Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

2 First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
to place a satellite in orbit around Earth and, ultimately, to place a human in a
capsule for orbital activities. In 1946, for instance, the forerunner of the Rand
Corporation completed an engineering analysis of an Earth satellite vehicle
for the Army Air Forces, finding important military support functions possible
ranging from weather forecasting to secure global communications to strategic
reconnaissance. 4 Later, military analysts thought there might be a role for piloted
military missions in space, and that, along with the exploration imperative, drove
efforts to make human spaceflight a reality. By the middle part of the 1950s, the
spaceflight advocacy community was actively advocating, as later ensconced in
the NASA long-range plan of 1959, “the manned exploration of the Moon and
nearby planets.” They called for the “first launching in a program leading to
manned circumlunar flight and to a permanent near-Earth space station” that
would make a human mission to the Moon possible. 5
The von Braun Paradigm
All of the prospective futures for the near term contemplated by spaceflight
pioneers ended with a human expedition to Mars. Without question, the most
powerful vision of spaceflight since the early 1950s has been that articulated by
Wernher von Braun, one of the most important rocket developers and champions
of space exploration during the period between the 1930s and the 1970s.
Working for the German Army between 1934 and 1945, von Braun led the technical
effort to develop the V-2, the first ballistic missile, and deliberately surrendered
to the Americans at the close of World War II because he said he desired
to work for a rich and benevolent uncle, in this case Uncle Sam. For 15 years
after World War II, von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the develop ment of
ballistic missiles. Von Braun became one of the most prominent spokesmen of
space exploration in the U.S. in the 1950s. In 1952 he gained note as a participant
in an important symposium dedicated to the subject and he gained notoriety
among the public in the fall of 1952 with a series of articles in Collier’s, a pop u­
lar weekly periodical of the era. He also became a house hold name following his
appearance on three Disney tele vi sion shows dedicated to space exploration in
the mid-1950s. 6 Indeed, no one became more significant as an advocate for space
4. Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc., “Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling
Spaceship,” Report No. SM-11827, 2 May 1946. Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection,
NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
5. Office of Program Planning and Evaluation, “The Long Range Plan of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration,” 16 December 1959, document III-2 in James M. Logsdon,
gen. ed., with Linda J. Lear, Jannelle Warren Findley, Ray A. Williamson, Dwayne A. Day, Exploring
the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume I, Organizing for
Exploration (Washington, DC: NASA Special Publication 4407, 1995), pp. 403–407.
6. See Erik Bergaust, Wernher von Braun (Washington, DC: National Space Institute, 1976); Ernst
Stuhlinger, Frederick I. Ordway, III, Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space, 2 vols. (Malabar, FL: Krieger
Publishing Co., 1994). See Michael J. Neufeld, Wernher von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). Also see the Collier’s series of articles conveniently reprinted in
Cornelius Ryan, ed., Across the Space Frontier (New York: Viking Press, 1952); and Cornelius Ryan, ed.,
Conquest of the Moon (New York: Viking Press, 1953). The three Disney programs have recently been