The Long Space Age

by Alexander MacDonald

  That said, we must acknowledge that the military expenditures on space-related activities have often been dominant in the context of the U.S. government. General Bernard Schriever, often considered the “father of the U.S. missile program,” believed “the compelling motive for the development of space technology is the requirement for national defense.”5 In 1959, the House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration concluded that “outer space is fast becoming the heart and soul of advanced military science. It constitutes at once the threat and the defense of man’s existence on earth.” 6 Senator John Stennis, chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services 1969–1981, put it more bluntly: “Space technology will eventually become the dominant factor in determining our national and military strength. Whoever controls space controls the world.”7 More than fifty-five years after these statements and prognostications were made, strong cases can be made for them. Although detailed public data on military space budgets is scarce, it is evident that military space programs overtook expenditures on government civilian space programs in America in 1982 and, with the exception of the period from 1994 to 2001, have continued to remain higher. In 2012, total Department of Defense (DoD) space budgets, including the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Missile Defense Agency, the air force and other DoD forces, totaled $26.7 billion, at a time when NASA’s budget was $17.7 billion.8

  As Senator Stennis predicted, space technology has become a key asymmetric capability that the United States and other global powers seek to establish and maintain in order to enhance global reach and power. Satellite communications allow real-time communication with deployed forces; satellite remote sensing enables strategic and situational awareness as well as effective identification of tactical threats; Global Positioning System satellites allow precise knowledge of force deployment and logistics, as well as precision guidance for munitions to within one meter. These technologies have augmented American war-fighting capabilities: from the first uses of the CORONA and GRAB reconnaissance satellites in 1960, through the Vietnam War, where defense meteorological satellites were first used to coordinate bombing campaigns; from the effective use of communication satellites in the First Gulf War, to the introduction of GPS-guided munitions in NATO’s Serbia campaign; and up to the present, where Russia, the United States, and China are increasingly situating satellite capabilities at the heart of their command-and-control operations. All of this has also led to the development of antisatellite technologies. Concerns of a “Space Pearl Harbor” have been common within U.S. security circles, and, should a new global war begin with space powers on opposing sides, it seems likely that some of the opening shots will be in space.

  Against this backdrop, it may seem difficult to separate the space exploration endeavors from the military space endeavors, given that they use much of the same technology, infrastructure, and personnel. To do so requires close examination of the specific histories of individual projects. For example, the development of liquid-fuel rocketry in the United States took place primarily within the military departments of the Department of Defense, including the army, the navy, and later the air force. It was clear that ballistic missiles were an important military capability that had emerged in the Second World War. The initial liquid-fuel rocketry experiments included launching seized V-2 rockets, often involving many of the same German engineers that had originally built, designed, and operated the V-2. Each of the three armed forces competed for the operational and developmental lead on ballistic missiles. Military interest therefore unquestionably drove the demand for liquid-fuel rocketry in its early stages. However, the development of boosters larger than what was needed for intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) uses was cut short. When General Medaris, commander of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and von Braun’s commander, argued that work on a larger booster should proceed, he failed to get approval, as “he could not cite a specific military need that would be served.”9 Both he and von Braun argued that “control” of outer space would ultimately require the more powerful boosters, but the broader DoD appropriating community remained unconvinced. The Saturn booster program did receive official DoD authorization in 1958 but even after much lobbying by Medaris and von Braun, it received only negligible funds.10 In 1959, the DoD and NASA jointly endorsed a memorandum for President Eisenhower stating, “there is, at present, no clear military requirement for super boosters,” while there was “a definite need for a super booster for civilian exploration purposes.”11 The military did not demand the level of liquid-fuel rocket development that was required for human missions to the Moon. The conclusion of the top military officials was that large boosters were to be pursued only if future weapons-systems requirements should evolve to a point where this could be justified militarily.

  The Saturn program and the further development of the large liquid-fuel rockets required for the Apollo program were transferred to NASA. It is particularly notable that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who lent his support to the pursuit of the Apollo program, testified that there was no “man-on-the-Moon requirement” from a military perspective.12 There had been at least nominal cooperation between NASA and the DoD in the Gemini program, including the existence of a joint Gemini Program Planning Board “to ensure maximum attainment of objectives of value to both the NASA and the Department of Defense,” although no significant DoD resources, other than the time of the personnel on the committee, were involved. There was no similar arrangement for Apollo, however, “because it [was] a mission that does not appear to have possible military ramifications.”13 Ultimately, the development of the Saturn V booster—the most powerful liquid-fuel rocket yet built and used for the single most expensive space exploration project to date—was not a response to military demand for the technology or capability. While McNamara recommended the pursuit of a manned lunar landing in a paper that he and NASA administrator James Webb presented jointly to President Kennedy, he did so specifically because he believed that “this nation needs to make a positive decision to pursue space projects aimed at enhancing national prestige.”14 Although McNamara argued that the Apollo program was important in the context of national security, this was not linked directly to military utility but rather to its “prestige”—its ability to signal American superiority over the Soviet Union. His support as secretary of defense derived from a recognition of the signaling value of the investment, which in the rhetoric of the 1960s was referred to as prestige.

  Before considering further the impact of prestige, however, it is important to discuss briefly the fourth motivation identified in “Introduction to Outer Space,” that of progress in scientific knowledge. The political role that science plays, and should play, in determining funding for space exploration has long been one of the most debated topics in spaceflight. Unlike with military needs, space exploration often directly contributes to scientific progress by uncovering new phenomena and acquiring new data on known phenomena. Furthermore, many of the central figures of space exploration and space policy are themselves scientists, making it difficult to isolate and identify the particular influences of scientific motives.

  There are conflicting views expressed in the literature regarding the influence of scientific interests on space exploration policy. Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, president of the California Institute of Technology and a member of Eisenhower’s PSAC, initially believed that “the predominating and overpowering reason for developing a substantial program of space exploration is the vast new extension of our knowledge which this will yield.”15 It appears that Eisenhower initially agreed, although both he and DuBridge would later concede the importance of prestige.16 The secondary literature, however, has not lent much credence to the view that the government at the time conducted space exploration for scientific purposes. As Van Dyke put it, “no one who goes through the Congressional Record and the committee hearings and reports since Sputnik is likely to believe that this consideration [the expansion of huma
n knowledge] has ever been uppermost in Congress.”17 Nonetheless, it was convenient to emphasize science as an altruistic motive for efforts that were designed primarily as impressive and symbolic signals.

  The rhetoric of science ran high after the success of the Mercury program. Representative George Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics from 1961 to 1973, proclaimed on the success of John Glenn’s successful orbital flight that “This was in no way a stunt or an exhibition. It was . . . a great contribution to science. What we have seen today was a scientific experiment whose end object was not the entertainment of the people of this country and the world, although it means a lot to us in international prestige. That was not the end object either. Its end object is to wrest from space her secrets that can be used for the betterment of mankind.”18 John Glenn, however, undertook no scientific experiments and took no new scientific measurements while in orbit. Indeed, as Dr. Eberhardt Rechtin, at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory noted, “It is evident to most people, including most of the people in the Mercury program, that the ‘pure science’ in that program is zero.”19 Most writers of the political history of the space program have agreed on the limited role of science in setting the demand for human space exploration. Scientists in positions of budgetary and policy authority undeniably use the resources available to them to pursue scientific investigation and support the space science community—as had scientists in positions of authority at early American observatories. Indeed, the increasing size of the science budget within NASA over the past decades suggests that this trend has increased as political interest in the space program has declined. There is also a history of genuine, though varying, political interest in science for its own sake, either due to personal interest on the part of prominent politicians or due to the perceived downstream benefits of scientific research.20 Eisenhower believed that the scientific merit of Explorer 1 and its link to the International Geophysical Year merited serious government support, although not absolute priority, for the initiative.21 Science should thus indeed be considered one of the primary demands for space exploration, just as military and commercial applications are to be considered important motivations for space technology more generally. However, a demand for science was not the force that pushed forward the space race nor subsequent human spaceflight programs. For that, we must return to the third motive highlighted in “Introduction to Outer Space”: prestige.

  The importance of prestige in motivating space exploration was widely recognized by those observing the American space program in its early development. As but one example, Klaus Knorr, director of Princeton’s Center of International Studies, argued in 1960 that “scientific and technological prestige will be a major objective motivating nations to participate in and, indeed, try to excel in space activities. . . . Space activities being especially glamorous, considerable advantages of international prestige are likely to accrue to the nation which assumes leadership in this enterprise.”22 The principal actors in the early American space program—Eisenhower, Kennedy, McNamara, Johnson—also made frequent reference to prestige to describe the effects of and reasons for spaceflight. As a result, it is unsurprising that the concept has attained such a dominant explanatory role in the secondary literature. A review of the concept of prestige and its relevance to the space race will help explain its appeal.

  The most focused investigation of the role of prestige in the history of the American space program is Giles Alston’s 1990 Oxford dissertation “International Prestige and the American Space Programme.”23 Alston reviewed the academic literature on the phenomenon of prestige, drawing particular attention to the moral component implied in the concept. He notes how the difficulty of quantifying prestige has meant that it received little interest in the study of politics and international relations since the 1950s but that it had been a common subject of commentary and study in earlier periods. He reiterates the case that a competition for prestige was the dominant motivation for space activities during the space race—a view that was established in the earlier literature and that has continued since.

  “Prestige,” in its original usage, was at its root a type of illusion. The word had traditionally referred to a trick, such as the sleight of hand of a magician (as in “prestidigitation”), and its first modern usage in political terms was as a “dazzling influence,” specifically in reference to Napoleon during his Hundred Days in 1815.24 Drawing upon this etymological origin, F. S. Oliver noted that prestige “may be nothing more substantial than an effect produced upon the international imagination—in other words, an illusion . . . for the nation that possesses great prestige is thereby enabled to have its way, and to bring things to pass which it could never hope to achieve by its own forces.”25 E. H. Carr commented, “prestige means the recognition by other people of your strength. Prestige . . . is enormously important; for if your strength is recognized, you can generally achieve your aims without having to use it.”26 In an effort to determine the components of prestige, Shimbori and coauthors asked Japanese schoolchildren to rank countries and mention the first things that came to mind about them.27 From the study, relative weights for different factors and their contributions to prestige were derived: total economic factors had a multiplier of 3; international politics, a multiplier of 3; military capability, a multiplier of 1; artistic and scientific matters, a multiplier of 4; and international relations, a multiplier of 2. Although this result is certainly contingent upon the time (1961), place (Japan), and people (schoolchildren) involved, it suggests that achievements in science and art, both of which have reflections in space exploration, have the highest prestige multiplier. Space-related accomplishment clearly has all the attributes to achieve what Hans Morgenthau identified as the most important characteristic of international prestige, to “impress other nations with the power one’s own nation actually possesses, or with the power it believes, or wants the other nations to believe, it possesses.”28

  These descriptions capture the key elements to national prestige. It is a trait of a nation that can be measured by the perception of others regarding its possession of certain attributes. It is strongly associated with power but also contains a moral element. Its possession affords different treatment by others as compared with those that do not possess it, and it is perception-based to the extent that its recognition by others is the critical metric. Prestige, therefore, is not an inherent characteristic of a nation so much as it is a perceived one.

  The moral and the illusory elements of prestige have been closely linked in the literature on the application of the concept to the space race. The importance of the action being not just indicative of power but also, in its essence, “good” has been seen as a critical aspect of the political value of spaceflight activities. Lloyd Berkner, former chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, argued that a positive association with space exploration was nothing less than a result of human instinct: “Man prizes the idea of escape from the earth as the highest symbol of progress. Therefore, the nation that can capture and hold that symbol will carry the banner of world leadership. Consequently, leadership in space exploration has a real political meaning.”29 The nation-states that funded spaceflight projects were also quick to claim beneficent intentions for their actions—as emphasized in Nixon’s goodwill tour of Asia connected with the success of Apollo 11 and most obviously in the plaque on the base of the Apollo 11 landing module stating, “We came in peace for all mankind.” The Soviets made similar claims. Renowned African-American singer, civil rights activist, and communist sympathizer Paul Robeson was quoted in Pravda associating the flight of Yuri Gagarin and Vostok 1 with the contemporary struggles for independence in Africa: “Vostok flying over Africa is the light of the future freedom of the African continent, the source of faith and the strength of the millions of Africans fighting for their independence.”30 The propaganda machinery in the United States and the Soviet Union made effective use of space exploration as
a symbol of goodwill.31 The United States Information Agency (USIA) attempted to maximize the impact of U.S. successes with coordinated global campaigns. The ten-minute documentary “John Glenn Orbits the World” was distributed to 106 countries in thirty-two languages with an estimated international audience of over 200 million in the four months following the flight.32 The Friendship 7 capsule piloted by John Glenn was exhibited in nearly thirty cities around the world, including Mexico City, Accra, London, Colombo, and Tokyo.33 Two “Spacemobiles” with NASA-trained USIA officers toured Africa, Latin America, Europe, and India. Both sides made an active effort to imbue space exploration with positive meaning and moralistic associations around the world.

  There is a problem, however, with this interpretation of the moral value of spaceflight and with the concept of prestige more generally. The acts of landing on the Moon or launching a man into space are not particularly credible signals of goodwill, peace, or solidarity. Although individuals and states can claim positive intentions and motivations, there is little inherent in the acts themselves that makes such claims believable. This is part of the illusion and perceptual sleight of hand inherent in the political value attached to spaceflight “prestige.” The multibillion-dollar Apollo program, however, was not a grand illusion. While perception, specifically of global leadership, was indeed key to political support for spaceflight, an analysis in terms of prestige obfuscates the critical reason that spaceflight was able to foster this perception—the real, physical nature and technological complexity of the feats themselves. At its most basic level, the exploration of space is not a credible indication of positive moral intentions, nor is it sleight of hand; it is a complex and costly act that is a credible indicator of technical acumen, a capacity for brute force, and an abundance of resources and their centralized control. The credible transmission of this information—with all of the implications for geopolitical and economic power—is the root political value of spaceflight in the context of the Cold War. This is also the root of the concept of signaling. The political value of spaceflight is thus not its ability to effect the perception of global leadership in a vague, illusory manner through impressive and popular achievements. It is its ability to establish claims to technological and economic leadership through the credible signaling of these characteristics based on the difficult act of traveling into space.