Cold War Space Policy

The United States has had a vastly changing national space policy during the cold war. The early cold war presidents such as Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had a very active and well-funded space policy compared to later cold war presidents. What caused each president to have a different policy and what shaped their views on space policy during the height of the cold war? What were the goals and outcomes of their policies? In the summer of 1958, through the singing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA came into existence. President Eisenhower, was skeptical but the Senate Majority leader and future President Lyndon Johnson, persuaded the President to support this bill. When first elected Eisenhower didn’t have much of
a policy regarding space exploration or man made flights, his lack of policy didn’t change throughout his time as President, mostly relying on Congress to take the lead. President Eisenhower was a proponent of small government and didn’t want to enter into a “space race” with the USSR. He led a very conservative and constrained policy, with manned missions being disapproved in favor of more scientific missions that were unmanned. He may of signed the bill to create NASA, but he didn’t provide it much funding and was slow in implanting any policy towards the new government agency. He would leave it up to his successors to put substance into the space program. In November 1960, JFK was elected President and according to Dennis Bonilla, Kennedy wasn’t going to make any bold moves regarding space.
In fact as an US Senator he was opposed to the Apollo program. But once again, now Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, stepped in. With the advice of the Vice-President, Kennedy had down a complete turn around from the time he was a senator to his first state of the union speech. In that speech he urged for international cooperation to sharing the new technology and knowledge, “Where nature makes natural allies of us all, we can demonstrate that beneficial relations are possible even with those with whom we most deeply disagree-and this must someday be the basis of world peace and world law.” This would be the theme of the Kennedy space policy, a peaceful program, with the US taking the lead internationally. A year later, President Kennedy perhaps gave the most famous speech in regards to space exploration. In September 1962 he said, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too”, in a speech in Rice Stadium in
Texas. While Kennedy was President, the NASA budget almost doubled in size. When he took office it was at less than 1% of the federal budget and why the time he was tragically assassinated in the fall of 1963, it was at 3.52% for 1964. He took the space program and NASA from a back-burner, low funded public government institution and made it a high national priority. Some people credit this change, to LBJ, who Kennedy put in personal charge of the nation's space program and was always a strong proponent of manned space flight and space exploration. While other attribute it to JFK wanting the prestige of beating the USSR to send people to the moon and back. The USSR sending Yuri Gagari to orbit the Earth makes the former explanation very plausible. Yuri was sent up in April and May JFK in an address to Congress announced his plans to go to the moon. Regardless of the reason it was during President Kennedy’s tenure that the US took a more active and leadership role in space exploration. Lyndon Johnson was NASA biggest ally and now he was President of the United States. It was Johnson who during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administration that pushed for NASA to move from a research and developmental role into a more operational role. Also during his Presidency, NASA received the biggest percentage of the US budget that it has every received, 4.41% in 1966. The early years of LBJ’s presidency were good for US space policy, the budget grew and so did national attention. While LBJ’s support for manned missions wouldn’t falter, his attention and priorities would change before he left the White House. Johnson told Senator McClellan “We should keep up” in reference to the US being behind in the space race with them. Johnson also wanted to keep space weapon free and signed into law the U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons in space. Johnson’s space policy was about catching up to the Soviet Union and keeping space a weapons free zone. Unfortunately for President Johnson and US space policy, other issues such as the Vietnam War and Johnson’s Great Society would push space policy to the back. The pursuit of the Great Society would take the President’s attention off of space and cause him to lower funding for NASA and other space programs despite his commitment to get ahead of the Soviet Union. The war in Vietnam was detrimental to Johnson’s space policy. By the end of his second term in 1969, NASA part of the federal budget was down to 2.31%. The military budget got bigger and one way to fund it was to take away from Great Society programs and from space programs. Despite the challenges he still remained committed to putting a man on the moon and provided that minimum amount of funding needed.
Even after Apollo 1, the president’s support for manned missions and getting to the moon never wavered. The war also, caused the administration to cancel projects beyond the Apollo program. According to author John M. Logson, “ NASA budget during the final years of his presidency began a precipitous downward slide…By the time he left office in January 1969, NASA was on the brink of accomplishing the goal set out for it almost eight years earlier, but the agency had no sense of what it would be asked to do once it had taken Americans to the moon.” It is very ironic that the person who was the biggest supporter of space missions from the beginning ended up starting the beginning of the end for big NASA budgets and a space policy that pushed for space exploration. And a little over a year after he left the White House, NASA landed on the moon in 1969 fulfilling JFK’s
vision. Richard Nixon was the sitting President when man landing on the moon. He continued the budget slide for NASA and by the time he left office it was less than one percent of the federal budget. In a March 7, 1970 statement, he set out a policy for space that has been in effect ever since: “We must think of [space activities] as part of a continuing process and not as a series of separate leaps, each requiring a massive concentration of energy. Space expenditures must take their proper place within a rigorous system of national priorities.” The cutting of the budget and lack of support for post Apollo programs, such as building space stations and missions to Mars was a big part of the Nixon space policy. With one big exception, in 1972 going against the advice of his advisers, Nixon approved the development of a crew carrying vehicle, the space shuttle. Showing that politics plays in the formation of space policy, many argue that Nixon approved of this to help him win re-election in 1972. The shuttle was going to be built in California, which held 45 electoral votes, this would help people keep their jobs. Again regardless of the motives Nixon helped shape US space policy for the next 30 years by agree to support the development of the space shuttle. The next two cold war Presidents Ford and Carter had little interest in space policy. That was evident in their lack of funding for NASA and their lack of vision for space policy. Ford was considered a supporter of NASA but he still gave the agency little attention. However, Carter is seen as the least supportive of any cold war President. Along with lower the budget even more, Carter also decided to go against NASA’s wishes to build five shuttles, instead he only approved of four with a five for spare parts. In the late 1970’s he also considered cutting the space shuttle program all together but he went along with his advisors, who warned him that the program was too far along to cut. Despite his lack of support President Carter still hoped for the first shuttle mission to take place during his Presidency, but like Johnson it was not to be. About a year after he left the first shuttle mission took place. President Reagan's policy wasn’t much different from Nixon’s policy. Public support for NASA and other space programs but with limited means and support. During his tenure the budget declined even further reaching a low of .75% of the federal budget in 1986, the lowest it ever got to until 2002. But like Nixon, Reagan supported one important project, the building of a space station. He had international support and domestic support for the project. But most of Reagan’s space policy is over shadowed by the Challenger incident. The Challenger accident led to a change in policy for Reagan when he decided to prohibit the use of the space shuttle to launch commercial communication satellites. During the cold war US space policy was used by each President to meet many goals. For some it was political for other it was a race against the Soviet Union. Through out the cold war US space policy saw highs and lows, and a varying array of different objectives. With NASA’s budget at about half a percent of the total federal budget it is hard to see NASA returning to its glory during the Kennedy and Johnson years.