william mook wrote:

The point of the matter always has been not only of our
excitement or interest in being on the moon;

[because he's "not that interested in space"]

Total disagreement here. Plainly he's saying we're becoming a
space faring society because its vitally important to our future
as a growing vital society, NOT for entertainment.

Well, as you say, "total disagreement". Plainly he's saying it's
"for international political reasons" and not just for our own
self-fulfillment. Otherwise, it's not worth the expense:

The president asked Webb if he considered the moon landing
NASA's top priority.

"No sir, I do not," Webb replied. "I think it is one of the
top priority programs."

Kennedy responded that it should be the top priority.

"This is important for political reasons, international
political reasons,"

[snip]

"Otherwise we shouldn't be spending this kind of money,
because I am not that interested in space,"

[snip]

"... we're talking about fantastic expenditures," Kennedy
said. "We've wrecked our budget, and all these other domestic
programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion,
is to do it in the time element I am asking."

I've snipped a bit for brevity. To me, the snipped parts do nothing
to refute his general disinterest in space per se. On the contrary,
they seem to reinforce it.

( http://www.jfklibrary.org/newsletter...002_14-15.html , for
those just tuning in. Read it yourself and draw your own
conclusions. )


Having landed on the moon and demonstrated dominance, he
would have had no reason to go beyond that until the Soviets
caught up.

I know *you* say this. But, where did JFK say this?

He implies it here. His overriding concern is to beat the Soviets,
in a certain time element:

"the only justification for it, in my opinion, is to do it in
the time element I am asking."


JFK was assasinated before the Apollo 1 fire. Prior to that fire
NASA was to land on the moon sometime in 1967 or 68. The
Apollo 1 fire and the retrofits that followed it delayed the
program 18 months or so according to those who worked on the
project.

So? Do you mean to imply that the fire and subsequent delay would
not have occurred if JFK had remained president? Non sequitur.

Kennedy made his famous speech just 20 days after the first US
manned suborbital space flight. At that early date, it was
unknowable whether the first lunar landing would be in '67, or '69,
or '71. There was no specific plan and only a gross estimate of the
eventual cost.


The other points you make are illogical. Plainly the President
cannot affect budgets when not in office.

Then I guess you share my "illogic".


The point we are discussing is a strong commitment to 4% of GDP
rather than dropping down to 1/2% GDP. You have said or inferred
nothing that suggests JFK would reduce his commitment to space.

What Kennedy might or might not have done, if he had lived, and if
he had been reelected (which was by no means certain), is
speculation. Nothing can be proven. We can only look at who said
what to who, and how history played itself out, and try to construct
plausible alternative histories.

Whatever Kennedy's commitment, he would have been out of office in
January 1969 at the latest. Very possibly, he would have been out
of office by January 1965, depending on how voters weighed his
performance regarding the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, and his
spending 4% of GDP on NASA.

Whatever Kennedy's commitment, it's Congress that ultimately passes
the budget.


LBJ, JFK's successor, was also hawkish about space dominance:

Actually, he sat down the Robert McNamara following the Kennedy
assasination and submitted a budget that cut out or cut down a
lot of basic research supported by JFK.

And that was despite his (LBJ's) earlier statement that "first in
space means first, period; second in space is second in everything."
Plainly, politicians often make decisions that go contrary to their
public pronouncements. Talk is cheap.

What would JFK have done when confronted with the "budget wrecking"
costs of that research? We can only guess. Why should I believe
that he would have acted any differently (contrary to his earlier
public statements)?


I would say LBJ was fully committed to a moon program while JFK
was fully committed to US becoming a space faring society that
makes use of new resources and capacities in space to change its
very way of life.

You're free to say that.


He [LBJ] sat down with McNamara in December of 1963 and slashed
big pieces of the space budget. His focus was to retain the
moon-program to honor the fallen President, while gutting
everything that would carry us into space in a meaningful way.

And there's simply no way of knowing whether or not Kennedy himself
would have done the same thing, when confronted with the political
and economic realities of taxes and expenditures.


I see no reason to believe that JFK would have made much
difference.

You keep repeating this statement but so far have provided no
reason or rationale for it.

I don't need to "prove" anything, and don't claim to. As a juror
in the court of public opinion, I'm simply not convinced that JFK
was some extraordinary visionary or more politically committed to
a space faring society than other contemporary "pro-space"
politicians, such as his own Vice President. (If you don't believe
LBJ was pro-space, why not? After all, he said he was.) And, if
JFK was alone with his vision and commitment, what difference would
that have made?

If JFK had lived, would he have been reelected? Hard to say. Would
he have defended the NASA budget against critics, both in and out of
his own party, who saw the entire manned space enterprise as a
horrific waste of money? Hard to say. Had he chosen to defend it,
would he have prevailed? Impossible to say.

The burden of proof is on those who claim to know how much better
it would be for our space faring society if Kennedy had lived. I'm
not convinced that it would have made much difference in that
regard. I mean no disrespect to the man personally. I neither
demonize nor worship him.

I've said about all I have to say on this. I'm not much concerned
with changing anyone else's opinion. I'm simply stating my own.
Kennedy was a Cold War politician; the moon had propaganda value.

--

Ted Hall