeks earlier NASA had announced that the pilot would be either John Glenn, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, or Alan Shepard. Since the introductory astronaut press conference two years earlier, John Glenn had been the media’s favorite. However, on the morning of the first launch attempt, the man in the silver pressure suit and helmet was revealed to be Alan Shepard. Glenn was his backup.
The sting of Gagarin’s flight, the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and memories of the Vanguard disaster three and a half years earlier had the Kennedy White House worrying about risking further embarrassment. At home in Ceylon, Arthur Clarke had the same dark thoughts. “If they kill one of the U.S. astronauts, it will be just like the Vanguard situation again,” he remarked.
Specific details about Yuri Gagarin’s flight remained scarce. Even in Russia, news of the flight had been kept entirely secret until its success was assured. No film or television footage of the launch had been released, nor did anyone outside of Russia have a clear idea what the Vostok 1 spacecraft even looked like. Such information was guarded under a veil of military secrecy for years following the flight. Instead of pictures of hardware, photographs of Gagarin’s smiling face told the visual story of the Soviet space program to the rest of the world.
For the preceding two years, NASA’s public-affairs officer, Paul Haney, had pushed to open press access to launch information, including allowing for live television broadcasts of the liftoffs. Military policy prohibited the distribution of any information unless it had been approved, and current protocol embargoed the release of launch information until the event had occurred. This led to embarrassing situations such as journalists witnessing the explosion of an unpiloted missile followed by press officers releasing previously approved statements that flew in the face of what they all had just seen. Haney had been arguing that this policy made the public-affairs officers look like idiots and fostered cynicism and derision.
Under NASA’s previous administrator, Haney had gotten nowhere when trying to change the policy. But once Webb arrived, Haney had been told to take it up with the White House, which he did. The week of Shepard’s flight, Haney picked up a ringing phone in the makeshift office of his Florida motel room. The voice on the other end of the line was the president’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, calling from outside Kennedy’s Oval Office.
White House press secretary Pierre Salinger then got on the line. “Paul, the president’s wondering about the escape rocket on the Mercury capsule.” Kennedy wanted to know what were the odds, in the event of an aborted launch, that Shepard might die as the nation watched the live broadcast on television. Haney told Salinger the solid-fuel escape rockets had a success rate of close to 98 percent. There was a pause, and a few seconds later Salinger said, “The president says go ahead. Give it a go. See if it works.”
Haney threw the telephone up in the air in jubilation and dinged a ceiling tile. The launch would be televised live to the nation. He later credited that moment as the phone call that put the NASA public-information program in business. There was never a signed policy document. When he later tried to obtain one, Salinger told him, “Oh, shit, we don’t sign this stuff. You did the right thing.”
With that single phone call, the president of the United States had given the green light to the world’s first space-age reality-television series. NASA immediately began working with the national television networks to allow live broadcasts of launches from Cape Canaveral, accompanied by audio commentary from the public-affairs office. The networks were unprepared. The mobile units were operating out of cars and campers parked among the coastal flora in the new press area. Camera tripods had been secured on the roofs of the stationary vehicles, and massive cables snaked through the grass.
The morning of Salinger’s and Haney’s phone call, a tiny one-line item appeared at the bottom of page 30 of The New York Times: “MOSCOW, April 30 (UPI)—M. Bobrov, research director of the Astronomical Council of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, hinted today that Russian astronauts had begun training to rocket around the Moon.” Lyndon Johnson was compiling his recommendation for the president while someone in the Soviet Union was attempting to give a clear indication that they were already training for a lunar mission. In the panic of that moment in Washington, few wanted to concede that this might be another Soviet bluff, while those pushing for a stepped-up space program saw little reason to voice any skepticism.
Five days later, on May 5, the three American television networks interrupted their morning game shows to broadcast live America’s first human space adventure. When CBS, NBC, and ABC broke into programming at 10:22 A.M., Alan Shepard was already lying on his back in Freedom 7, situated atop the Redstone rocket where he had been waiting for nearly four hours.
At 10:34 Eastern Daylight Time, the Redstone was seen lifting off the launchpad on live television. On CBS, correspondent Walter Cronkite was providing audio commentary from a station wagon parked in the press area.
In Evelyn Lincoln’s White House secretarial office, a portable black-and-white television with extended rabbit-ear antennae had been turned on. As the time of the launch approached, Lincoln interrupted a National Security Council meeting and a group of approximately twelve filed into her office, congregating near the doorway. Closest to Lincoln’s desk were President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson. To the side stood historian and special assistant to the president Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., assistant special counsel to the president Richard Goodwin, and assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Paul Nitze, a ring of pipe smoke surrounding his head. Briefly dropping by was the president’s brother Robert, who was carrying a sheaf of papers and had a pencil tucked behind his ear.
On the television broadcast, the commentary was provided by “the voice of Mercury Control,” Air Force lieutenant colonel John “Shorty” Powers, whose nickname came from his five-foot-six-inch height. Usually seen wearing a radio headset and holding a clipboard, Powers delivered his public-affairs announcements with a sharp staccato inflection that implied that what he had to say was almost as vital to the mission as was the astronaut riding in the space capsule.
As the Redstone lifted off, the three national networks relied on the image from their pool television camera, which shakily attempted to follow the rocket into the sky. In the background could be heard the sound of muted applause. Viewers watching on CBS heard Walter Cronkite shout, “The Redstone got away all right!…Go, go!”
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nbsp; At the White House, Jacqueline Kennedy, dressed for a formal event in white gloves and a pillbox hat, was in a room near Evelyn Lincoln’s office. Through the open doorway her husband suddenly called to her, “Come in and watch this!” She joined the group and looked on, leaning against one of the secretarial desks.
About one minute into the flight, Powers announced, “Freedom 7 reports the mission is A-OK, full go,” and he made reference to members of the control team also signaling “A-OK.” In fact, neither Shepard nor the control team had used the phrase. It was Powers’s own invention, which he employed at least ten times during the fifteen-minute flight. Over the course of the next few years, the expression became ubiquitous in American households and in advertising copy, with many erroneously believing it to be insider astronaut lingo.
Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Special Assistant to the President Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Admiral Arleigh Burke, President John F. Kennedy, and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy watch live television coverage of Alan Shepard’s Mercury flight in the president’s secretary’s office in the White House.
The brief flight of Freedom 7 sent the Mercury capsule on an arced path that brought Shepard 116 miles above the Earth, before heading back to a splashdown 302 miles from Cape Canaveral. Shepard was weightless for approximately five minutes, but in that time he completed a brief test of the spacecraft’s systems.
The three television networks interrupted scheduled programming for fourteen different special telecasts that day, including extended thirty-minute recaps in the evening. British television viewers saw a few brief seconds of the liftoff, sent slowly, frame-by-frame, via telephone cable about an hour later. The BBC also had a mobile unit standing by at New York’s international airport, where the American television network pool feed of the launch was recorded on videotape and then immediately placed on a commercial jet headed to London.
