Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Washington Goes To The Moon PART 1

PART 1
(TAPE - Astronauts report it feels good. T-minus 25 seconds. 20 seconds and counting.)

There are few things that seem as tangible as a Saturn 5 rocket on the launch-pad. Three-
hundred sixty four feet tall. ... Giant engines, producing more than 7-point-5 million pounds of
thrust at lift-off. ... Capable of reaching speeds of more than 24-thousand miles per hour. Its
sheer mass -- its vastness -- making it seemingly inevitable. But, remarkably ... it's all pretty
much an illusion.

(TAPE - Lift off! We have a lift off. Thirty-two minutes past the hour. Lift off on Apollo
11)

(McCURDY: The way that the Apollo story is usually told is as a technology race)

American University space historian Howard McCurdy.

(McCURDY: It's the story of the people at Mission Control and Neil Armstrong and the
engineers that accomplished this incredible technological feat. ... Very few people then look at
what happened here in Washington, DC. We very nearly didn't go for political reasons inside the
Beltway. The political problems of maintaining a coalition of support to fund the program were
just a difficult as were the technical problems that the engineers in the field were facing.)

MONTAGE
-Abelson: Diversion of talent to the space program ... may delay conquest of cancer and
mental illness."
-Eugene McCarthy re: increasing troop levels in Vietnam
-Otto Kerner: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separtate and unequal.
-Whitney Young: To America's thirty million poor people, the moon landing had little meaning, except perhaps to taunt a child with dreams of accomplishment the system places beyond
his reach
MAN'S VOICE: It's not worth it. No way in the world

(Music - Frank Sinatra - Fly Me To The Moon)

(JFK: This generation does not intend to founder in the back-wash of the coming age of space. We need to be a part of it, we need to lead it. (Applause)

Rice University. September 12th, 1962. President John F. Kennedy drums up support for his newest and biggest pet project, after only very recently making his initial charge to Congress.
Eight years of indifference from the Eisenhower Administration were at an end ... America, to paraphrase Kennedy's inaugural address, would pay any price ... bear any burden ... to put a man
on the moon by 1969.

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(JFK: We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained. And new rights to be won and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. )

But though the language soared and though it would eventually inspire a generation to reach
for the moon the president's decision to take this step was like so many decisions made in Washington well-grounded in considerably more down-to-earth considerations.

(McCurdy: He was a failing President. He had to do something.)

American University space historian Howard McCurdy.

(McCurdy: Kennedy comes into office, promises to get the country moving again and what do we get? The Soviet Union becomes the first nation to put a human into space, and that's followed by the Bay Of Pigs. So they're on their heels.)

(JFK: 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)

Three month earlier -- on May 25th, 1961 -- Kennedy came before Congress to lay out series of initiatives designed to address what he called "Urgent National Needs". Among them, getting
America back in the space race. With the launch of Sputnik in 1957 ... the crash-landing of Luna-2 into the moon in 1959 ... and most urgently the launch of Uri Gregarin into space only 12
days earlier the US was badly behind.

(JFK: Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets, with their large rocket engines, which
gives them many months of lead time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come, in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts, on our own. For, while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.)

The President lays out an audacious agenda. Howard McCurdy.

(McCurdy: Now, in 1961, the Federal Budget was 94 billion dollars, that's the whole thing. And NASA and the space advocates came to Kennedy and said, "we'd like to go to the moon, it's
going to cost over the period of the decade 20 to 40 billion dollars." Put that in today's context. Today's budget for Fiscal 2000 is 1.8 trillion. This is as if, somebody came to the White House and said, "Hey, let's go to Mars. It's gonna cost 400 to 800 billion dollars," and the President says, "Sure" without having a price tag. If that happened today, the persons who advocated it would be laughed out of town.)

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(Launius: Audaciousness in another way too)

NASA Chief Historian Roger Launius.

(Launius: In 1961, the United States had spent exactly 15 minutes in space with a human being. And he is standing before the public, standing before congress and saying, "We're going to go to the moon and we're going to do it on this very tight schedule and demonstrate that we are the technological power of the world.")

(McCurdy: I remember talking to Bob Gilruth, who became Director of the Johnson Space Center and he said when Kennedy made that speech, they didn't have a CLUE about how to go to the moon.)

(JFK: I believe we posses all the resources and talents necessary but the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership.)

The idea of conquering space has beguiled humans for centuries. But this speech before Congress is as much about spending as it is about space. And Congress is highly skeptical. As
an example ... You've probably heard the most famous line from President Kennedy's May 25th speech dozens of times. But it's usually presented out of context. Listen here to the reaction it gets.

(JFK: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon, and returning him, safely to the earth. -- silence)

(McCurdy: There's a famous story that when he got in the limousine to go back to the White House, he turned to one of his aides and said, "Wow," he says, "I didn't get any applause on that." He didn't think the Congress was going to go ahead and approve the project.)

(JFK: No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult, or expensive to accomplish. But, in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon. If we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation..)

(MOVIETONE NEWS - ANNOUNCER: A Rose Garden ceremony for the presentation of the space agency's distinguished service medal that is attended by 5 of Gordon's Mercury program teammates.)

While the nation is swept up in Kennedy's rhetoric and the glamour of space ... Congress is another story.

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(JFK: It is a pleasure today to sign the authorization bill for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This bill has been approved by the Congress in an overwhelming manner and
demonstrates united support for a new and vigorous space program.)

(Sen. Anderson: The committee will please come to order. The committee is presently considering NASA's request for funds for this fiscal year in the amount of $5,712,000. ... There have been a number of instances recently in which various phases of our Nation's space program have been questioned)

(Wilson: The only voices of dissent in those early days was from the Conservative Republicans!)

Glen Wilson spent 19 years as a professional staff member on the Senate Space Committee.

(Wilson: 'Cause they thought we were gonna spend too much money on something like that.)

Actually, the opposition was a little broader than that. Though according to American University's Howard McCurdy, it was no less odd; especially looking at the Cold War with 30 years-perspective.

(McCurdy: Lots of Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford and Barry Goldwater. Then on the other side, fiscal conservatives in the Democratic party like Richard Russell of
Georgia. And their opposition was largely an opposition to large Federal spending for any kind of program.)

The vehemence of their opposition -- McCurdy says -- is difficult to imagine today.

(McCurdy: Eisenhower, from Gettysburg two years after he left office is still giving magazine interviews in places like the Saturday Evening Post where he was talking about how
crazy this crash program was to go to the moon. And so were a lot of Republicans in his own party who were opposed to it and would have shut it down in those first few years if they could have done so)

To bring Republicans and conservative Democratic on board, Kennedy turns to the new Chairman of his National Space Council -- the former Senate Majority Leader and now Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Again, Former Senate Space Committee staffer, Glen Wilson.

(Glen Wilson: Johnson had been the sort of guy to go out and test the waters so to speak. And that's when he met with some of the Senators and I know because I was at that meeting to be able to report back to the President: Look, if you say "Let's go to the moon," if you make that your priority, you're gonna get support.)

(McCurdy: Lyndon Johnson faced a very peculiar problem.)

American University's Howard McCurdy.

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(In order to get enough people in the United States Senate to vote for any space program ... he
needed the votes of his mentors on the Democratic side. They were fiscal conservatives ... and they were inclined not to vote for any large government spending. He knew that he couldn't get
these people to vote for civil expenditures like the Great Society Program though that's what he wanted in the long run. So what he did, according to Robert Dalek, an historian of that
period was he thought: "Well I can get them to vote for a civil program as long as it's tied to the Cold War. And that's where his interest in space exploration came forward.)

The Cold War angle is one Kennedy was happy to exploit. On April 12th, 1961 Glen Wilson says, he sends Johnson a memo.

(Wilson: And the very first question y'know: what can we do. To. Beat. The.
Russians!? He didn't say: What can we do to advance the scientific effort here; what can we find out if we send scientists to the moon? He didn't say any of that stuff. He said: what can we do to beat the Russians? Well, everybody wanted to beat the Russians and everybody knew that that's what we were trying to do. And what most people didn't know if how serious a race it
was. The Russians kept denying it and it's only really come out in the last couple of years that ... Man! They were workin' their (pause) tuches off tryin' to beat us.)

For the first time, Project Apollo has an impetus. America is going to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. NASA historian, Roger Launius.

(Launius: You have to understand that you have a continuum of activities here. In 1945, the United States explodes the Atomic bomb -- demonstrating our technological virtuosity. In 1949,
the Soviet Union does the same thing. In 1952 the United States explodes a hydrogen bomb. In 1953, the Soviet Union does the same thing. In 1954 really, they began the crash program to
build ICBMs. Oh, by the way, the Soviet Union suddenly launches before the United States in 1957 an orbital satellite. And now they've overtaken us.)

The message America is told: For our pride at home and our standing around the world, America must move forward and do it so boldly. Former Senate staffer Glen Wilson.

(Wilson: The Apollo program was just another element of the Cold War. That's what it was.)

MOVIETONE - ANNOUNCER: At a joint ceremony in Washington, a new armed forces grade is born as Air Force Captain Virgil I "Gus" Grissom and Naval Commander Alan B. Sheppard, Jr. first US space pioneers receive the insignia that makes them dully qualified astronauts.)

The country is rallied through the invocation of popular Cold War themes.

(Etzioni: The very phrase ... "The Russians on the moon" was enough to scare the daylights out of a lot of Americans.)

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Amitai Etzioni, is now a professor at George Washington University.

(Etzioni: There was this imagery which actually has no reality that because the moon is high-up there, it's like in the Old Wars I mean not nuclear wars, not missile wars, but in the days of ground troops that the people who had the high ground had it easier shooting down at people then people who had the low ground and shooting up.)

The fears were stoked by the friends of manned space exploration. Here's space pioneer Verner Von Braun.

(Von Braun: We have been told that the hammer and sickle flag has now been planted on the moon, and we have no reason to doubt it. I would not be at all surprised to be hearing a
human voice from outer space that will have an unmistakable Russian accent.)

(Etzioni: There was territory. And the whole idea of Containment was: we would not allow the Soviet Union to gain anymore territory certainly not one where they could look down at us.
... From a surveillance satellite, (laughs) you can see more -- much better. Every tennis ball actually a golf ball and you don't need to go to the moon. What more do you need to see than golf balls? But they it was a very emotive argument and as you say: in literature, in movies the notion of "The Russians on the moon" was very powerful.)

(JFK @ press conference: I do not regard the first man in space as a sign of the weakening of the of the uh free world. But I DO regard the total mobilization of men and things for the
service of the communist bloc over the last years as a source of great danger to us. And I would say we're going to have to live with that danger and hazard for much of the rest of this century.)

The push worked. Cold War terror, combined with Kennedy's masterful ability to capture the imagination of the American people combined to ensure that America and its leaders would
commit to do what it took to put a man on the moon. Howard McCurdy.

(McCurdy: We were terrified and here you have a young, vigorous president coming forward and saying, "All this stuff you've been reading in comic books and pulp magazines for the last 20 years is going to come true. We're going to go into space -- we're going to the moon. It was incredibly galvanizing to the public at large. It was I think somewhat galvanizing to Congress and I think it scared the dickens out of the President when he got back to the White
House and realized (laughs) what he had done.)

(ANNOUNCER: NBC News presents Presidential Space Survey. Now Here is NBC News correspondent Frank McGee.
MCGEE: A few hours ago, the President of the United Sates concluded a two- day journey of 3,676 miles to visit 4 of this country's space installations. And the question arises: why did he
make the trip? Well there's no reason to doubt the purposes the President himself has given, but there's no reason to end there either. The White House said the President wanted to get a first- hand look at the work being done and to gather these personal impressions at a time when next year's budget is being prepared.)

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But now that Congress and the American people are on board, it's the PRESIDENT who's beginning to get cold feet. NASA historian Roger Launius.

(Launius: After the May 25th speech is where he's really starting to look at: "Oh my gosh! We've got a huge budget here. And it's gonna cost us a lotta money.)

(McCurdy: Look at the numbers that were involved!)

American University's Howard McCurdy.

McCurdy: The first, firm estimate that you get on the Apollo program is 19.5 billion dollars ... The War On Poverty, was annually 1.8 billion. Aid to elementary and secondary education
annually 2 billion. NASA's budget was going to go to 5 billion! It was going to take away all of the funds that Kennedy and Johnson together needed for their ... War On Poverty initiatives. And that was a real problem for Kennedy. And I think he realized that almost
immediately after seeing that Congress was prepared to appropriate the funds.)

Realizing the financial toll that a 1969 moon landing will take on the US economy, Roger Launius says the president starts asking about a way to bail out.

(Launius: Are there other possibilities? What are the other options that we have before us?")

He finds a way out of his predicament with a novel calculation. Kennedy realizes that if he kills off the Cold War justification moon race, he can kill off the support of Conservatives ...
Once that done ... he can move back the deadline indefinitely. Spending all that money won't be HIS burden to bear. Howard McCurdy.

(McCurdy: First thing he does is he sends out his brother and a lot of other people to approach leaders in the Soviet Union and then he himself -- secretly, this was not known at the time --
takes Kruschev aside and says, "Hey, let's go to the moon together. Let's stop this race, we don't need to spend all this money. We can take our time.")

The pitch is made to Kruschev at the Vienna Summit in 1961 ... Later, it's formalized by a Kennedy speech at the United Nations. The answer comes within days.

(JFK @ PRESS CONFERENCE: I received this morning Chairman Kruschev's reply to my
letter of March 7th on outer space cooperation. I am gratified by his reply indicating that there are a number of areas of common interest. The next step, clearly is for the United States
representative on the UN Outer Space Committee Ambassador Francis Plimpton, to meet in New York with the Soviet representative to make arrangements for an early discussion of the specific
ideas of the Soviet Union and the United States.)

(McCurdy: The response in the Soviet Union was less important than the one that occurred in the Congress of the United States because his opponents -- the loose members of the coalition, if
you will -- suddenly said, "Gee, if the PRESIDENT doesn't want this, why should we be appropriating billions of dollars for NASA to accomplish it?)
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(JFK: A cooperative Soviet-American effort in space science and exploration would emphasize the interest that must united us rather than those that always divide us.)

Kennedy believes he's found his way out. He keeps up the push to bring the Soviets on-board. Speaking here at the University of California.

(JFK: Should such a joint effort be realized, it's significance could well be tremendous for us all. In terms of space science, our combined knowledge and efforts can benefit the people of all the nations)

Conservatives continue to bail out. And the future of Apollo hangs in the balance.

(McCurdy: They cut NASA's budget significantly and there were moves in the United States Senate which very nearly passed -- that would have gutted the Apollo program at that time.)

And then fate and history intervene.

(LBJ: All I have, I would have given gladly not to be standing here today. An assassin's bullet has thrust upon me the awesome burden of the Presidency.)

(McCurdy: I think if Kennedy had lived, that we would not have made the end-of-the-decade deadline for going to the moon. I think the coalition in Congress would have unraveled, I think
that NASA would not have had enough money to do it successfully. We might have gone in the 1970s, we might have gone in the 1980s we might still (laughs) be working on it today. I don't think we would have gone by 1970 or 1969. )

(MUSIC - Spirit In The Sky)

(ACTOR PORTRAYING DR. PHILIP ABELSON (CARNEGIE INSTITUTION): I have
conducted an informal straw poll among scientists not connected by self-interest to NASA. The vote was 110-to-3 against the present manned lunar program.)

(LAUNIUS: There are many people -- throughout the history of space exploration -- who are from the science world -- who have suggested over and over and over again that human space
flight is not the best way to accomplish scientific ends.)

NASA historian Roger Launius.

(LAUNIUS: And their argument is a very simple one: What they say, essentially is that any spacecraft that is designed to carry a human being -- its primary mission --... is to bring that person back alive. ... You can do everything that you want to do on a robotic spacecraft that you can do with a human aboard and perhaps more. Oh, by the way: they're much less expensive
because you don't have to worry about taking care of -- and protecting that human being)

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(Abelson: Making man a part of the scientific exploration of space has two important drawbacks. It increases costs and it will probably slow down, at least for some years, the pace of getting valuable results. ... The argument has been made that putting a man in space will open vast frontiers of knowledge. No one has delineated any impressive body of questions which are to be studied. Rather we are reassured by the statement that 'Man can meet the
unexpected.')

Thirty and forty years removed now from the debate over Apollo, it's hard to remember that there was rarely a time when more than half of the American people supported the space program. And that there were time when it was much less. Those millions of skeptics came at their opposition from varying perspectives. They were led by a small but persistent group -- now
virtually forgotten -- who never let up .... Only occasionally finding themselves able to crack through the pro-Apollo din. June tenth. 1963. The Senate Committee on Aeronautical and
Space Sciences. Scientists from OUTSIDE NASA are called before the Congress to testify. The lead witness is Doctor Philip Abelson ... Director of the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie
Institution of Washington. He gives voice to one opposition view ... talking extensively about why he thinks going to the moon is a very bad idea. No recording of this hearing exists today.
But the hearing transcript exits. It's read here by an actor.

(ABELSON: I believe that diversion of talent to the space program is having and will have direct and indirect damaging effects on almost every area of science, technology and medicine.
I believe that the program may delay conquest of center and mental illness.

(LAUNIUS: You tend to train the young, best minds -- they become enamored -- they
become engaged by some particular problem and they pursue that particular line of inquiry -- both in terms of their graduate education and ultimately in their careers.)

NASA historian Roger Launius.

(For the last few years, for instance, many of the people who have been engaged in science, have been involved in things in terms of bio-medical research which is where some of the ... issues
that resonate with society as a whole rest today. In the late 1950's and early 1960's, space science had a similar kind of resonance -- I think for lost of people and that's probably what they were talking about.)

(SEN. CASE: Your concern beyond the moon program goes very deep. Do you have specific suggestions for us that we could pick up by way of legislation or for the NASA organization by way of its organizational program?

ABELSON: One of the things that has bothered me is that I read in the newspapers of estimates of the manpower that NASA is going to require in a few years and talk of one-third of the physical scientists being engaged in space exploration. This just makes
no sene to me in terms of the opportunities in other fields of effort. I don't believe NASA should be given an unlimited hunting license. There ought to be some kind of limitations.)

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During the hearing, Abelson described himself as - quote - "a damned maverick" - unquote. And his views were unconventional. But he was not alone. At about the time Abelson testified, Professor Amitai Etzioni then at Columbia was writing a book he was to title The Moon-Doggle which argued: Apollo was nothing but a waste of America's financial and human
capital.

(Etzioni: We're talking about a huge pile of resources, not only in dollars and cents, but the best scientific minds the best engineering minds were dedicated to the space project. ... So
why wouldn't we dedicate some of them to build mass-transport systems for the inner city and such? If it had to be in space, ... exploring close space was much more promising. And indeed,
from intelligence satellites, surveillance satellites, weather satellites, communication, all these
have occurred since then and the benefits have been very considerable in close space. )

ABELSON: I remind you that one respectable scientist, Dr. Thomas Gold, has said that the moon is covered with a dust layer that is unable to support much weight, sort of a quicksand. If the lunar landing vehicle lands on the moon, it might sink down out of sight. Someone else, I believe it was Platt, at the University of Chicago, suggested that if one touched the surface of the moon there might be an explosion -- That the reactive substances on the surface would explode. ...How can engineers design for all these possible catastrophes ahead of time? It makes sense to find out what the facts are before you try to make designs.
YOUNG: And unmanned flights could be undertaken that would be extensive enough to do away with all that, all those conjectures?
ABELSON: Yes.
YOUNG: And establish the facts?
ABELSON: Yes, indeed.
YOUNG: That, Doctor, seems to make sense to me.)

Along with critics in the worlds of physical and social science, there were others. NASA historian Roger Launius says the space program came along at a time when many Americans were questions what they saw as a growing over-reliance on technology in American society.

(Launius: In 1961, as Eisenhower is leaving office, his famous speech where he talks about the Military Industrial Complex. ... The very next paragraph talks about "the scientific,
technological elite." And the fear that we may turn our democratic society over to these technocrats. ... In 1965, Ralph Lapp publishes a book called The New Priesthood, in which he talks about the Technocrats -- these individuals who understand how these sorts of things work -- the science and technology of the world -- that they have and are starting to supplant elected our
leadership in terms of control of things. And he raises this specter of fear.)

(TAPE OF LEWIS MUMFORD: If the plight of the human race at the current moment is a desperate one, it is because during the last half-century, Western man entered into a vast legacy of power without taking any prudent precautions against his own misuse of it.)
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Along with Lapp and Rachael Carson, author of Silent Spring, people are turning Lewis Mumford, an architecture professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Mumford railed against
what he called "Mega-machines" gigantic organizational structures ... like the Manhattan Project or the Space Program ... their parts made up of human beings. He decried the
tremendous concentration of control they demanded. Their secrecy. Their reliance on coercion.

(MUMFORD: Right up to this moment we have behaved like sleepwalkers without any control over our own behavior or any knowledge of where we actually are. Or any sense of what unplumbed chasms we are at this moment teetering above unable to shake off our old, beguiling dreams or conquering nature and unable to face the incredible nightmare of reality.)

(MUSIC: Turn, Turn, Turn - The Byrds)

(TAPE FROM BOSTON COMMON - 1967
INTERVIEWER: Excuse me sir, what's the definition of a hippie?
OLD MAN: Of a hippie? He's screwball. He's out of step. Out of the mainstream of life.
INTERVIEWER: And what do you consider the mainstream of life?
MAN: Go out and work. Yeah. Go out and work for a day's pay.)

Anti-technology thought also gets a boost from the counter-culture -- started as part of the Free Speech Movement on US campuses And now coming into its own.

(TAPE FROM BOSTON COMMON - 1967
INTERVIEWER: Do you know any of the Hippie ideals on what they feel -- like Dr. Timothy Leary and his LSD?
HIPPIE: Uh I didn't understand ya. What did you say?)

(LAUNIUS: That's an undercurrent that's present throughout this period.)

NASA historian Roger Launius.

(LAUNIUS: Couple that with a military in Vietnam that fights the most technological war ever seen up to that point and the backlash from that war that we saw presently; the whole counter- culture movement -- the hippies and Summer Of Love and so forth -- that sort of thing -- Small Is Beautiful -- the rise of the sort-of modern environmental/ecological movement all of these kind of wrap together.)

(TAPE FROM BOSTON COMMON - 1967
INTERVIEWER: Do you agree with the hippie movement - in that their ideals and their morals?
HIPPIE: Definitely.)

(Etzioni: There were several movements, it was not one, unified movement.)
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George Washington University's Amatai Etzioni.

(ETZIONI: The number of actual hippies that were standing on the corners in San
Francisco ... was not trivial, but was not very large.)

(TAPE FROM BOSTON COMMON - 1967
INTERVIEWER: What do you think of smoking marijuana and LSD?
HIPPIE: I think it's great
INTERVIEWER: You think it's great. Fine.)

(ETZIONI: But about 1/3 of Americans expressed various sympathies with slowing down the rush of technology, leading a simpler life, there were other things than conspicuous consumption,
so the reason that the counter-culture sort of "played" was because, in a very moderated form, I would say about a third of Americans especially progressive Americans very quite
sympathetic)

But even these groups, weren't willing to make the Apollo program their primary hobby horse.

(TAPE - NEWS OF THE DAY ANNOUNCER: Happily waving flight deck panels, astronaut Wally Shirra welcomes some buddies at Merit Island, near Cape Kennedy..)

And with sheer volume of positive news coverage coming out of the space program, who could blame them.

(TAPE - NEWS OF THE DAY ANNOUNCER: (Music) The flights and meetings of these two crafts have broken all kinds of worlds records. Such as for distance covered, for time, for the number of men in space. And experts in photography proclaim that these pictures are among the most amazing that man has ever taken since he first invented the camera.)

(Cronkite: There was ...not a great deal of coverage of those who opposed the space program).

Former CBS News anchor, Walter Cronkite.

(CRONKITE: There was certainly mention of it when one of the anti-space spokespersons stood up and made a particularly strong speech in opposition, I think it was covered. ... It was part of our daily coverage of the news. They made news by their opposition and when they did, we
reported it. We did not conduct a campaign to be sure that they were given air time at every occasion.)

(TAPE - NEWS OF THE DAY ANNOUNCER: Commander Lovell peers out of Gemini 7's
window. (Music)

It was a lonely job, according to Amitai Etzioni.
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(Etzioni: Now, people come to me and say: well yes, I was with you all the time and you were right and actually it's rather flattering. But at that time there were not too many. I was at that time at Columbia University I had tenure very young and I considered that part of my job. Society provided me with an enormous privilege. Other people who would do what I did, could
get into trouble they would be considered traitors or they certainly wouldn't be employed by NASA for instance or get grants from it which was very important to researchers But I was given this privilege and I considered: it was my duty, my calling to use it and to speak and to call
the things the way I saw them.)

(MOVIETONE NEWS ANNOUNER: That the time for exploring the moon is right around the corner seems implicit in this space agency animation of its three-man lunar landing project. Here the first-stage launch is shown a 7 and one-half million pound thrust that is followed by the separation of the initial booster)

(Etzioni: NASA had organized seminars at schools of journalism .. , in which they helped journalists get acquainted with the technical details they said of the space program. And they would wine and dine them and take them to Houston, take them to launches as they still
do and they created quite successfully a whole cadre of reporters who specialized in space and who certainly the last thing they wanted was to terminate Project Apollo and the space
program. ... Practically all of them were people who one way or another were I don't say "brainwashed" but were introduced into the subject by NASA.)

(MOVIETONE NEWS ANNOUNER: Man's most daring feat scheduled for the 1960's!)

(Walter Cronkite: I suggest they're poor losers.)

Walter Cronkite.

(CRONKITE: They NEVER think they're given a fair shake by the press -- particularly those who are a little out-of-the-mainstream. They always will object that they're not getting a fair
shake in the press.)

But while the media was able to bush off the scientific opposition, and even the growing counter culture, there was opposition from another quarter -- smoldering in the background -- was about to explode.

(MUSIC All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix)

TAPE OF Stokely Carmichael and crowd chanting "We want Black Power!"

(LBJ: No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently hone President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long (applause)

(TAPE OF Stokely Carmichael and crowd chanting "We want Black Power!")
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With the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights community shifted its focus.

(JESSIE JACKSON: We have the right to go to any school in America; we cannot afford the tuition.")

The Reverend Jessie Jackson.

(JACKSON: We have that civil right. But we don't have that civil economic. And so at this point in time our problem is economic, and the solution is economic, and the goal has to be economic.)

But with the shift in emphasis came a shift in tactics. And as the decade wore on, things began to get ugly.

(Stokely Carmichael: That's right, that's what we want, Black Power! We don't have to be ashamed of it.)

Stokely Carmichael was Chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.

(Carmichael: We have stayed here, and we begged the President, we begged the Federal government. That's all we've been doing, begging, begging. It's time we stand up and take over, take over.)

(McCurdy: Johnson was in a terrible fix.)

Space historian Howard McCurdy.

(McCurdy: He couldn't fund the war in Vietnam; he couldn't fund a $5 billion-plus space program and he certainly couldn't fund all of his urban initiatives at the same time. So something had to give ... He had to go to Congress eventually for a tax increase .... Wilbur Mills, the
Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee said, "Lyndon, I'll give it to ya, someday, but you've got to cut federal, domestic spending." And there he was faced with a terrible, terrible
choice. Did he cut back on things like space exploration, or did he cut back on aid to the cities? And then the riots begin.)

(Carmichael: Every courthouse in Mississippi ought to be burned down tomorrow to get rid of the dirt in here, and the filth. Now from now on when they ask you what you want, you know
what to tell them. What do you want? CROWD: Black Power!)

In the halls of power, the riots had two impacts according to Charles Schultze, who was Budget Director in the Johnson Administration.

15 15 15 15

(Charles Schultze: One, shock. ... It gave some of the conservatives a big y'know lift I think ... But on the other hand, it also lead to pressure for more funding for programs to do something
for people in the inner cities and the like. The net impact of it, I'm not sure, but it played on both sides. I guess more on the side of spending more money than (laughs ) than not.
QUESTION: WERE THE RIOTS EVER USED AS A JUSTIFICATION TO CUT BACK ON
APOLLO?
SCHULTZE: The thing I vaguely remember was not so much that, but the kind of idiotic business: if we can send a man to the moon, why can't we teach people to read? . ... Yeah, I'm sure there were people who were saying: why send people to the moon when we have all these
other things to do?)

But while discontent with Federal spending priorities might not have reached the upper floors at the Bureau Of The Budget, out on the street, people in SOME quarters were beginning to
express a distaste for the Apollo program. It was becoming a part of the national debate on poverty.

(Music - Aretha Franklin - Respect)

(TAPE OF ACTOR READING WORDS BY Whitney Young: For the poor, the moon shot
seems just another stunt. A circus act. A marvelous trick that leaves their poverty untouched. It will cost thirty-five billion dollars to put two men on the moon. It would take ten billion dollars to lift every poor person in this country above the official poverty standard this year. Something is wrong somewhere. Whitney Young. National Urban League.)

MAN IN THE STREET: Well it makes you wonder whether or not, uh we got our priorities in order, actually.

ACTOR READING EDITORIAL FROM WASHINGTON AFRO-AMERICAN: The 'sixty-four dollar answer' to questions concerning the multi-billion dollar extravaganza which place a man on the moon is, in general "forget that. How about us?". The Washington Afro-American Newspaper.")

(Cronkite: This was a perfectly legitimate argument and it was made by some very intelligent, well-informed concerned people.)

Walter Cronkite

(CRONKITE: It was a position that was quite important to the entire consideration of the space program and its cost.)

And according to President Johnson it all worked together.

16 16 16

(LBJ: As the effort went along '64 and '65 and some people's feet got tired and they raised the question well ... if you can go to the moon why can't we do something about education in this country? Up to that time, the Federal government hadn't passed any education bill. We didn't have any federal aid for education. ... so we started passin' education bills. We made a national effort in the elementary education. ... They'd said, "Well if you can do that for space and send a man to the moon, why can't we do something for grandma with medicare?" And so we passed the Medicare Act. And we passed 40 other measures in the health field.)

(LBJ GIVING A SPEECH: We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.)

Now there was new expense. And as the decade progressed, there'd be more. Meanwhile NASA continued to make demands.

(TAPE NEWS OF THE DAY ANNOUNCER: On Merritt Island adjacent to Cape Kennedy is the nation's first moon port. It is being rushed to completion for the day when the present, two-man Gemini program gives way to the three-man Apollo the effort to land Americans on
the moon before the end of this decade.)

(MUSIC Tax Man by the Beatles)

An epic Washington budget fight was brewing behind-the-scenes. And the job of sorting it all out fell to a man whose first priority was NOT manned space. White House Budget Director
Charles Schultze.

(Schultze: I was very skeptical about the worth of a manned space program . ... I had always thought that there really weren't a lot of benefits from that it was a great show, but not
too many benefits ... relative to the cost, because so much of the cost went to just life-support systems for the astronauts and not for science)

Schultze went to work...pushing HIS priorities. But he found that, since President Kennedy's death, the portion of the NASA budget devoted to getting to the moon by 1969 had become
virtually untouchable. Howard McCurdy.

(McCurdy: This became what, in the military is referred to as his "gold watch". It was his reward for being president -- it was something that a lot of people did not want to touch. ...
Johnson said: "I do not want to abandon that. I was involved in it and President Kennedy was committed to it and I don't want to see his legacy die.")

And in case there was every any doubt about that commitment, NASA Administrator Jim Webb made sure President Johnson remembered.
17 17 17 17

(JOHNSON (ON THE PHONE): Now, in our budget next year, you know pretty-well what they got out to you?
WEBB: They told me originally 5 billion, 6-hundred million with 200-million put in a reserve for manned-space flight. Now, this is going to present a real serious problem unless you're prepared to slip the lunar landing out of this decade. But this is a subject we need
to talk of with considerable ...
JOHNSON (interrupts): Maybe we can step it up to a year later.
WEBB: Well, I think there's some things we can do that won't hurt ya' too much too much in your overall budget, but which will make it look better.)

(Schultze: There were all sorts of things the President Johnson wanted funded...)

Again, Charles Schultze.

(Schultze: But I mean that's not every president kind of want it all the question is: where do you put your priorities in the long run. Probably less than most, Lyndon Johnson would sit
down explicitly say: A year from now I've gotta take some pain, where am I going to take it, he'd fight to the last minute to try and avoid it and y'know, you never quite knew what was going to happen.

(TAPE - LBJ TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
AIDE (Schultze?): Defense is down a billion and Space and interest are up about a billion. Just about a wash-out.
JOHNSON: Well, uh then where do we get our money for Health, Education and Welfare?
AIDE: Well, you see, there are other declines in categories other than Defense, Space and interest. There's the decline of about a billion in Agriculture. And there's small declines
in Veterans Administration and a few other places. And that just about balances off the increase and that just about balances out the increase in Health, Education, Welfare and
Labor.
JOHNSON: Get me a memo on that.
AIDE: Sure!)

(Music Fortunate Son - Credence Clearwater Revival)

President Johnson may have been devoted ... not only to getting to the moon, but by doing it under President Kennedy's time-table. But by 1967 ... with only two years to go ... that
prospect was beginning to look dim. A fire on Apollo One killed three astronauts and threw
the space program into turmoil. At the same time, the budget squeeze was getting tighter as
Johnson struggled to cope with a new hemorrhage ... the escalating cost of the War In
Vietnam.

In Washington, Howard McCurdy says, the question became: what should come first?

18 18 18 18
(McCurdy: There's actually a series of memos, starting in 1965 the first year of Johnson's
elected presidency; continuing in the Spring of 1966 and then, after the Apollo fire in 1967 they
crop up again in August and September of 1967. ... His Budget Director Charles Schultze had a
terrible time trying to find out: Well, what is it we're going to cut? ... And he says, well we can
cut back on aid to the cities; we can cut back on the War On Poverty. But Schultze, himself said,
"I don't recommend that we do this.")

(Schultze-7&7-A: Well, I was the Budget Director and there were an awful lot (laughs) very
large parts of the budget I wouldn't put as -- quite as much money in as actually went in ... (4) I
would guess that the total spending the Federal budget, counting Social Security, I'm guessing
$120 billion, 130-140, in that magnitude. So the Space Program was maybe, oh ech 6 no 3-
4-5 percent of the total budget.)

(McCurdy: The August 1967 memos are the most impressive because at that point Schultze is
no longer offering an end to the moon race as an option. He ... specifically recommend to
quote him "that the United States abandon the goal of achieving the manned lunar landing by
1970" that's the end of the quote and cut the NASA appropriation by 600 million dollars ... (-1)
He is saying: "Look, let's go ahead and do this; it's better that we should abandon it ourselves
rather than to fail for technological reasons or have the Congress cut it.")

(Schultze-8: There was a great struggle for The Soul Of Lyndon Johnson as to do what the
economists wanted him to do was raise taxes and what he didn't want to do was to raise 'em
(laughs)

With the War in Vietnam escalating, Schultze says Johnson was caught between the wings of
his party. He was in a bind.

(Schultze-9: People don't remember this but: early on in the Vietnam War, Johnson was a little
bit more on the side of the Doves than the Hawks. He was scared to death it would get out of
control that the Hawks who wanted to "bomb Hanoi back into the Stone Age" y'know would
take over. He knew he could wrap himself in the flag, and ... have an all out war, World War
Two-type bombing and all that and he was afraid if he went for a tax increase to pay for the
Vietnam War, the only way he could get it was to do that (tight) and he DID. NOT. Want to do it
(tight). So both because he didn't want his Vietnam I'm sorry his Great Society programs
cut and I think although he never said it that he was just afraid that making the big, patriot
war pitch for a tax increase would cost him control of the war so he didn't do it originally.)

Johnson's gives Schultze a directive: Find a way to cut 2 ? billion dollars in spending. ... The
equivalent of twenty-five billion on today's dollars.
19 19 19 19
(Schultze10&11: And there was a big struggle over where to cut it, and that's where the space
program came in. ... I argued though I don't remember the details at all to take some of the
cuts that we were gonna take out of the manned lunar landing program um apparently ... I
thought there was some possibility it wouldn't make the date anyway so just slow it down a
little.)

(McCurdy-2: A lot of people thought we weren't going to make it after the fire. It wasn't at all
clear that we could build a spacecraft that could go to the moon.)

Once again, we are at a turning point in history. Would America make it to the moon by
1969? Schultze is nonchalant.

(Schultze-12: Getting to the moon was in concrete. Getting to the moon this decade was
(pause) at least in soft concrete (laughs) hardening rapidly.)

Schultze loses the battle. While Johnson decides to cut the NASA budget. He orders that
NASA only slash programs that would come AFTER the landing on the moon. It is truly a
momentous decision. Howard McCurdy..

(McCurdy-3: Wilbur Mills insisted that Lyndon Johnson cut space spending as a whole by 600
million dollars. Had Johnson said, "Well we'd rather take that out of the moon race than take it
out of the post-Apollo program," I think the 600 million dollar cut would have been followed by
another 600 million dollar cut and another 600 million dollar cut and we would have found
ourselves in a situation similar to what happened with the space station -- we would have had
enough money to keep engineers standing around, drawing view graphs, but we wouldn't have
had any funds to actually build hardware and we would have designed trips to the moon ad
infinitum and never had the hardware to go until somebody made a real commitment to go
again.)

McCurdy says history owes a debt to Lyndon Johnson for ignoring his staff's advice.

(McCurdy: Political scientists ... have traced trust in government from the 1950s to the 1980s
and what you saw during this time was enormous trust in government in the late 50' and early
60's. And then by the l970's -- as we started to worry about national malaise -- trust in
government dropped off considerably until it hit an all-time low where only 23% of the people
said they trusted the government to do what was right most of the time. ... One of the things that
buoyed up trust in government was our knowledge that we'd at least gone to the moon. We'd at
least set that national goal and accomplished it.)

At the time it was made, President Johnson's decision was seen as being all about the JFK
legacy and the American pioneering spirit. Today though, former Senate Space Committee
staffer Glen Wilson says we know there was probably more to it than that.

20 20 20 20
(Glen Wilson-5: I'm not sure that everybody in this country although they knew we were
racing and they wanted the United States to win I'm not sure that most people in this
country knew how really serious the Russians were. ... Now, if the President and I'm
assuming that President Johnson had better information on this than Charlie Schultze (laughs)
knew about some of the things that the Russians were doing, then he knew that it WAS a real
race and that it WAS important to win that race. )

Wilson says it's only recently that we've learned how close the Soviet Union was to catching
up with the United States and perhaps even beating us to the moon.

(Wilson-6: The Corona Project which is only recently and by recently within the last 3 or 4
years been made public. It was in fact the spy satellite was the common name for it. They
developed these satellites with cameras of better and better quality and better and more reliable
ways of getting the information back down on the ground so they could use it. And what was
happening was: Johnson and his top people were able to see that the Russians what they were
doing and what they weren't doing. ... They begin to get information in the mid-60's that the
Russians were not building up this big cadre of or group of missiles lined up at the United
States. But they WERE building these massive space facilities.

The Soviets had developed a huge rocket. Half-again as big as the Saturn 5. And throughout
the 60's, they'd been scoring propaganda points by narrowly beating the US in the space race.

(Wilson-7: When it came to the point of flying men, well of course, they had the first man in
space, they got the first woman in space she didn't do anything but go up and come down in a
parachute -- she didn't know how to fly the damned thing and but they were heroes. And
the Russians got wind that we were gonna do a space walk so what'd they do? They quickly put
one up and did it first. And so it was a it went on like this through the whole period of the
60's)

Wilson says, it actually went right down to the wire. Apollo 11 was launched on July 16th,
1969.

(Wilson-8: As close as the first of July the first day or two of July, one of those Russian
rockets blew up. ... That was not the first one to blow up. ... but what the heck. We knew it was
on the pad. And they did try to launch it. ... But that might have been the mission, see?)

He means the manned SOVIET mission to the moon. And, regardless of what the Soviets were
doing, NASA's Roger Launius says Johnson's decision to keep the Apollo Program on track
contributed to a vitally important sense of momentum.
21 21 21 21
(LAUNIUS 3-a: One of the things that's really important about all this is the sense that there is
clock that's ticking. Everybody in the agency feels that clock every single minutes of every
single day. I think at a pretty fundamental level, a lot of the elected leadership of the nation felt
that clock as well. ... Once you decide that you don't need the clock -- that it just can happen --
then you can keep changing the rules year after year, as we have a tendency as a democratic
society; as we revisit the issues over and over and over again (tight) Well, we don't have to do it
in 70. We can do it in 71. We don't have to do it in '71, we can do it in '72. And so on. And
every year it can get stretched out, ad infinitum. As a result of that, by the way is have a lunar
program that would expend huge amounts of money over a longer period of time -- probably
quite a bit more than was spent -- and never go.)

(MUSIC - Time Has Come Today by The Chambers Brothers

(Schultze-13: The funny thing is: on the one hand, they made the lunar landing in the decade
and number two: spending funding in the year after that memo was even lower than I had wanted
to cut it to.

Former White House Budget Director Charles Schultze.

(Schultze-14: So all of that happened and we still got to the moon in the decade, so you can see
how good a forecaster I was.)

It's been thirty years since man first set foot on the moon. At this point, we've all seen the
pictures hundreds of times.

TAPE of most famous "moon landing moments"

The flight of Apollo eleven has become like the voyage of Christopher Columbus. An historical
fact. And one of the greatest achievements of mankind. So it probably makes sense that it's
practically impossible to find anyone who opposed the Apollo program back then to talk about it
today. People who are on the record as having opposed the program like Philip Abelson, and
others who we contacted for this program People who are on the RECORD as opposing the
program refuse to talk about it. There are others who deny they opposed it. And there are still
others especially prominent Civil Rights workers who PROBABLY thought the Apollo
program was a waste of money, but now say they just can't remember. American University's
Howard McCurdy says, it's not surprising.

(McCurdy-4: Apollo was to America what the pyramids were to Egypt. It's one of our great
accomplishments -- it's like the American frontier. So you're going to be hard-pressed to find
people who are going to come right out and say: "Yeah, I thought it was a terrible idea right from
the beginning." ... But when you go back and look, there were people, at the time who are
expressing public misgivings. And in private -- where you can get those kinds of
conversations -- pulling their hair out about this program.)

22 22 22 22
Some of them nursed those misgivings right up to the end. Former White House Budget
Director, Charles Schultze.

(Schultze15&16: Looked at as entertainment, it sure did have its entertainment value. ... it's
not gonna give us much scientific knowledge you get some rocks back from the moon. But
you do it on a per capita basis, and as an entertainment tax it's a great entertainment. You get not
only the moon landing itself, but you got all those initial, you know -- the first shot around the
earth, Glenn, all of that business. And then you get -- I don't remember how many -- four or five
moon landings and eh, as an entertainment tax, per capita, it wasn't bad.)

(CRONKITE: We had them on incidentally, we had the opponents on the air the very day of
the moon landing.

Walter Cronkite.

(CRONKITE: When the entire world was celebrating. ... We had Kurt Vonnegut on the air we
had Gloria Steinem on the air I remember those two particularly who were bitter about the
fact we were on the moon. ... And incidentally, they got a tremendous amount of insulting
mail I would suggest because it seemed that they were raining on our parade.)

Though he says that mail didn't have much. As far as he knows, they STILL think it was a bad
idea. Other critics though, like Amitai Etzioni can 30 years later give the project its due.

(Etzioni-9: It is considered one of our greatest successes. And by the way it's interesting: We
don't have an enormous list of domestic successes. ... If you look at our War Against Poverty,
our Wars against crime, against, drugs, against teen pregnancy, we have measured successes.
But it's not often that the President went before a joint session of Congress said: "We are
gonna do X" and ten-twenty years later, we did it.)

Or as NASA historian Roger Launius says,

(LAUNIUS 4-a: And it was a success. Success has a thousand fathers)

MORE TAPE of most famous "moon landing moments"
*************************
PART 2
MOVIETONE NEWS: One of the year's most graphic filmings. (explosion) the failure of
this Atlas missile in California was discounted by many later US successes.

No one ever questions that the exploration of space is a risky business.

MOVIETONE NEWS: Watch as, just clearing the 20 feet from its sunken pad called a
"coffin", the missile (explosion) is exploded.

Human beings sit atop what are essentially huge Roman Candles. Giant tubes filled with
highly combustible mixtures of gases ... designed to send them hurdling millions of miles.
And everyone involved in the space program, at least in theory is always prepared for the
worst. As space pioneer Verner Von Braun put it

(Von Braun: This reminds one again that we are not in the business of making shoes.)

(MOVIETONE NEWS ANNOUNCER: The Atlas which was to be the first of its type to
be launched from the new test tunnel, was conceived to travel 4000 miles down the Pacific
Missile Range. No one was injured. (Music)

(McCurdy-1 The way an engineer learns is by making mistakes).

American University space historian Howard McCurdy.

(MCCURDY-1: They find out why they made the mistakes, they fix it and they fly again.
They make more mistakes and they learn from that.

One caveat to that from NASA's chief historian Roger Launius.

(LAUNIUS-1: mostly when they make mistakes they're not catastrophic failures.)

Try as they might, though, in the early days NASA had its share of accidents. And its share
of tragedy. Robert Seamans was the agency's deputy administrator in the Apollo years.

(MOVIETONE NEWS: (Dramatic music)

(Seamans-1: At NASA we'd had a number of accidents)

(MOVIETONE NEWS ANNOUNCER: Chagrined, but not dismayed by the failure of the
launching of this Atlas long-range missile, the Defense Department permits the showing of
the misfire at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.)

(Seamans-1: The accidents that I can think of off-hand were when two astronauts were
coming in and their jet. ... they weren't over the runway and ... and they didn't make it. They
went into a building. And a near-accident we had was with Neil Armstrong on Gemini 8).

That came in 1966 and gave Seamans -- and others -- lessons that would serve them well the
following year.

MUSIC

(TAPE FROM GEMINI/AGENA DOCKING
ARMSTRONG: Dave this is easy
SCOTT: Is it?
GROUND: Uh-roger, how you doing?
ARMSTRONG: Station keeping at about 150 feet)

(SEAMANS-2: This is the first time that we're going to actually physically dock with another
vehicle. An unmanned vehicle to be sure - an Agena. )

(TAPE FROM GEMINI/AGENA DOCKING
GROUND: OK Gemini 8, you're lookin' good on the ground. Go ahead and dock. )

(SEAMANS-3 & 4: I wanted to make sure that they were docked before leaving for going to a
big, I guess the Wright Brothers Dinner or something ... one of these big, Washington, DC
functions with I would guess 15-hundred people; black tie with the Vice President,
Humphrey as a speaker. And I was sitting right next to him at the head table. ...

(TAPE FROM GEMINI/AGENA DOCKING
ARMSTRONG: It is really a smoothie.
GROUND: Oh, roger! Hey congratulations. This is real good.)

(SEAMANS-5A: When I went to the dinner, everything was just fine. ... The docking took place
on schedule it was going very well. ... I did not have a radio in the car to listen. Nobody
called me on the telephone in the car. So when I drew up to the hotel, there was a sort of a
gang of NASA people who descended on me and swept me into a room and briefed me on what
was going on. ... I was told that we were in deep trouble.)

GROUND #3: (garble) and blown 'em. But they can't seem to stop it or get a marking.
GROUND #1: Did I hear: A stuck hand-controller?

(SEAMANS: Neil and Dave Scott realized that they were starting to rotate in an uncontrolled
way.)

(TAPE FROM GEMINI/AGENA DOCKING
ARMSTRONG: Uh we got serious problems here. We're tumblin' end-over-end. )

(SEAMANS-5B: They disconnected the Gemini 8 from the Agena and then they started to
really -- started to spin out very rapidly. And they got up to a spin rate of two complete cycles
a second. ... They had to figure out how to de-spin. And the only recourse they had was to go to
the controls that were normally used for re-entry.)

(MORE TAPE FROM GEMINI/AGENA DOCKING
GROUND #1: Did he say he couldn't turn the Agena off?
GROUND #2: No he ....
GROUND #1: Say again?)

(Seamans-5C: I felt I had to notify everyone at the dinner that we had this problem, 'cause I felt
it would be leaking out because the networks were already carrying it. And so everybody there
knew that we had this imminent disaster or potential disaster.)

(SOUND IN THE BACKGROUND OF HUMPHREY GIVING A SPEECH)

(SEAMANS-5D: When Humphrey started to speak, he said, "Now I hope we'll have good news
before I finish my speech" ... I was getting frequent information being brought to me from
behind the podium. ... Vice President Humphrey started speaking and he was a very glib
speaker as you know, but even HE was beginning to wind down a bit and he kept lookin' at me
and I'd look at him and shake my head. And then I got message that it appeared that everything
was under control. That they had de-spun the Gemini. And so I nodded to him to make an
announcement which he did.)

(MORE TAPE FROM GEMINI/AGENA DOCKING
GROUND #1: Hawaii Cap Com to Houston flight?
GROUND: 2: Go flight
GROUND #1: Roger. Ask the crew if they could be set up
ARMSTRONG: We can station here right a while and also had a suggestion we
might put out our docking bar and go up and tap it)

(Seamans-6: It was a good lesson in the problems you can get into when you have a potential
disaster.)

MUSIC UP

Though there was little about accident procedure that was written down at NASA, Bob
Seamans and everyone at the agency had been clear about what to do. NASA Administrator
James Webb called it "folding around"

(Wilson-1A: Well it's just the way you did things in those days.)

Glen Wilson served 19 years as a staff member on the Senate Space Sciences Committee.

(Wilson-1B: It doesn't make sense many times to bring -- quote "Outside Experts" who may be
experts in their field, but don't know what the heck it is that YOU'RE doin'.)

This was the model NASA employed every time there was a probl

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