An intriguing "what-if"....

Continuing with our construction of the
Space Program's foundation, we will now explore a tantalizing question: what if John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated?

The world would be a different place today, to be sure. But how different and the details of that difference, amount to pure speculation.

In the area of the Space Program, however, some evidence exists that Kennedy was open to adjustments to the path on which he had placed Project Apollo.

Dr. Dwayne Day wrote a piece on the subject some years ago. Apparently, there is a tape at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum of a meeting with James Webb that took place shortly before Kennedy's September 1963 address to the United Nations. The tape is inaccessible due to restrictions placed by the library. You can tell from his article that Dr. Day was frustrated by his inability to convince the library to grant him access to the tape. If you concede that presidents generally consult with their cabinet members, appointees and advisors before they publicly speak on a topic, then there is reason to believe the Webb meeting contains the basis and the thought processes that led to Kennedy's UN speech.

Why would the tape prove illuminating? From the available documentary evidence, Kennedy appears to look for options to the program of record. The UN speech is the most substantial indicator. And for the first time, we see a retrenchment on the unilateral nature of Project Apollo:

Finally, in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity—in the field of space—there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon. Space offers no problems of sovereignty; by resolution of this Assembly, the members of the United Nations have foresworn any claim to territorial rights in outer space or on celestial bodies, and declared that international law and the United Nations Charter will apply. Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries—indeed of all the world—cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all of our countries.

The available documentation trail is insufficient to conclusively determine how the Space Program would have been altered, had Kennedy not be killed two months later. As we know from the November 1962 meeting with Webb, Kennedy was concerned about the growning cost of the effort to put a man on the moon.

In late 1963, there was still no hard evidence that the Soviet Union was pursuing their own moon program. Without a strong sense of competition with the Soviets, it was going to be more and more difficult for Kennedy to justify funding Apollo at its current rate. Pretty soon, maybe in 1964, Congress would balk and begin to demand a decrease in Apollo expenditures. Perhaps to save face, or to create an alternative that could be ready to implement should the funding not arrive, Kennedy considered partnering with the Soviets for the moon.

A month before the UN speech, he spoke to Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin about cooperation in space. There are no quotes available from that exchange, but the fact that Kennedy engaged the Soviets on the option would indicate this might be a continued pursuit in the years to come.

It was not to be. After Kennedy's assassination, the Space Program galvanized and strode forward toward the moon, without international cooperation.

An observation put for by G. Ryan Faith in his recent summary of the Obama space plan (part 1, part 2) begs us to consider the different means of government motivation to continue, and finish, complex space projects. Mr. Faith describes the psychology of competition as it relates to the Space Program:

We have seen, at least during the Cold War, that competition can generate stronger support for space programs than the programs would otherwise normally enjoy, primarily because the existence of a competing space program provides an external confirmation of the value and validity of one’s own national space exploration program. Without some sort of external validation of the value of a space program, it becomes easier for skeptics to regard space exploration as something on par with a national quest to have the world’s largest ball of twine: a rather expensive and quite pointless exercise in gaining dominance in a field in which there is neither demand nor interest.

When faced with a lack of external validation through competition, there is an alternative:

If one does not have the ability to generate intense competition to support a national space program, the natural counterpart to competition—cooperation—becomes the next best alternative. International cooperation can validate a national space exploration effort, because cooperation implies some measure of international respect and recognition of the importance of one’s own efforts. Even if this validation is not sufficient in and of itself, the risk of being seen as having abandoned one’s own allies in their space exploration efforts makes cancellation of joint programs less attractive.

Therefore, it may be safe to surmise that if Kennedy had lived, and if Project Apollo had begun to experience financial jeopardy, then the international path might have ultimately saved the program and enabled man to walk on the moon. If that were the case, the first steps on the moon may have been simultaneously by both an astronaut and a cosmonaut. How might that have changed the shape of history...the speculation is endless - and largely pointless, except for potential lessons that might be gleaned from the exercise.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), announced in 1972 and flown in 1975, was the first large-scale occurrence of American-Soviet cooperation in Space. It would be almost twenty years later before the partnership continued, during the Shuttle-Mir program in the 1990's.

Kennedy's words at the UN in 1963 resonate today, although as an undercurrent. The International Space Station is functional and mostly complete because the program shifted from a unilateral project (under President Reagan it was called "Space Station Freedom") to a multinational project under President Clinton. Practically dead in the early 1990's, the project was salvaged only with the inclusion of international partners. And it was completed to its present state largely due to the inherent pressure by the international community on the US not to back out.

We will explore the true value and great potential of the ISS in future posts.

For now, let us remember that if we can't explore space alone, we can always explore it with international partners. That could be the difference between getting it done, or not even getting close to finish line.