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Grounding the Space Race

Part of: Take Three: The Moon Landing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2018

Neil M. Maher
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On July 15, 1969, while more than one million space enthusiasts flocked to Florida's Cape Canaveral to celebrate the final countdown of the Apollo 11 launch the following day, a less festive gathering took place just a few miles away in an empty field outside the western gate of the Kennedy Space Center. On one side of the clearing stood NASA's chief, Thomas O. Paine, with several space agency administrators, while at the other end waited the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) president, Ralph Abernathy, with twenty-five poor African American families, four scruffy mules pulling two rickety wagons, and, much to Paine's dismay, a phalanx of newspaper reporters and television news crews. When Abernathy's group began slowly marching hand-in-hand singing “We Shall Overcome,” Paine and his entourage walked forward to meet them in the middle of the field. Abernathy then took a microphone, nodded toward the Apollo 11 rocket towering in the distance, and explained that his Poor People's Campaign had not traveled to the cape to protest the Apollo launch, but instead to demonstrate against the country's distorted sense of national priorities. “I want NASA scientists,” he explained to the gathered press, “to tackle problems we face in society”.

Keywords

Science and TechnologySocial Movements and ProtestNature and EnvironmentCivil RightsUrbanPost-1945
Type
Take Three: The Moon Landing
Information
Modern American History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 141 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Cambridge University Press 

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References

1 Julian Scheer, “The ‘Sunday of the Space Age’,” Washington Post, December 8, 1972, A26.

2 U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on the Executive Reorganization, Federal Role in Urban Affairs, “Testimony of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,” 89 Cong., 2nd sess., December 15, 1966, 2970.

3 Whitney M. Young, “Men on the Moon,” Washington Daily News, July 28, 1969.

4 For descriptions of this sit-in, see “Hunger Protest Held at NASA: Welfare Group Sits By LM Mock-Up,” Toledo Blade (Ohio), July 21, 1969, 5.

5 For coverage of this protest, see Associated Press, “Poor People's March Called on Launch,” Sarasota Journal (Florida), January 28, 1971, 1B.

6 For examples of both formal and informal boycotts, see Edward Ezell, “Apollo: So What? Earth Turmoil Dims Triumph,” Williamson Daily News (West Virginia), July 19, 1979, 20; and “The Talk of the Town: The Moon Hours,” New Yorker, July 26, 1969, 26. For coverage of civil rights demonstrations during parades and dinners honoring astronauts, see Paul Montgomery, “Protests Interrupt City Welcome for Astronauts,” New York Times, March 9, 1971, 1; and Steven V. Roberts, “Astronauts Find Mixed Reactions: The Uninvited Hold Protest as Diners Hail Crew,” New York Times, August 15, 1969, 14.

7 Hugh Haynie, “American Know-How,” Louisville, Kentucky, Courier-Journal, July 17, 1969, np.

8 Gil Scott-Heron, “Whitey on the Moon,” on Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, Ace Records, 1970.

9 For an extensive discussion of grassroots opposition by these movements to NASA and the space race, see Maher, Neil M., Apollo in the Age of Aquarius (Cambridge, MA, 2017)Google Scholar.

10 George Gallup, “Public Cool to Manned Mars Landing,” Washington Post, August 7, 1969, F4.

11 For discussions of this drop in popular support for Apollo, see Krugman, Herbert, “Public Attitudes Toward the Apollo Space Program, 1965–1975,” Journal of Communication, no. 27 (Autumn 1977): 87–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 For historical data on NASA's total budget for these years in both real and in 2008 inflation-adjusted dollars, see United States President, United States, National Aeronautics and Space Council, Aeronautics and Space Report of the President: Fiscal Year 2008 Activities (Washington, DC, 2008)Google Scholar, “Appendix D-1A: Space Activities of the U.S. Government, Historical Table of Budget Authority (in millions of real-year dollars),” 146, and “Appendix D-1B: Space Activities of the U.S. Government, Historical Table of Budget Authority (in millions of inflation-adjusted FY 2008 dollars),” 147.

13 M. L. Feldman, L. A. Gonzalez, and A. B. Nadel, Application of Aerospace Technologies to Urban Community Problems, September 23, 1965, Document ID: 19660022604, Accession ID: 66N31894, Report Number: NASA-CR-76524; RM-65TMP-53, Contract-Grant-Task Number: NASA Order R-5177, NASA Technical Report Server, 2.

14 Space, Science, and Urban Life: Proceedings of a Conference Held in Oakland, California, March 28–30, 1963 (Washington, DC, 1963), 1Google Scholar.

15 On the creation of NASA's Urban Systems Project Office, see “To Use Space Technology on Earth: Urban Systems Project Office Set Up Here: Hays Heads It,” Roundup (Johnson Space Center newspaper), April 14, 1972, 4.

16 James Web, “Address by James E. Webb, Administrator National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Space, Science and Urban Life Conference, Oakland, California, March 30, 1963,” NASA News Release, March 30, 1963, Folder: 3755: Webb-Space, Science and Urban Life Conference, Oakland, California, March 30, 1963, Washington, DC, NASA History Collection, NASA Headquarters Archive, Washington, DC, 14–15.

17 Anuskiewicz, Todd, Thompson, William, and O'Hara, Sandra, Technology Utilization Program Report 1974, NASA SP-5120 (Washington, DC, 1975), 40Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., 37–39.

19 Feldman et al., Application of Aerospace Technologies, 24–27.

20 On this research by NASA, see “USPO Conducts Technical Studies for MIUS Project,” Roundup (Johnson Space Center newspaper), December 20, 1974, 4. For descriptions of the Jersey City low-income housing project by HUD, see C. W. Hurley, J. D. Ryan, and C. W. Phillips, “Performance Analysis of The Jersey City Total Energy Site: Final Report,” volume 13 in the HUD Utilities Demonstration Series (NBSIR 82-2474), Department of Housing and Urban Development (Washington, DC, 1982).

21 Many second wave feminists were aware not only that the Soviet Union launched into space the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, but also that in the early 1960s thirteen American women underwent medical examinations at a private clinic to assess their physiology for space flight. For a wonderful analysis of this early history, see Weitekamp, Margaret, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America's First Women in Space Program (Baltimore, 2005)Google Scholar.

22 Maher, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius.