Hi Warren,

I do not want to contribute to this becoming another of those endless point/counterpoint internet exchanges with each side trying to get the last post (because of course – getting the last post means you win). So I will make a couple of what I hope will be last points on this subject.

(1) Thanks for the link to the audio. I had read the transcript before but hearing the actual talk (with the transcript also being displayed) was interesting.

(2) The transcript/audio just does not support the contention that “Webb just wanted to be damned sure that the Moon shot didn’t turn into a Bay of Pigs-like fiasco–it would not look good to beat the Russians to the Moon by 6 months only to have the astronauts swallowed up and smothered by 30 feet of soft dust….”. There were 5 people involved in the discussion (Kennedy, Webb, Seamans, Dryden, Wiesner). Webb was arguing for a far more generic program that would (if necessary) delay implementation of the of the core program in favor of more vaguely defined generic research. The specific references to the robotic precursor’s (complete with the required Centaur upper stage) were made by Wiesner not Webb. He seems (with Seamans support) to be trying to bridge a divide between the President and the Administrator and by the end of the meeting they had succeeded. It should be noted that Kennedy said he already considered the Precursors/Centaur part of Apollo. If you agree with the Webb approach (open ended research with no specific goals or schedules) then I am sure he seems to you to be speaking “truth” to power. If you do not, you would have another opinion entirely. Personally if I was going to give a medal to anyone if would Seamans/Wiesner for salvaging what could have been a high profile disaster.

(3) My interest in this is very narrowly defined. It all took place fifty years ago and Webb (after this meeting) got with the program (at least publicly). My only real interest is that the out of context quote by Kennedy (about not caring about space) has been repeatedly used to portray him as basically anti-space (and therefore attack the Apollo Project) and that is simply not true. Whatever you think of Webb, Kennedy or Apollo, the actual truth deserves better.

Joe

http://whitehousetapes.net/clip/john-kennedy-james-webb-robert-seamans-hugh-dryden-jerome-wiesner-fly-me-moon

Joe, I think your characterization of Webb is really unfair. IMHO he was not trying to deemphasize the lunar mission: he was trying to emphasize to the President that they needed to learn about the basic space environment–including the nature of the Moon’s surface, before they tried sending people there.

Really, there was no was no basic disagreement at all. Kennedy wanted to make damned sure they beat the Russians to the Moon; Webb just wanted to be damned sure that the Moon shot didn’t turn into a Bay of Pigs-like fiasco–it would not look good to beat the Russians to the Moon by 6 months only to have the astronauts swallowed up and smothered by 30 feet of soft dust….

I admire a guy like Webb who can stand up to a president and make it clear that Program X isn’t simply of a matter of saying “Make it happen!” Obamacare anyone? Also, as I think Seamans said on the tape, assigning a “top priority” on one thing, if carried to an extreme, can result in the absolute gutting of everything else–like the meteorology program for the Navy and Air Force just when the USA was on the brink of WWIII!! I am reminded of one of Griffin’s many glib comments when he said that the Science Mission Directorate’s budget ought to be exactly equivalent to zero!

You betcha, there is indeed a lesson to be learned here….

But it is not micromanagement to assure that an executive branch agency sticks to the top level goal set for it.

In that conversation Webb was clearly trying to get Kennedy to let him deemphasize the human lunar mission in favor of spreading the money around to a more “diverse” portfolio. No doubt being able to please a wider set of his own “constituents” would have made Webb’s job easier. It would also have made actually achieving Kennedy’s goal much more difficult (if not impossible).

There is indeed a lesson here.

I stand by my original statement.

Exactly correct.

I read the transcript some time ago and it was clearly Webb trying to tell Kennedy that he should let Webb decide how to spend all of the extra money Kennedy was getting him.

Kennedy’s response was simply reminding Webb who the boss was.

Having gone through all the political mechanizations of Constellation Systems, it would have been a real relief to have a high level manager (the President himself in the case of Apollo) keeping the project focused on the original goals of the VSE

Joe

In today’s dollars, Kennedy inherited a nearly $6 billion a year NASA budget from Eisenhower. Kennedy nearly doubled that to nearly $12 billion (today’s dollars) in 1962 and doubled it again to nearly $24 billion (in today’s dollars) in 1963.

After his assassination, President Johnson (whose political influence helped to create NASA), increased the NASA budget still further, up to more than $30 billion a year (in today’s dollars) in 1964.

The current NASA budget is less than $18 billion a year.

Marcel