Exploring Space―Then And Now

摘要

As I was chairing a panel on space policy at a recent professional meeting, I was handed this question from the audience: "Is the Congress asking for too much detail about the [President George W.] Bush administration space exploration proposal? How much was known three months after President [John P.] Kennedy proposed sending Americans to the moon?" Those are good questions. As Kennedy made the 1961 decision to set a lunar landing as a national goal, NASA planning was predicated on sending a heavy spacecraft directly to the moon, without rendezvous in either Earth or lunar orbit. In fact, the approach ultimately chosen for Apollo, lunar orbit rendezvous, was not even being considered in NASA's planning. The Apollo spacecraft was to be launched by a super-booster named Nova, with eight massive F-1 engines powering its first stage. (The Saturn 5 ultimately used for the lunar missions, itself a huge booster, used only five F-1 engines). This was the program presented to the Congress in the months following the president's decision, as the White House, in order to jump-start the lunar landing effort, requested a 44 percent supplemental increase to the NASA budget it had submitted only a few months earlier. It bore little relation to the approach NASA finally selected for Project Apollo.