President Kennedy and the American space program, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination
The flights into space, especially the manned flights, brought science, technology and human courage to new horizons, which seemed beyond the limit of ability. However, with all the heroism of the astronauts, engineers, technicians, scientists and visionaries - the real force driving the processes is politics. The combination of events and the circumstances of his time placed US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was assassinated 50 years ago this week, at the crossroads of human space travel. In terms of space exploration, Kennedy was the right person, in the right place and at the right time - in his life and in his death.
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national honor
After the end of World War II, the era of the Cold War began. On the one hand (mainly the West): capitalism, democracy and the free world under the leadership of the USA. On the other hand - the totalitarian communist countries, under the iron rule of the Soviet Union. Four years after the end of the war, in 1949, the USSR caught up with the technological advantage of the USA, and developed its own nuclear bomb. The Americans advanced in the development of the hydrogen bomb in 1952, but a year later the Soviets also had such a bomb, and later even a more powerful bomb. When both sides have similar armaments, the advantage will be in the hands of whoever can launch more effectively, and for that missiles are needed. In the 50s, both superpowers worked on developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, ones that could carry a nuclear warhead straight to Moscow, Leningrad, Washington or New York. For such a missile to be truly effective, its fastest trajectory is outside the atmosphere. Therefore, at the same time as the development of military missiles, the two countries began to work on the development of a space program - missiles designed to launch satellites. So they still didn't foresee the amazing applications that satellites allow us today, but they understood that control of space would provide a military advantage, would indicate superiority in the field of missiles and would also bring great national prestige to a country that would reach a place that man had not reached before.
think big
In 1957, the USA suffered a severe blow to its prestige. On October 4.10, the USSR launched the first satellite - Sputnik. The Americans, who had been working on developing their own satellite, and several different rockets, were hard pressed, changed plans and launched their first satellite, Explorer, in January 1958. The Soviets maintained some advantage in space, but in April 1961, just three months after Kennedy entered the White House, they landed a blow you won More correctly: they launched a victorious blow, and were the first to send a man into space. Yuri Gagarin's flight stunned the world, and put the Americans into a certain panic. Less than a week passed, and the Americans suffered another severe setback from the Soviets - more precisely from their protégés in Cuba. A force of Cuban exiles trained in the US to overthrow Castro's regime was landed at the Bay of Pigs, but was defeated in battle. Two American ships were sunk, Castro maintained his position, and the young Kennedy's presidency was clouded by a heavy cloud at the very beginning of his term. The following month, the Americans restored their prestige and sent a man into space, but unlike the Soviet Gargin, which circled the Earth, Alan Shepard's American spacecraft only reached space and landed 15 minutes later. Kennedy realized that in order to improve his position and erase the advantage of the Soviets, he had to think big. Two and a half weeks after Shepard's flight (a month and a half after Gagarin's flight), Kennedy gave a special speech before both houses of Congress, announcing the ambitious goal of "landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and returning him safely."
Kennedy, of course, did not make the decision alone, and it was not pulled off by the mahout. He consulted with space experts, including the head of NASA, James Webb (after whom the space telescope that will replace "Hubble" will be named in a few years), economists and other experts. One of them was the rocket engineer Werner von Braun.
עAnd to the sea on a missile
Von Braun's story illustrates once again that politics may be stronger than any ideal. He was a German physicist and engineer, who developed for the Nazis the V2 missiles that were fired towards the end of World War II at London and Antwerp, and sowed destruction and carnage there. At the end of the war von Braun surrendered himself, along with his staff, to the American army. Instead of prosecuting them, the army transferred them to the US, equipped them with fake documents to hide their past and tied them to the American missile program. Soon Von Braun was the senior rocket engineer in the US, and led the development of the first rockets into space within the Air Force. Shortly after the establishment of the American space agency, NASA, in 1968, von Braun was transferred to it, along with his team, and continued to head the missile development system. Von Braun had a thorough understanding of how the Americans should reach deep space. In the first stage, the ability to launch into orbit around the Earth must be developed, then build a space station in such an orbit, and later send humans to the moon and Mars. Within the framework of the goal set by President Kennedy, NASA had to leap within eight years to the third phase of the program, even though it had not yet completed even the first.
A tall tree
Kennedy's challenge led to the launch of the "Apollo" program designed to land a man on the moon. Even before the Apollo spacecraft lifted off the drawing board, NASA ran the "Gemini" program, which was designed to test various technologies and intermediate stages that would be essential for the mission, such as assembling spacecraft. The Kennedy administration did everything in its power to promote the Apollo program, and opened its money taps in full force. At today's prices, the total funding of the "Apollo" program reached more than 200 billion dollars - roughly four times the annual budget of the State of Israel. However, the Soviets keep getting ahead of the Americans again and again. They successfully performed parallel flights of two spacecraft that passed each other in space (1962), launched the first woman into space (1963), launched spacecraft manned by more than one pilot (1964) and performed the first human exit from the spacecraft (1965). Towards the end of 1963, the president realized that he may have climbed too high a tree regarding the manned mission to the moon. The high security expenses, the complication of the situation in Vietnam and the huge costs of a project that has not yet produced results, led the president to start looking for ways to withdraw from the ambitious project, or at least to gather broad public support for it, fearing that Congress would decide to stop funding the adventure. However, before Kennedy had time to formulate a decision on the matter, the killer's bullets caught him on 22.11.63/XNUMX/XNUMX. From the point of view of the USA, shocked by the tragic and sudden end of the young president, victory over the USSR in the space race became a kind of unwritten will of the president.
the end of the race
The USA of President Johnson - who was a big supporter of the space program and of NASA - invested enormous resources in the "Apollo" program. At the same time, towards the completion of the "Gemini" missions, the Americans begin to overtake the Russians, and are the first to perform a successful rendezvous with a manned spacecraft (1965) and a successful docking of two spacecraft (1966, the pilot was Neil Armstrong, on his first space flight). Even the terrible disaster that befell the space agency in January 1967 - three astronauts burned to death in the Apollo 1 spacecraft on the launch pad - only delayed the flights, but did not stop them. In December 1968, the Americans launch the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon (Apollo-8). In the following months, NASA sends three more flights to the moon, with the third - Apollo 11 - completing the goal set by President Kennedy eight years earlier. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon - months ahead of the President's promised date. Ironically, the president who was awarded the success coupon was actually Richard Nixon, who lost to Kennedy in the 1960 election. Lyndon Johnson, the vice president who was appointed president after Kennedy's assassination and worked a lot to promote the space program, gave up running for president again, mainly due to the public protest towards him due to the US's bloody involvement in Vietnam. Nixon spoke with astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon, and said it was the most historic phone call ever made from the White House. However, the same Nixon is the one who will close in a short time the budgetary tap of the flights to the moon, which after the great victory became an unbearably heavy burden on the neck of the American taxpayer. In 1972, Nixon signed a historic decision - cooperation between the USA and the USSR in space, which led to a joint mission (Apollo-Soyuz, 1975), and in fact to the end of the historic race.
