Origins of the Space Race

Transcription

1 Paul M. Angle, The American Reader: From Columbus to Today (New York: Rand McNally, 1958), pp Origins of the Space Race What prompted the United States to venture into space? Viewpoint 1: While the Cold War directly induced the United States to develop a national space program, earlier efforts in science provided the critical foundation that enabled the American space program's initiation in the 1950s. Viewpoint 2: Although the timing of the space program was the result of Cold War considerations, the U.S. drive into space grew out of Americans' fascination with the frontier. INTRO: It is often useful to students to have a single moment to mark the beginning of a social or political trend. We frequently credit the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite as the inspiration of the American venture into space, and as the beginning of the space race between the United States and the U.S.S.R. Sputnik, it is argued, threatened American security and forced the United States to begin trying to catch up to the Russians, out of fear that the Soviets might be first to reach the moon or that they would gain control of outer space. There is some merit to this argument and to using the launch of Sputnik to mark the beginning of the space race. Some historians even see the space race as driven by Cold War fears. In these two essays, however, Amy Paige Snyder and Susan Landrum Mangus offer somewhat different perspectives. Neither would deny that the Cold War may have influenced the course of the space program, but both see much more important cultural elements at work. Snyder looks at the history of American interest in space and rocketry, seeing both as part of general human curiosity and scientific inquiry. Curiosity, not fear, motivated scientists to begin thinking of ways to conquer space. Mangus has another approach. The frontier has long defined America, at least according to historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner. Space was "the final frontier" (to quote from a popular 1960s television show) and conquest of the frontier was central to the American tradition. Scholars, as well as ordinary citizens, will argue, she says, whether or not a frontier ever actually existed, and what it meant if it did exist. Yet, the myth of the frontier sustained three centuries of American development and secured Americans in the belief that they were, in fact, different from other nations of the world. Snyder and Mangus both take a creative, cultural approach to the historic phenomenon of the space race. What motivated it? It seems far too simplistic to blame (or praise) Sputnik for sending Americans to the moon. Such an ambitious and costly enterprise needed more than fear to launch it. In the 1960s, as American society was torn apart by urban rioting, the sexual revolution, youth rebellion, and the Vietnam War, the space program offered Americans their few moments of hope and glory. Congress may have

2 paid for the space program partly out of a fear of the Soviets' technological advance, but the benefits came not in making the United States the masters of space, but in proving to all Americans, once again, that their nation could accomplish great things. Viewpoint 1: While the Cold War directly induced the United States to develop a national space program, earlier efforts in science provided the critical foundation that enabled the American space program's initiation in the 1950s. The vast majority of federal documents and historical literature on the origins of the U.S. space program suggests that the American people never would have approved the infusion of billions of public dollars into a program to build rocket boosters and send humans and satellites into space without the perceived need to ensure national security and to outdo the Soviet Union in technological capabilities. Indeed, only after World War II, when relations between the two superpowers soured and the Cold War ensued, did U.S. government officials realize the military and intelligence merits space offered the nation. During this time, military and civilian groups embarked on the development of rockets that could both deploy Earth-orbiting satellites and serve as missiles for national defense. Prospects of observing missile-building activities in the Soviet Union without infringing on Soviet airspace convinced the U.S. Army Air Forces to study the feasibility of developing a spy satellite starting in the late 1940s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower even approved the development and launch of a scientific Earth satellite to precede any intelligence satellites in order to first peacefully establish freedom of space, or the right of nations to fly satellites over any other country. When the Soviets beat the United States by putting the satellite Sputnik into orbit in 1957, the United States quickly passed legislation to create a permanent government space agency--the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)--and soon increased efforts to develop rocket technology. While the Cold War most certainly precipitated U.S. involvement in space activities that eventually led to the space race with the Soviet Union in the 1950s, it is inaccurate to credit the Cold War alone with bringing about the nation's achievements in space starting at this time. Although the U.S. government's willingness to provide major funding for space activities, and ultimately a permanent space program, derived from the desire to eclipse the Soviet Union in technological prowess, in truth American interest in space began to grow well before the Cold War began. The first federally funded space pursuits trace their origins to the labors of scientists, engineers, writers, and other visionaries who lived and worked both in the United States and abroad. Recognizing the efforts of those who pondered and experimented with space travel and exploration before the start of the U.S.-Soviet conflict forms the basis for a true appreciation of the Space Age: without the earlier dreams and endeavors of space enthusiasts to open up the space frontier, the U.S. space program may well never have commenced in response to tensions with the Soviet Union. In essence, pre-cold War efforts in three arenas--rocket science and technology, space science, and popular culture--provided the foundation from which the U.S space program of the 1950s was able to rise and earn public approval. Marveling about the tendency of humans to pursue means of reaching higher and higher altitudes, NASA's first space-science administrator, Homer E. Newell, pointed out

3 that "when men could leave the earth they would do so." By 1783 Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier of France confirmed this propensity when they successfully tested the first-ever hot-air balloon. Flight capability progressed, resulting in the development of balloons that attained greater heights and lofted scientific, and then human, payloads. Just as powered balloon flight became reality, Americans Orville and Wilbur Wright proved the ability of humans to leave the earth with a set of wings by flying the first airplane in In 1915 the U.S. government expressed its interest in keeping up in aviation technology by establishing a small federal agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, to perform aeronautics research. Other inventors were not content making trips several kilometers off the ground, but aspired to reach the heights of space in rockets. First developed as firecrackers and military weapons by the Chinese in the twelfth century and then used later in European military efforts, rockets captivated the attention of amateurs worldwide who dreamed of making spaceflight reality starting around the turn of the twentieth century. These pioneering rocketeers laid developmental groundwork without which the U.S. government never could have initiated a space program in the short time it did. Inspired by the writing of Jules Verne, Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is credited as the world's first theoretical rocket scientist. Self-educated in mathematics, physics, and astronomy, Tsiolkovsky published a paper in 1903 in which he put forth the basic theory of rocket propulsion. In later years he wrote about reaching outer space with multistage rockets and using artificial satellites as way stations for interplanetary flight. In Germany, Hermann Oberth considered the applications of rocket propulsion to spaceflight in his 1923 work, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space), garnering German interest in rocketry for military purposes. It was an American, Robert Goddard, who not only theorized about rocketry but actually built a working booster. After writing papers on the subject, Goddard succeeded in launching a homemade liquid-fueled rocket to fifty-six meters in While Goddard continued to develop even more powerful rockets, he never put many of his most ambitious ideas into practice because he refused to share his ideas with groups such as the American Rocket Society, one of the world's recently emergent rocket enthusiast organizations, which could have helped him find the financial support his ideas required. That in 1960 the U.S. government awarded the Goddard estate $1 million for the use of his patented rocket inventions emphasizes the significance of his contributions to rocket technology. Though rocketry in the United States lagged in comparison to efforts in Germany and the Soviet Union because of the government's lack of interest, World War II presented the nation with a cogent reason to increase rocket research and development. In 1939 the government funded the California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (which became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1944) to study the feasibility of using small rockets to assist the takeoff of heavily loaded planes from short runways. In 1945 the Caltech group developed the first American rocket for upper-atmosphere research, the WAC Corporal. National rocketry capabilities made enormous strides when at the end of the war the U.S. Army captured remaining German V-2 rockets--the liquid-fueled, ballistic missiles that had caused carnage in England and elsewhere. The army also brought rocket mastermind Wernher von Braun,

4 along with other German rocketeers, to the country to work on advanced weapons development. While the army had commissioned von Braun to focus primarily on ballistic missiles and not space rockets, the work that the army rocket team did--based on years of pioneering rocket studies worldwide--served as a ready source of technology to make spaceflight possible when the government made the decision to go. In addition, recognizing the extent of pre-cold War rocketry work gave government leaders the confidence they needed to go ahead with funding a large-scale space program. With a history even older than that of rocketry studies, human interest in astronomical science also paved the way for the U.S. space program in the 1950s. Since antiquity, civilizations around the globe have attempted to chart and study the nature of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars for scientific, practical, religious, and philosophical reasons. Many peoples erected great observatories for studying the cosmos. In the seventeenth century Galileo Galilei of Italy brought the heavens into closer view with his telescope. Well into the twentieth century astronomers have endeavored to make the skies more accessible, building telescopes with increasing magnifying and resolving power. By 1946 a Yale astronomer named Lyman Spitzer suggested that many scientific benefits would stem from putting a large optical telescope into Earth-orbiting space. Around the time that Spitzer put forth his vision, army officials offered scientists interested in studying the upper atmosphere an opportunity to place experiments aboard the V-2 rockets they had brought home from Germany and planned to test fire. Having begun to send experiments into the atmosphere on balloons at the turn of the century, researchers jumped at the chance to loft scientific instruments even higher. Over several years a tightly knit group of civilian and military scientists routinely selected experiments to be placed on the rockets to study upper-atmospheric characteristics, as well as solar radiation, the Earth's magnetic field at high altitudes, and cosmic rays. By the mid 1950s, scientists involved in upper atmosphere and astronomy studies suggested and received the opportunity to launch a scientific earth satellite into orbit--and at the same time significantly helped the government establish a permanent presence in space. The International Council of Scientific Unions had designated 1 July 1957 through 31 December 1958 an International Geophysical Year (IGY), in which scientists worldwide would initiate many studies of geophysical and atmospheric phenomena. In 1954 a group of researchers proposed that nations launch artificial satellites to study the earth. The international committee planning IGY approved the proposal, and the Soviet Union quickly announced its intention to deploy an IGY satellite. Eisenhower responded by formally committing the United States to scientific exploration of space. By first launching a scientific satellite, the United States, which had a reconnaissance satellite in the works during the mid 1950s, could establish freedom of space under peaceful auspices. Although the Soviet Union trumped the United States in achieving this precedent, it is important to recognize that without the IGY scientific satellite opportunity--which stemmed from the interests, determination, and previous work of space researchers--the nation might have faced difficulty in moving ahead with a large space program. The scientific pretext gave the budding national space program the peaceful and benevolent image Eisenhower felt was necessary for public approval at

5 home and abroad of the U.S. presence in space before it moved on to pursuing military space activities. The early years of scientific work also provided the nation with the capability to make a scientific satellite a physical reality. While prior technological and scientific efforts provided the knowledge and a publicly pleasing motive to establish a strong space program, the popular imagination also played a tremendous role in bringing the American space efforts to fruition. Literature on space travel dates to the seventeenth century, composed then of imaginary tales of traveling to the Moon by astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1634 and by writer Cyrano de Bergerac in Though the early works about space travel consisted of fictional accounts and often were scientifically implausible, they made the important contribution of expressing in words for the first time a fantastic and romantic vision of spaceflight. Later writers such as Verne and H. G. Wells combined this vision with scientifically valid considerations of the problems of spaceflight and the nature of other worlds in works that inspired Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, and Goddard. As if the writers were challenging them to validate their literary claims, rocketry pioneers labored to turn classics such as Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Edward Everett Hale's The Brick Moon (1869), and Wells's First Men on the Moon (1901) into physical existence. In the years following World War II, popular works on space exploration began to surge to the point that one could hardly browse in a bookstore or magazine shop, take in a movie on the big screen, or turn on the television without seeing space-related images. Creative works of this period portrayed space in multiple ways. Many writers, artists, and filmmakers depicted space as the next frontier for human exploration as well as a venue for wars of the future, while others reflected the postwar fear of nuclear holocaust in works about alien invasions from space and international struggles for control of the Moon. Writers such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke built bridges between science and fiction in their accounts of space travel. Newell considered Clarke's The Exploration of Space (1951) so technically valid that he called it the "blueprint of the space program to come." In the 1950s, Walt Disney populated the "Tomorrowland" region of his new theme park with simulated rocket and space-station rides to reflect and educate visitors about the coming Space Age. Wanting to convince the American people of the imminent reality of spaceflight and win their support for national space endeavors, von Braun and other scientists and engineers explained principles of spaceflight and shared their visions of space exploration in television appearances, public lectures, and articles in popular magazines. Thanks to the public-relations efforts of so many innovators and visionaries, space exploration was becoming part of American culture well before the federal government announced its plans to launch a satellite during IGY. No matter how the popular media depicted space--as a frontier to explore, a place for scientific experimentation, or a battleground for war--the public, as well as government officials, received the impression that space activities could serve the national interest. Although imagination alone did not serve as a justification for massive government spending on space activities, popular culture proved essential in preparing an otherwise uninformed American public to accept and encourage the government's decision to move ahead with feats in space.

6 Howard McCurdy points out in Space and the American Imagination (1997) that space enthusiasts who in the early 1950s pressed for a space program based on scientific and commercial merits could not convince the government to fund their idea. In the absence of a clear and vital national need, the United States simply was not prepared to embrace a program of space exploration. When the Cold War began to escalate and the federal government recognized a compelling reason to go into space, rockets and satellites and human flights to the Moon suddenly became a high national priority. However, just as the United States would not have embarked on a space program without the Cold War motive, the nation could not have successfully reached space had it not been for countless individuals so passionate about space exploration that they devoted their careers to sharing their visions with others and striving to make their dreams technically feasible. Indeed, political impetus represented only part of the formula leading to the creation of a formal U.S. space program: vision, incrementally improved technological capabilities, growing scientific interest, and creative expression comprised the other elements. Had these rudiments not developed and converged by the 1950s to provide such a strong foundation, it is quite unlikely that the United States would have possessed the ability at that time, as well as the drive, to rush headlong into space. -- Amy Paige Snyder, George Washington University Viewpoint 2: Although the timing of the space program was the result of Cold War considerations, the U.S. drive into space grew out of Americans' fascination with the frontier. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the United States committed to a national effort to explore space. The timing and sense of urgency of the space program were directly linked to the Soviet Union's early space achievements, but Cold War considerations failed to account for most Americans' enthusiasm for space exploration. Manned space flight, and particularly the goal of landing a man on the moon, captured American imaginations. Space exploration was an extension of the nation's frontier heritage, with all of the economic, political, and social benefits of past American frontiers. Americans defined the frontier broadly. It included much more than popular frontier symbols such as Daniel Boone, Conestoga wagons, cowboys and Indians, and pioneers. The frontier encompassed the whole experience of European expansion into North America, beginning with the first explorers to the New World (most often personified by Christopher Columbus), and continuing with English colonization and settlement starting in the seventeenth century. Exploration of the frontier was an "adventure," a feat performed by "courageous" men and women. At the same time, moreover, the frontier imagery that Americans used to describe the space program was a reflection of the continuing influence of Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis: the exploration of the space frontier could work as a safety valve to ameliorate economic and social problems within the United States. In short, the frontier had allowed Americans to develop a distinct identity, one that colored their perspective of the world. Space could serve the same purpose as had earlier American frontiers, rejuvenating the nation and safeguarding democracy for future generations.

7 Americans did not suddenly invent the concept of the frontier in the 1950s and 1960s to justify space exploration. Both popular and intellectual interpretations of the frontier myth evolved slowly over decades, reflecting the influence of literature, popular culture, and historical events. Since the frontier identity developed in such a slow manner, most Americans had come to believe in the myth without question--it had taken root in their subconsciousnesses. Turner's theories about the importance of the frontier put into words what many Americans had already come to believe. The frontier, as defined by Turner, has had a powerful grasp on the American imagination and cultural identity, especially its sense of exceptionalism. Speaking in 1893, Turner argued that the frontier "experience has been fundamental in the economic, political, and social characteristics of the American people and in the conceptions of their destiny." Frontier exploration had renewed and reinvented Americans, through its promotion of democracy, opportunity, and individuality. These beliefs made it easy for Americans to apply the frontier myth to space exploration. There was already a tradition of using the frontier myth to justify American policies in the past. Turner's thesis proved to be a useful justification for Progressive actions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Assimilation of the massive numbers of immigrants was essential to prevent societal conflict and threats to democracy, especially if the "free land" that the nation was based on had disappeared, as Turner had claimed. In the 1930s New Deal reformers also used frontier arguments to validate their programs. By the 1950s and 1960s new challenges, such as the Civil Rights movement and domestic turmoil over the U.S. role in Vietnam, seemingly threatened traditional American life once again. Many Americans welcomed space exploration as the new safety valve that would safeguard democratic ideals and hold society together. Historians of the American West have since challenged Turner's explanation of the nation's history, but few Americans beyond the academy have ever questioned its validity. Americans were exposed to the frontier myth as they went to school and through literature, television, and movies. Having accepted the premise of Turner's thesis, most Americans believed that the space frontier would rejuvenate the nation, economically, politically, and socially. It is unsurprising in this climate that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the presidents, Congress, and popular sources such as the media all utilized frontier language in justifications of the space program. In fact, it would have been more astonishing if they had not done so. While American perceptions of the frontier past were often inaccurate, sometimes what people believed to be true is as important as the truth itself. After all, it is those beliefs that influenced the way in which Americans viewed their present and future--particularly with regard to space exploration. NASA quickly incorporated frontier language into its discussions of the American space program. As the agency entrusted with carrying out the civilian space program, NASA faced several pressures. On the one hand, the agency had to develop the scientific and technical capabilities to explore space. On the other hand, NASA administrators also had to justify their spending and persuade their audience of the necessity of space exploration. It is in this second category that frontier rhetoric was prominent.

8 Just as the majority of Americans connected the importance of the frontier past to national character, NASA leadership also believed that the frontier had molded national identity in a special way, making the United States distinct within the world. This belief permeated agency discussions of its mission. Administrators introduced a version of Turner's frontier thesis to describe the benefits of investigating the new space "frontier" and employed popular frontier images to make the space program more exciting for their audience. They compared astronauts to frontiersmen, pioneers, and Columbus. They described space exploration as a "challenging adventure," something done by a "curious" and "courageous" people. At the same time, NASA leadership also argued that space would have an impact similar to that of earlier American frontiers, rejuvenating the American spirit, encouraging economic and technological growth, and protecting democratic values for future generations. Presidents, the Congress, and the majority of American citizens agreed and were convinced that space was the new frontier. Despite growing opposition to the amount of money spent on space exploration by the late 1960s and 1970s, most Americans still accepted NASA's view of America's legacy and its connections to space. From the onset of the space program, presidents have also had a major impact on how Americans have viewed space. As a key figure in the creation of space policy, the president influenced not only the way in which NASA administrators referred to their mission but also the manner in which other Americans, from congressmen to journalists and the general public, perceived space exploration. Presidents brought their own historical assumptions to their office, which also clearly influenced the way they viewed space. As a result, their views of the American space program were varied, and they prioritized space differently. With Dwight D. Eisenhower as the only exception, presidents since the 1940s have had one common aspect in their discussions of space exploration: the connection of space to the frontier past. The goals varied through the decades, space competition with the Soviet Union declined and eventually disappeared altogether, and NASA's popularity fluctuated; despite these changes, the one theme that remained constant was the comparison of space to the nineteenth-century frontier. Some presidents utilized this rhetoric more than others, but it never disappeared entirely. John F. Kennedy was the first president to connect space and the frontier past. Running for president in 1960 on the slogan "The New Frontier," Kennedy used the word frontier to describe American ventures on all fronts: science, technology, the economy, politics, and even social change. He charged Americans to follow the examples of their pioneer ancestors in tackling the challenges of the second half of the twentieth century. While his definition was based mostly on Turner's model, Kennedy also used popular frontier symbolism to support his points. He carried this rhetoric from his campaign into his presidency, making it the theme for all he tried to accomplish. It is no coincidence that space exploration became synonymous with the frontier during his presidency, since Kennedy instigated the major push for space exploration, with the specific goal of putting Americans on the Moon. His success with the frontier metaphor encouraged future presidents to follow his example.

9 From Kennedy onward, all of the presidents understood the connection between the frontier and space. As have most Americans, presidents looked to the exploration of space to help safeguard important aspects of the American character, especially in eras when domestic and political events had the potential to tear the nation apart. Although presidents prioritized space differently, they never ceased to describe the benefits of space exploration. The frequency of such references declined somewhat in the 1970s. Since frontier language was exciting, Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon used it to validate their space goals. Presidents in the 1970s downplayed the frontier element in their space discussions, significantly reducing the money spent on exploration, but in the 1980s Ronald Reagan focused American attention once again on the space frontier as part of his larger rhetorical strategy to increase national confidence. As the guardian of the national budget, the U.S. Congress has also had a significant impact upon the direction and scope of the American space program. At the same time, a variety of people influenced the way legislators thought about space. Often these groups used frontier references in their discussions of space exploration. NASA lobbied Congress, consistently utilizing frontier rhetoric in an attempt to gain maximum financial support for its missions. Journalists, scientists, and aerospace-industry experts also employed frontier imagery in justifying space exploration. Even many congressmen used frontier rhetoric to describe space policies, reflecting their own historical assumptions as well as other influences. There were limitations to the influence of frontier language on Congress. The widespread use of this discourse did not necessarily translate into more congressional support for NASA. Congress viewed space exploration as an important national venture, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the Soviet Union seemed superior to the United States in space technology. The 1960s and 1970s proved to be a much more difficult climate for NASA's ambitious goals. As the Vietnam War and Great Society programs required increasing amounts of funding, some legislators targeted NASA's budget for reduction. Congressmen cited polls of constituents who placed space much lower than most other national priorities. Increasingly, congressional space enthusiasts were in the minority, as critics wondered why so much money should be spent exploring the space frontier when so many problems needed to be solved back on Earth. Legislators and their constituents did not dispute the validity of the frontier analogy, but the space program seemed frivolous in comparison to these other concerns. Even American elation at the accomplishment of major space feats, such as the first moon landing, was not able to overcome the larger trend of reducing NASA's budget. The Cold War provided a nurturing environment for the American space program in the 1950s and 1960s, but U.S. competition with the Soviet Union cannot fully explain why Americans chose to explore space. The nation faced many challenges during this period, not only from the Soviet Union but also as a result of domestic changes, such as the Civil Rights movement and the Women's movement. In many respects, Americans faced an identity crisis. Just as earlier generations had relied on the frontier myth to reinforce national character in times of crisis, Americans in the 1950s and 1960s looked

10 to the space frontier as the solution to their problems, revitalizing the nation by strengthening the economy, society, and political system. -- Susan Landrum Mangus, Ohio State University