American Moonshot

by Douglas Brinkley

  Saturn V’s second stage would be manufactured by North American Aviation in Seal Beach, California, and its third stage would be built by Douglas Aircraft at Huntington Beach, California. Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of North America located near Los Angeles, supplied engines for the Saturn V: five of the F-1 type for the first stage; five of the J-2 design, using a different fuel mixture, for the second stage; and one J-2 for the third stage, which sent the future Apollo astronauts to the moon. Two hundred times heavier when assembled than von Braun’s V-2, the three-stage Saturn V rocket would stand 363 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. Numerous other auxiliary companies—including Collins Radio, and Minneapolis-Honeywell—also received lucrative NASA contracts for the Saturn V.

  Besides John Glenn’s successful Mercury mission, there had been another event in early 1962 that contributed mightily to JFK’s record level of popularity. On February 14, all three networks broadcast A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, an hour-long special in which Jacqueline Kennedy unveiled the just-renovated Executive Mansion. Solidifying the unique rapport the Kennedy family had with the American public, the First Lady made the $2 million restoration seem like a grand triumph, representing the nation’s history and esteemed place in the world. Her eyes bright and vivid, and displaying style, grace, and poise as she thoughtfully and politely guided viewers from room to room, the First Lady won over slews of new admirers from around the world. On the night of the broadcast, three out of four TVs in America were tuned in.

  Underneath all the New Frontier post-Glenn optimism and the First Lady’s refreshing elegance, the protracted crisis in Berlin still simmered. Although the possibility of a U.S.-Soviet war over the city had grown more remote, it remained Europe’s scariest Cold War hotspot. Every day of his presidency, Kennedy worried about the fate of West Berliners, and he was determined to keep NATO fortified. The U.S. State Department grappled on a daily basis with East Berliners engaged in escape attempts. On the broadest scale, fear of nuclear war was widespread. Convinced the Soviets would only respect American toughness, JFK endorsed a Pentagon recommendation to deploy von Braun–designed Jupiter nuclear-armed missiles in Turkey and Italy. All the while, the White House maintained a tactical back channel of diplomatic communication with the Kremlin. Out of the public glare, the Cold War rivals were at least covertly talking about cooperation in outer space and nuclear test bans, even as both pressed ahead with ICBM development and advanced reconnaissance systems that could be construed as “weaponizing space.”

  THROUGHOUT 1962, NASA continued to be the focus of federal space-related initiatives and congressional appropriations. The army was the most cooperative branch of the armed services in ceding the space initiative to NASA, acquiescing to NASA’s takeover of former army jewels such as Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The navy likewise agreed to leave the lion’s share of space research activities to NASA, though it stubbornly retained control over the development of an array of satellites, especially those designed for mapping and positioning.

  That left the air force, which was still unmollified about a civilian-run NASA. Its sticking point, as ever, was that space was air, and if the air force dominated the air, as its name affirmed, then it should dominate space as well. While the navy and army could move aside for NASA without losing much stature, the youngest military branch might easily have renamed itself the “space force” in order to drive its point home. Instead, it renamed the field in question, promoting the word aerospace to help justify expanding its aeronautical mission beyond the atmosphere. Determined not to be bigfooted by NASA, the air force hotly pursued Defense Department grants for major space probe and launch initiatives, especially for the continued development of the Dyna-Soar reusable rocket masterminded by ex-Peenemünder Walter Dornberger. According to the Kennedy administration’s guiding edict, space programs in any of the military branches had to be nonaggressive in nature. Peaceful space exploration had to be the modus operandi of space research—even if the potential for a more offensive military use was close at hand.

  Hoping for diplomatic negotiations that would prevent the militarization of space, Kennedy grasped at the trial balloon Khrushchev had sent up after Glenn’s Friendship 7 flight. On March 7, 1962, he wrote a three-page letter to the Soviet premier suggesting that the two superpowers “could render no greater service to mankind through our space programs than by the joint establishment of an early operational weather satellite system.” His feelers to Khrushchev mentioned future collaborations, such as the exchange of space-related equipment, scientific data, and aerospace personnel. Toward the end of his letter, Kennedy once again offered to share the glory, and the expense, of manned space exploration. “Some possibilities are not yet precisely identifiable,” Kennedy wrote, “but should become clear as the space programs of our two countries proceed. In the case of others[,] it may be possible to start planning together now. For example, we might cooperate in unmanned exploration of the lunar surface, or we might commence now the mutual definition of steps to be taken in sequence for an exhaustive scientific investigation of the planets Mars or Venus, including consideration of the possible utility of manned flight in such programs.”

  Kennedy didn’t specifically mention the demilitarization of space in this letter, but it was inherently on the negotiating table. Behind the scenes, the White House had made it well known to the USSR and Great Britain that the president was hungry for a nuclear test ban treaty. Furthermore, the State Department dangled before Khrushchev the possibility of joint U.S.-Soviet weather satellite systems, cooperation on mapping Earth’s magnetic fields from high altitudes, and shared data on space medicine being innovated at the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, in Texas. Even the possibility of a futuristic joint U.S.-Soviet manned flight to Mars or Venus was open to negotiation. On the peace offense, the surprisingly openhanded Kennedy boasted of NASA’s steady technological advancements, knowing full well that the Kremlin loathed and feared transparency. America continued broadcasting its Cape Canaveral satellite and manned space launches on live TV, while the Soviets maintained ironclad secrecy. The U.S. government’s message was crystal-clear: JFK’s New Frontier stood for freedom and openness. By contrast, the Kremlin was all about hidden totalitarian agendas. After John Glenn’s mission, a fair-minded judge could assert that the United States was beating the USSR in the race for global prestige.

  On the same day that Kennedy sent his friendly proposal to Khrushchev, he was asked at a news conference about the possibility of joint U.S.-Soviet exploration of outer space. The president referred to his March 7 letter and promised to release its contents. What Kennedy wanted the world to appreciate was that the United States thought of space as a peace initiative—but in reality, this was only half true.

  Khrushchev, fearful of being duped by the American leader, was less attached to the humanistic goal of reserving space for scientific exploration. Nevertheless, the Soviet desire for peace exemplified by the nuclear slogan “Let the atom be a worker, not a soldier” also applied to their space rockets, where excitement centered on the hope that they would blaze a trail of scientific research, not be destroyers of cities. But behind the scenes, the Soviets were willing to weaponize space, having begun high-altitude testing of nuclear bombs during the last half of 1961, extending a program of surface and air-dropped atmospheric tests that had resulted in 2,014 detonations between 1949 and 1962.

  Back in 1958, when Kennedy was running for reelection to the U.S. Senate, the Eisenhower administration had also detonated a series of nuclear warheads in space. At that time, the Soviets had taken the high road and chosen to impose a moratorium on themselves—which Khrushchev broke in late August 1961, under pressure from hard-line militarists. The Soviets’ first launch during Kennedy’s presidency exploded a nuclear warhead within Earth’s atmosphere. A pair of tests that followed in October broke through and detonated in outer space. After that, the Soviet tes
ts abruptly stopped. In the aftermath, Kennedy was determined not to allow the Soviets a technological advantage, yet he remained intent on brokering a ban on atmospheric nuclear testing, fearing another tit-for-tat dynamic that could lead to disaster. Careful never to describe the cosmos as a Cold War battlefield, Kennedy told Time’s Hugh Sidey, “Ever since the longbow, when man has developed new weapons and stockpiled them, somebody has come along and used them. I don’t know how we escape it with nuclear weapons.”

  When in December 1961 Khrushchev described how easily the Soviets could substitute nuclear explosives for cosmonauts in orbiting Vostok rockets, Kennedy grew alarmed. Space started approximately sixty-two miles above Earth—declared such by the founding director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Theodore von Kármán—and Kennedy wanted it maintained as a world peace demarcation line. Defense Secretary McNamara immediately authorized a leading Southern California think tank, the Aerospace Corporation, to work on a U.S. antiballistic missile defense system. By no coincidence, this company, founded only two years before in the midst of the Dyna-Soar’s development, was closely aligned with the air force. Within a few weeks, however, the president rethought the idea, rescinded the brief to Aerospace Corporation, and refocused on deescalating the Cold War in space—a wiser long-term policy objective, he believed, than diverting money to build a multibillion-dollar cocoon over American airspace. Nearly a quarter century later, President Ronald Reagan would propose a similar program, the Strategic Defense Initiative (popularly known as “Star Wars”), which would cost taxpayers at least $30 billion before being scrapped due to technical failures, budgetary constraints, and concerns that it could complicate arms-limitation talks. Under President Bill Clinton, however, SDI was reformed into the Ballistic Defense Organization. (The extent of U.S. defensive coverage today is classified. But, according to what is in the public domain, programs already in place provide detection and tracking capabilities, and ground- and sea-based interceptors can launch kinetic vehicles to collide with incoming ICBMs.)

  Kennedy devoted extensive time throughout early 1962 to conferring on the proper response to the Soviets’ atmospheric nuclear testing of the year before. Glenn Seaborg, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, became the president’s key advisor on the subject of renewed American testing in the upper atmosphere and beyond. Considered one of the most esteemed chemists in American history, Seaborg was a Nobel Prize winner for his early-1950s work on ten transuranium elements. JFK trusted Seaborg because he was passionate about the peaceful uses of atomic energy. “[The president] made it clear,” Seaborg recalled, “at every meeting during January, February, and March, that he had not yet made the definitive decision to resume tests.”

  According to Seaborg, Kennedy truly wanted to give Khrushchev every chance to agree to a nuclear test ban in 1962. There was no bluffing going on. Finally, in early April, the Kremlin announced its plan to renew testing at a later date. The president cringed with disapproval. Having failed to move U.S.-Soviet negotiations closer to a ban, and feeling backed into a corner, he reluctantly authorized a series of American atmospheric nuclear tests, the last of which would explode well into space. “On April 23, just two days before the opening of the test series, Secretary [of State Dean] Rusk called me to say that he had talked to the President who was at that time at Palm Beach,” recalled Seaborg, “and the President . . . should get in touch with Chairman Khrushchev to suggest that after the completion of the U.S. atmospheric test series and the presumed second Russian test series that we all expected would be undertaken, the two countries should sign a treaty banning atmospheric tests. This was one of the earliest indications of his thinking in that regard.” Disappointing peace activists, who had been counting on Kennedy to ban these high-radiation explosions, the administration was straddling the tricky line between the peaceful use of space and the air force’s desire to make it into a Cold War battlefield.

  When Kennedy learned that around two hundred executives from the defense industry, government, and local communities were meeting in Wilton, Connecticut, to discuss aerospace technology, he asked his advisor Roswell Gilpatric to deliver a major policy speech there. Gilpatric, who had served as undersecretary of the air force in the Truman administration, worked as a corporate lawyer in New York during the Eisenhower years. Now, as number two at the Pentagon, he had become indispensable to McNamara while earning the full confidence of the president. In fact, fearing that McNamara was inexperienced in foreign policy, JFK had handpicked Gilpatric to be his own private eyes and ears in the Pentagon.

  The first fifteen minutes of Gilpatric’s Wilton speech before these aerospace aficionados was boilerplate. But then, quite unexpectedly, he shifted gears and emphasized that the “long-standing proposal for cooperation with Russia was to ensure that space was used purely for peaceful purposes.” This was still, Gilpatric said, “the national goal.” Nevertheless, the United States would be “very ill-advised, if we did not hedge our bets. . . . We ought to be ready . . . [and] anticipate the ability of the Soviets at some time to use space offensively.” Gilpatric added that while the Pentagon hadn’t completed its strategic defense planning, he could foresee the development of “space systems which could be used to protect the peaceful or other defensive satellites now in operation.”

  Kennedy had adroitly used Gilpatric as a stalking horse to deliver a message to Khrushchev: the U.S. military-technology-industrial order was ready to meet any and all Soviet boasts and threats—even, if necessary, in outer space. In fact, the secretary of defense had already given the army top-secret authorization to proceed with the development of an antisatellite system under the name Mudflap. (This Defense Department directive was so secret that space historians question whether even the White House or air force was fully aware of it.) Gilpatric’s comments, however, were widely read. “The furor that greeted these reports was immense,” historian Paul Stares wrote in Space Weapons and US Strategy. “Not only did it appear to signal a reversal of the administration’s position on the peaceful exploitation of space, but it also seemed to members of Congress that the Defense Department was competing with NASA.”

  On May 13, three days after Gilpatric’s speech, Kennedy was at the first conference of the United Nations’ new eighteen-nation Disarmament Commission, in Geneva, Switzerland, preparing to propose a four-point plan to ensure peace in space. The initial business of the conference was a discussion of Soviet and U.S. draft treaties to ban all nuclear testing, but the president’s negotiations were soon bringing space into the discussion, and the domestic dustup over Gilpatric’s Wilton speech may have been timed to enhance the American negotiators’ proposals on space in general. For the time being, though, the USSR was unwilling to budge on nearly anything. “The reports from [our] representatives in Geneva during the spring of 1962,” said Seaborg, “reflected a strong sense of frustration and discouragement.”

  While the Soviets blocked progress on Kennedy’s efforts regarding the peaceful use of space, they accepted his open-handed proposal to cooperate in the management of weather satellites. In another friendly development, the Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov visited America with his wife, Tamara, in early May, and was greeted by a festive atmosphere of genuine admiration. The couple was hosted by John and Annie Glenn, who took them to see the memorials and museums on the capital’s National Mall. The Titovs were mobbed by adoring fans and space enthusiasts everywhere they went around the Tidal Basin. On May 3, the two astronauts had a private meeting at the White House with the president, who welcomed them in a statesmanlike way, heavier on diplomatic protocol than raw enthusiasm. But as positive as the satellite cooperation and Titov’s goodwill visit might have been, they proved only a temporary reprieve from the two superpowers’ head-on competition for space dominance.

  BY THE END of May, NASA was preparing for its next launch, which appeared at first glance to be a repeat of the Glenn mission: three orbits, with much the same equipment. However, the Mercury astronaut chosen,
Scott Carpenter, would be expected to perform additional tasks while in space. No “man in a can” or a glorified chimpanzee, Carpenter would conduct a greater number of scientific experiments than had been attempted on any previous Mercury mission.

  A native of Boulder, Colorado, Carpenter had won the coveted fourth astronaut slot after Deke Slayton was benched over medical concerns. A longtime navy test pilot known as the free spirit of the Mercury Seven, he was a natural flier, blessed with the ability to stay tranquil in high-tension situations. He had learned to fly planes over the Front Range of the Rockies, where weather patterns can shift dramatically. His Colorado upbringing may also have contributed to his ability to acclimate quickly to high-altitude situations without feeling lightheaded or oxygen hungry.

  During the Korean War, Carpenter had flown numerous reconnaissance and antisubmarine missions along both the Siberian and Chinese coasts. After three deployments, he returned stateside to serve at the Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River and, later, at the Navy Line School in Monterey, California. If Shepard, Grissom, and Glenn were renowned as fighter pilots, all steady hands with good judgment, Carpenter stood out for his phenomenal visual capabilities. As legend had it, from a cramped plane cockpit, he could see the minutest details at the most extreme ranges, a real asset in the high-altitude surveillance business.

  At 7:45 a.m. on May 24, President Kennedy watched from his White House bedroom as Carpenter’s Aurora 7 lifted off from Cape Canaveral; for the rest of the morning, the president darted out of meetings to catch further televised coverage. Television was indeed the magic machine of the era, bringing live events into the public’s living rooms. Carpenter’s three-orbit mission lasted almost five hours, his Mercury-Atlas 7 achieving a maximum altitude of 164 miles and an orbital velocity of 17,532 miles per hour. The number of flight “firsts” Carpenter accomplished included eating solid food in space and conducting successful experiments regarding liquid behavior in a weightless state. He took nineteen beautiful photographs of the flattened sun at orbit sunset. With his keen eyes, he identified particles of frozen liquid from outside the Aurora 7 and reported back to Mercury Control about the phenomenon. Chris Kraft, the Cape Canaveral flight director, thought that Carpenter conversed with himself too much, peering out the porthole, soaking up the sublime majesty of space. “He was completely ignoring our request to check his instruments,” Kraft later wrote. “I swore an oath that Scott Carpenter would never fly again. He didn’t.”