Xref: utzoo sci.space:31847 sci.astro:13894 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!Neon!jmc From: jmc@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro Subject: Re: IGY and the dawn of the Space Age Message-ID: Date: 18 Jun 91 00:08:33 GMT References: <1991Jun7.210944.22123@sequent.com> <30916@hydra.gatech.EDU> <140789@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <1991Jun17.235158.16273@sequent.com> Sender: news@neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System) Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Lines: 59 In-Reply-To: szabo@sequent.com's message of 17 Jun 91 23:51:58 GMT There is a gap in Nick Szabo's account of the early space age. The President's Scientific Advisory Committee, which recommended the Explorer project, successfully recommended that Explorer use hardware developed entirely separately from military hardware. The explicit hope was that this would serve as an example of separating civilian from military use of space and would influence the Soviet Union to do likewise. This had several consequences. 1. It didn't influence the Soviet Union in the slightest, since it was based on a considerable misconception of what the Soviet Union was like. 2. It required forbidding the von Braun group at Redstone from launching a satellite based on the Jupiter IRBM rocket. The von Braun group was ready much earlier. 3. It made the Explorer project one of minimal capability - 18 pounds - as compared to 200 and 2000 pounds for Sputniks I and II. I'm not sure the reason for this was entirely budgetary; I suspect PSAC felt that any space activity would be regarded as science fictionary and wanted to be modest to preserve respectability. 4. The shoestring Explorer project experience long delays and then failed spectacularly twice two months after Sputnik. 5. The von Braun group was given the go-ahead after Sputnik and successfully launched a satellite before the first successful Explorer launch. 6. Purity was abandoned completely after Sputnik. In my opinion, the main reason for the decline in space funding during and after Apollo was a major change in the American media triggered by the Vietnam War. The expectation of NASA and the Kennedy Administration was that success with Apollo would result in public enthusiasm for further manned exploration. Von Braun published an article about an expedition to Mars. I think they were right. However, by the time of the first moon landing, the mood of the media had completely changed. For example, Life Magazine chose as their main writer about the effort Norman Mailer. He referred to himself as Aquarius, sneered at the project and the astronauts and chose as the butt of his ridicule a Redstone engineering manager named George Mueller who had come from Germany with von Braun. Recall that George McGovern said that if he were elected President in 1972 and if Apollo were launched in late December before he took office, there wouldn't be any aircraft carriers to pick up the astronauts after he took office. I think it was a joke. Fortunately, Nixon was re-elected. -- John McCarthy "The people of the antipodes, gazing at the moon when for us it is only a small crescent, remark, 'What a splendid brightness! It's nearly full moon'" - Stendhal, Memoirs of an Egotist