Fly Me To the Moon

Fly Me To the Moon

On November 21, 1962, the White House Cabinet Room became the setting for a pivotal and volatile meeting on the course of the U.S. space program. The main participants in the meeting were President John F. Kennedy and James Webb, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. At issue was the very purpose of NASA and its Apollo program, the project that sought to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.

Date:  Nov 21, 1962
Time:  10:00
Participants:  John Kennedy, James Webb, Robert Seamans, Hugh Dryden, Jerome Wiesner
Conversation Number:  Tape 63A

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(President Kennedy): Do you put this program-do you think this program is the top priority program of the agency?
(James "Jim" Webb): No sir, I do not. I think it is one of the top priority programs, but I think it's very important to recognize here, that as you have found what you could do with a rocket, as you find how you could get out beyond the earth's atmosphere and into space and make measurements... several scientific disciplines that are very powerful have begun to converge on this area.
(President Kennedy): Jim, I think it is the top priority. I think we ought to have that very clear. If you-some of these other programs can slip six months or nine months and nothing particularly is going to happen that's going to make-but this is important for political reasons, international political reasons, and for... this is, whether we like it or not, in a sense a race. If we go up second to the moon, it's nice but it's like being second any time, so that I-and if we're second by six months, because we didn't give it the kind of priority, then of course that would be very serious. So I think we have to take the view this is the top priority of it. It certainly is mine.
(James "Jim" Webb): But the environment of space is where you're gonna operate the Apollo and where you're going to do the landing.
(President Kennedy): No, but I know all these other things and the satellite-the communications and weather and all-they're desirable, but they can wait.
(James "Jim" Webb): Oh no, I'm not putting those-I'm talking about the scientific program to understand the space environment within which you've got to fly Apollo and make the landing on the moon. Un: That's part of the problem.
(President Kennedy): Is that saying-well, no, but wait a minute. Is that saying that the lunar program, to land a man on the moon, is the top priority of the agency, is it?
(Jerome "Jerry" Wiesner): And the science that goes with it.
(James "Jim" Webb): Well, I-yes, if you (unclear).
(President Kennedy): No, but I mean the science-
(Jerome "Jerry" Wiesner): -that is necessary. Un: Are you telling us it isn't?
(President Kennedy): The science... going to the moon is the top priority project. Now, there re a lot of related scientific information and development that will come from that, which are important. But the whole thrust of the agency, in my opinion, is the lunar program. The rest of it can wait six or nine months.
(James "Jim" Webb): Well, the trouble-Jerry's holding up his hand-let me say one thing and then maybe you want to reinforce it.
(President Kennedy): Jim Webb. Now wait a minute.
(James "Jim" Webb): Yeah. The thing that troubles me, here, about making such a flat statement as that, is number one, there are real unknowns as to whether man can live under the weightlessness condition and you will ever make the lunar landing. This is one kind of political vulnerability I'd like to avoid such a flat commitment to. If you say you've failed on your number one priority, this is something to think about. Now the second point is, that as we can go out and make measurements in space by being physically able to get there, the scientific work feeds the technology and the engineers begin to make better spacecraft. That gives you better instruments and a better chance to go out and learn more. Now, right now, all through our universities, some of the brilliant, able scientists are recognizing this and beginning to get into this area and you are generating here, on a national basis, an intellectual effort of the highest order of magnitude that I've seen develop in this country in the years I've been fooling around with national policy. Now to them, there is a real question-the people that are going to furnish the brainwork, the real brainwork on which the future space power of this nation for 25 or 100 years going to be based-have got some doubts about it and there are other parts of it-
(President Kennedy): Doubts about what? That this program-
(James "Jim" Webb): As to whether the actual landing on the moon is what you call the highest priority.
(President Kennedy): What do they think the highest priority is?
(James "Jim" Webb): They think the highest priority is to understand the environment and the areas of the laws of nature that operate out there as they apply backwards into space. You can say it this way, I think-and Jerry ought to talk on this rather than me-but the scientists in the nuclear field have penetrated right into the most minute areas, the nucleus and the subparticles of the nucleus. Now here out in the universe, you've got the same general kind of structure, but you can do it on a massive universal scale.
(President Kennedy): (Unclear) your point. I agree that we're interested in this, but we can wait six motnhs and all-
(James "Jim" Webb): But you have to use that information to (unclear.)
(President Kennedy): I know what they've been saying. Yeah, but only when-as that information directly applies to the program.
(Unclear.)
(President Kennedy): Jim, I think we've got to have that as (unclear.)
(Jerome "Jerry" Wiesner): May I say just one word, Mr. President? I don't think Jim understands some of the scientific problems that are associated with landing on the moon and this is what Dave Bell was trying to say and I'm trying to say. We don't know a damn thing about the surface of the moon and we're making the wildest guesses about how we're going to land on the moon. And we could get a terrible disaster from putting something down on the surface of the moon that's very different than what we think it is. And the scientific programs that find us that information have to have the highest priority but they are associated with the lunar program. The scientific programs that aren't associated with the lunar program can have any priority we please to give them.
(Robert Seamans): Could I object to that, Jerry?
(Jerome "Jerry" Wiesner):That's consistent with what the president was saying.
(Robert Seamans): Yeah. Yeah. Could I just say that I agree with what you say, Jerry, that we must gather a wide variety of scientific data in order to carry out the lunar mission. For example, we must know what conditions we'll find on the lunar surface. That's the reason that we are proceeding with Centaur, in order to get the Surveyor unmanned spacecraft to the moon in time that it could affect the design of the Apollo.
(President Kennedy): Yeah, the other thing is I would certainly not favor spending six or seven billion dollars to find out about space, no matter how, on the schedule we're doing. I'd spell it out over a five, ten year period. But we can spend it on-but why are we spending $10 million on getting fresh water from salt water when we're spending $7 billion to find out about space? So obviously you wouldn't put it on that priority except for the defense implication... and I'd... and the second point is the... the fact that the Soviet Union has made this a test of the systems. So that's why we're doing it. So I think we've got to take the view that this is the key program. And the rest of it, God... we can find out about it, but there's a lot of things we want to find out about.
(James "Jim" Webb): But you see, when-
(President Kennedy): Cancer and everything else.
(James "Jim" Webb): When you talk about this, it's very hard to draw a line between what's committed in the budget-
(President Kennedy): (Unclear) but I think that everything that we do ought to really be tied into getting onto the moon ahead of the Russians.
(James "Jim" Webb): Why can't it be tied to preeminence in space, which are your own words?
(President Kennedy): But you can't because by God, we keep-we've been telling everybody we're preeminent in space for five years and nobody believes us because they're-they have the booster and the satellite. We know all about the number of satellites we put up-the two or three times the number of the Soviet Union; we're ahead scientifically. It's like that instrument you've got at Stanford is costing us $125 million and everybody tells me that we're the number one in the world, and what is it-I can't even think what it is.
(Several voices say "accelerator" or "linear accelerator.")
(President Kennedy): Accelerator. That's wonderful, but nobody knows anything about it.
(James "Jim" Webb): Let me say it slightly different. The advanced Saturn is 85 times as powerful as the Atlas. Now, we are building a tremendous giant rocket with an index number of 85 if you give the Atlas "1."
Now, the Russians have had a booster that would lift 14,000 pounds into orbit. They've been very efficient and capable in it. The kinds of things that I'm talking about that give you preeminence in space are what permits you to make either that Russian booster or the advanced Saturn better than any other. A range of progress (unclear)Ğ
(President Kennedy): Well, we're not really talking about anything so much different. Now, the only thing I did... we're not going to settle the $400 million this morning. I want to take a look and talk to Dave Bell, but I do think we ought to get it, you know, really clear, that the policy ought to be that this is the top priority program of the agency and one of the two-except for defense-the top priority of the United States Government. I think that's the position we ought to take.
(President Kennedy): Now this may not change anything about that schedule, but at least we ought to be clear. Because otherwise we shouldn't be spending this kind of money, because I'm not that interested in space. I think it's good; I think we ought to know about it; we're ready to spend reasonable amounts of money. But we're talking about... we've spent half the expenditures, we've wrecked our budget and all these other domestic programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it in this pell-mell fashion is because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God we passed them. I think it would be a hell of a thing for us.
(James "Jim" Webb): I'd like to have more time to talk about that because there's a wide public sentiment coming along in this country for preeminence in space.
(President Kennedy): Yeah, but see you got to prove you're preeminent. Unless-this is the way to prove you're preeminent.
(James "Jim" Webb): If you've got an advanced Saturn rocket-
(President Kennedy):I understand that. But we do have to talk about this, because I think that if this affects in any way our sort of allocation of resource and all the rest then it is a substantive question and I think we've got to get it clarified. I'd like to have you tell me, in a brief, if you'd write me a letter, your views, because I'm not sure that we're far apart, but my... I think all these programs which contribute to the lunar program are... come within, or contribute significantly, or really in a sense-let's put it this way, are essential-put it that way-are essential to the success of the lunar program are justified. Those that are not essential to the lunar program, but help contribute over a broad spectrum to our preeminence in space, are secondary. That's my feeling about this.
(James "Jim" Webb): All right, sir, but let me say this. If I go out and say that this is the number one priority and everything else must give way to it, I'm going to lose an important element of support for your program and for your administration.
(President Kennedy): By whom? Who?
(James "Jim" Webb): By a large number of people.
(President Kennedy): Who? Who?
(James "Jim" Webb): Well, particularly the brainy people in industry and in the universities who are looking at a solid base. I'm going to lose-
(President Kennedy): Yeah, but we're not going to pay the kind of money that... to get that position... that we ought to do what we're spending. I'd say that the only reason you can justify spending this tremendous... Why spend five or six billion dollars a year, or whatever we're talking about, when all these other programs, we're starving them to death?
(James "Jim" Webb): Because in Berlin you've spent six billion a year adding to your military budget because the Russians acted the way they did. And I have some feeling that you might not have been as successful on Cuba if we hadn't flown John glenn and demonstrated we had a real overall technical capability here.
(President Kennedy): (unclear) I completely agree. That's why we want to put this program... That's the dramatic evidence: if we hadn't flown John Glenn you could be preeminent in space. I-
(James "Jim" Webb): But I didn't put him on the moon. I showed an ability.
(Unclear.)
(President Kennedy): (Unclear) for the time. You did what we needed to do for the time.
Un: I think you're right, Mr. President. We're not as far apart as this sounds, because the budget that they have submitted, for '64 (unclear.)
(President Kennedy): But let's just take-I know we don't want to-we're not far apart, I'm sure, and on the budget we may not be apart at all, but I do think at least we're in words somewhat apart and I'd like to get those words just the same.
(James "Jim" Webb): It is perfectly fine, I think-
(President Kennedy): Well, now how about you writing me and telling me how you-
(James "Jim" Webb): All right.
(President Kennedy): -what kind of... how you assign these priorities. Then perhaps I could write to you and give you my thoughts on it.
(James "Jim" Webb): All right. But I do think it certainly doesn't hurt us to have this kind of article that shows we are really going ahead with the program. I don't think it hurts the agency. I don't think it hurts at all for you as you have done several times, to say that's the number one. But I also think that as administrator, I've got to take a little broader view of all the publics here, including those that vote for these appropriations in the Congress. I mean, I don't think we've got to be using precisely the same words.
(Robert Seamans): Could I state my view of this? I believe that we proceeded on Mercury, and we're now proceeding on Gemini and Apollo, as the number one program in NASA. It has a DX priority; nothing else has a DX priority.
(James "Jim" Webb): and recommended $4.7 billion funds for it for 1962. That's a (unclear.)
(Robert Seamans): at the same time, when you say something has a top priority, in my view, it doesn't mean that you completely emasculate everything else if you run into budget problems on the Apollo and the Gemini. Because you could very rapidly completely eliminate your meteorological program, your communication program, and so on, if you took that to too great an extreme.
(James "Jim" Webb): And the advanced technology on which military power is going to be based.
(Hugh Dryden): Yeah, Mr. President, this is the issue: Suppose Holmes has an overrun of 500 million dollars. To reprogram 500 million dollars for the rest of the space program will just throw the whole thing all away. And I think this is the worry, if any, that's in Jim's mind about "top priority."
(President Kennedy): Well, let's-well, I think in the letter he ought to mention how the other programs, which the agency is carrying out, tie-in to the lunar program. What their connection is, and how essential they are to the target date we talked about, and if they are only indirectly related, what their contribution is to the general position in terms of space. Thank you very much.
(James "Jim" Webb): Thank you, Mr. President.