Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

164 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age
as in so much of his political rhetoric, Kennedy appealed to (and helped
construct) notions of “manly” virtues: risk, adventure, difculty, competition.
he decried opponents as those who wanted “to rest, to wait.” he constituted
space travel within an inevitable trajectory of america’s historic mission to
move forward, to rise to challenges, to expand. 18 JFK’s exhortations to greatness
in individual character and in national purpose appear to have motivated many
americans on a personal level as well as a national one. “a lot of people worked
day and night” on NaSa projects, observed one aerospace executive. “We
were all swept up in it.” 19
John Kennedy’s inspirational phrase that americans would “pay any price”
in their struggle against communism applied quite literally to the early space
race. From 1961 to 1963, the NaSa budget soared from 1.7 billion to 3.8
billion to 5.7 billion; funding for NaSa surged to make its budget the fourth
largest among all government agencies. at the height of the apollo program,
NaSa and its contractors employed 430,000 people. 20
When Senator William proxmire (d-WI), a well-known budget hawk,
was asked about the huge expenditures for NaSa, he replied that government
revenues were increasing because of economic growth and “there was a feeling
that we wanted to maintain those revenues and not cut taxes. It was argued
what we should do, in order not to slow the economy by running surpluses,
was give a substantial amount back through revenue sharing. therefore, there
was funding available.” 21 Kennedy, of course, also sponsored a tax cut, pleasing
business both by tax-cutting and by ofering new contracting opportunities
from government-fnanced projects. In the economic thinking of the postwar
years, such governmental expenditures would stimulate greater levels of
growth that would, in turn, promote still higher levels of government revenue.
September 28, 2007). For background, see John M. logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon:
Project Apollo and the National Interest (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1970) and gretchen J. Van
dyke, “Sputnik: a political Symbol and tool in 1960 Campaign politics,” in Reconsidering
Sputnik, eds. launius, et al., pp. 363-400.
18. John W. Jordan, “Kennedy’s romantic Moon and Its rhetorical legacy for Space exploration,”
Rhetoric and Public Afairs, 6 no. 2 (2003): 209-231. Krug, Presidential Perspectives on Space Exploration,
pp. 30-42 and James lee Kaufman, Selling Outer Space: Kennedy, the Media, and Funding for Project
Apollo, 1961-1963 (tuscaloosa, al: University of alabama press, 1994) examine Kennedy’s
metaphors for space exploration.
19. Quoted in Crouch, Aiming for the Stars, p. 203.
20 . house Committee on Science and technology, Toward the Endless Frontier: History of the Committee
on Science and Technology (Washington, dC: government printing Ofce, 1980), pp.171-172 on
budget. Crouch, Aiming for the Stars, p. 203 on employees. James r. hansen, The Spacefight
Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo (Washington, dC: NaSa,
1995) provides a rich history of the technological and organizational challenges of spacefight by
focusing on one of NaSa’s space centers.
21. Quoted in Crouch, Aiming for the Stars, p. 203 from Wayne Biddle, “a great New enterprise,” Air
and Space Smithsonian 4 no. 7 (June/July,
1989): 32-33.