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

Exploring the Unknown
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how the funds could otherwise be used. Philip Abelson, editor of the prestigious
journal Science, reported that he had conducted a straw poll of “scientists not
connected by self-interest to NASA,” which had resulted in a 110 to 3 vote
against the program. In his testimony, Abelson suggested that “manned space
exploration has limited scientific value and has been accorded an importance
which is quite unrealistic,” and that the “diversion of talent to the space program
is having or will have direct and indirect damaging effects on almost every area
of science, technology, and medicine,” and might “delay conquest of cancer and
mental illness.” 41 Liberal Senator William Fulbright (D-AK), chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations, suggested “this allocation of priorities [to the
lunar program] is a recipe for disaster.” Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
writing in the widely-read Saturday Evening Post, stated that “this racing to the
moon, unavoidably wasting large sums and deepening our debt, is the wrong way
to go about it.” 42
In addition to these public declarations, there were private criticisms from
senior members of the U.S. science and technology community. As one example,
on 11 April 1963 Vannevar Bush, a highly respected man who had headed the
U.S. scientific effort during World War II and whose recommendations in his
famous report Science, the Endless Frontier had helped shape post-war government
support of science, wrote to James Webb (with whom he had worked when Harry
Truman was president and whom he knew well) saying: “the difficulty is that the
program, as it has been built up, is not sound. The sad fact is that the program is
more expensive than the country can now afford; its results, while interesting, are
secondary to our national welfare.” He added “while the scientific results of an
Apollo program would be real, I do not think that anyone would attempt to justify
an expenditure of 40 or 50 billion dollars to obtain them.” With respect to the
argument that Apollo would enhance national prestige, Bush thought that “the
courageous, and well conceived, way in which the president handled the threat
of missiles in Cuba advanced our national prestige far more than a dozen trips
to the moon. Having a large number of devoted Americans working unselfishly
in undeveloped countries is far more impressive than mere technical excellence.
We can advance our prestige by many means, but this way is immature in its
concept.” Bush told Webb “as a part of lowering taxes and putting our national
financial affairs in order, we should have the sense to cut back severely on our
rate of expenditure on space. As a corollary they could remove all dates from
plans for a trip to the moon; in fact, he could announce that no date will be set,
and no decision made to go to the moon, until many preliminary experiments
and analyses have rendered the situation far more clear than it is today.” (II-35)
41. Quoted in Logsdon, Decision, pp. 175–176.
42. Fulbright and Eisenhower are quoted in Dodd L. Harvey and Linda Ciccoritti, U.S.-Soviet
Cooperation in Space, (Miami: Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1974),
p. 113.