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

Exploring the Unknown
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missions leading up to a lunar landing. The missions were designated by letters
of the alphabet:
C – test of the Apollo Command and Service module in low Earth orbit
D – test of the Apollo Command and Service and Lunar Modules in low
Earth orbit;
E – test of the Apollo Command and Service and Lunar Modules in a
mission beyond Earth orbit, but not headed to the Moon;
F – test of all equipment in lunar orbit;
G – lunar landing mission.
It was not clear as the year began whether following this schedule would
provide adequate assurance that the United States would reach the Moon before
the Soviet Union. Throughout the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
had closely monitored the progress of the Soviet space program. In the years
immediately following the 1961 Kennedy decision to go to the Moon, there was
no indication that the Soviet Union was developing the facilities and equipment
that would be required for a competitive lunar landing program. When Soviet
scientists in mid-1963 said that there was no Soviet lunar landing program, they
were correct. But earlier in 1963, U.S. satellites had detected what appeared
to be the beginning of a large construction project at the main Soviet launch
site, the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. By 1964,
construction of a large assembly building and two launch pads could be seen. It
was during that year that the Soviet leadership finally approved a Soviet Moon
program, but there were continuing bureaucratic battles inside of the Soviet
space community that slowed progress. The program also, it has been learned
in retrospect, never received adequate funding. By mid-1965, the Intelligence
Community had concluded that the Soviet Union did indeed have a lunar
program, but that it was not proceeding on a pace that was competitive with
Apollo. In December 1967, a U.S. satellite returned an image of a previously
unseen large booster on one of the new launch pads.
Throughout this period, James Webb was regularly briefed on the status
of the Soviet space effort. In 1964, and then with more frequency in 1966 and
subsequent years, Webb said publicly that the Soviet Union was developing a
launch vehicle with lifting capabilities larger than those of the Saturn V. The fact
that the Soviet Union seemed to indeed be racing the United States to the Moon
helped Webb politically as Apollo came under criticism in 1967 and 1968. 63
In fact, the reality was that by 1967 the Soviet Union was conducting two
lunar programs, one aimed at a lunar landing and a second, using a version of
63. This account of what the United States knew at the time about the Soviet space program
is based on Dwayne A. Day, “Webb’s Giant,” The Space Review, 19 July 2004, www.thespacereview.com/
article/188/1, (accessed September 6, 2006), Dwayne A. Day, “The Secret at Complex J,” Air Force
Magazine 87, no. 7 (July 2004): pp. 72–76 and Dwayne A. Day, “From the Shadows to the Stars: James
Webb’s Use of Intelligence Data in the Race to the Moon.” Air Power History 51, no.4 (Winter 2004):
30–39. For a discussion of what was later learned about the Soviet lunar effort, see John M. Logsdon
and Alain Dupas, “Was the Race to the Moon Real?”