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The International Significance of the Lunar Landing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Extract
The most pervasive themes that marked world reaction to the first manned landing on the moon on July 20, 1969, related to its meaning for man as man. The United States itself deliberately chose this emphasis, as witness the plaque left behind, “We came in peace for all mankind”; Neil Armstrong's “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”; and the dramatic high point of President Nixon's earth to moon exchange, “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people of this earth are truly one.” But no amount of suggestion by the United States can possibly explain the universality and the evident wholeheartedness of the thought that man generally—as distinct from men of one nation, or of one political alignment, or one social system—had achieved a historic triumph and one that must change his future condition and his future international relationships.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1970 , pp. 3 - 30
- Copyright
- Copyright © University of Miami 1970
References
1 This and following quotations represent selections from a roundup of world commentary on the lunar mission. The publication date of the newspapers cited, unless otherwise indicated in the text, was the day following the landing.
2 July 25, 1969.
3 July 22, 1969.
4 “The Real Tragedy of Man's Infancy in Space,” The Saturday Review, October 25, 1969, pp. 33-35.
5 The Soviet announcement was little noted or emphasized, a circumstance that was evidently due to the low esteem in which Soviet science and technology were held at the time.
6 See the account of Eisenhower's press conference of June 30, 1957, in Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957, pp. 511-513.
7 Frutkin, Arnold W., International Cooperation in Space (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965), p. 173.Google ScholarPubMed Frutkin substantiates this appraisal in a succinct account of the IGY experience.
8 See for example Soviet Premier Bulganin's letter to President Eisenhower of December 10, 1957, in which he referred to “the launching, in connection with the International Geophysical Year, of the Soviet artificial earth satellites.” Text of the letter is given in Department of State Bulletin, January 27, 1958, pp. 127-30 (p. 128 for this quotation).
9 Pravda, August 26, 1959, contains the text of the letter.
10 Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1959), p. 82. Soviet Party boss Khruschev ridiculed Eisenhower's proposal: “… they want to prohibit that which they do not possess.” (In a speech of January 22 at Minsk.) Eisenhower reacted to this statement in a letter of February 17 to Bulganin and added: “… may we now hope between us to consider and devise cooperative international procedures to give reality to the idea of outer space for peace only” (ibid., p. 154).
11 This statement climaxed a speech by Johnson to the Democratic Conference of the Senate in January 7, 1958. The text is given in the Congressional Record—Senate, October 10,1959, pp. 18193-94.
12 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee on Space & Astronautics. Compilation of Materials on Space & Astronautics, #2, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., 1958, p. 303.
13 A reading of the hearings in the Senate and House that preceded adoption of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 amply evidences the overriding nature of these concerns. See U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee on Space & Astronautics. Hearings on S3609, National Aeronautics & Space Act, 1958, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., 1958; and U.S. Congress, House, Special Committee on Astronautics & Space Exploration. Hearings on Astronautics & Space Exploration, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., 1958 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958).
14 Frutkin, Arnold W., International Cooperation in Space, p. 173.Google ScholarPubMed
15 Pertinent extracts from the letters can be conveniently found in Documents on International Aspects of Exploration and Use of Outer Space, 1954-62, 88th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963).
16 Kennedy's address to Congress in which he proposed the moon program was delivered on May 25, 1961, just prior to his departure for the meeting. In making the proposal at that time Kennedy broke with his own preference, which was to delay any decision until the next fiscal year. See Harvey, Mose L., “Preeminence in Space,” Orbis, Winter, 1969, pp. 962–963.Google Scholar
17 This account of the Kennedy-Khrushchev exchanges in Vienna is based on notes recorded by Kennedy's translator.
18 The initial impetus came from publication of a letter of July 23, 1963, from Sir Bernard Lovell, Director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, to Dr. Hugh Dryden, Deputy Administrator of NASA, in which Lovell reported the president of the USSR Academy of Sciences had told him “that the Academy believed that it was now appropriate to formulate on an international basis (a) the reasons why it is desirable to engage in the manned lunar enterprise and (b) to draw up a list of scientific tasks which a man on the moon could deal with which could not be solved by instruments alone.” The campaign was strongly fed by a Khrushchev statement reported in Izvestia of October 26, 1963, to the effect that, “At the present time we do not plan flights of cosmonauts to the moon.” These statements were widely interpreted as meaning the Soviet Union (a) was out of the moon race, and (b) was now ready for full cooperation with the United States in a joint endeavor. Both of these inferences were subsequently repudiated by the Russians.
19 Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1964), p. 366.
20 Izvestia of September 28, 1963, suggested that it was “premature,” while Za Rubezhom of the same date said that the emphasis being placed on it by U.S. “propaganda” was “hardly worthwhile.”
21 See U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, NASA Authorization for Fiscal Year 1969—Hearings, part I, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., 1968, pp. 55-59, for a convenient accounting of U.S. proposals from 1959 through 1967.
22 This summary account of the Dryden-Blagonravov agreements is based upon Frutkin, International Cooperation, pp. 92-105 and follow-up interviews. Frutkin has participated in all phases of negotiations leading up to and following on the agreements as principal assistant to first Dryden and later to James E. Webb and Thomas O. Paine, who successively took over after Dryden's death in December 1965. His treatment is consequently of documentary value.
23 See in this connection Soviet letters, speeches, aide-memoires, and other documents contained in U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Aeronautical and Space Science, Documents on International Aspects of Exploration and Use of Outer Space 1954-62. 88th Cong., 1st sess., (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963).Google Scholar
24 The resolutions in question were: General Assembly Resolution #1721 (XVI): International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Dec. 20, 1961; General Assembly Resolution #1802 (XVII): International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Dec. 14, 1962; General Assembly Resolution #1884 (XVIII): Stationing Weapons of Mass Destruction in Outer Space, Oct. 17, 1963; General Assembly Resolution #1962 (XVIII): Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Dec. 13, 1963.
25 The treaties in question were: UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Test in Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water, August 5, 1963; the Treaty of Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, January 27, 1967; Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts, and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space, April 27, 1968.
26 Based upon a summary statement by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in America's Next Decades in Space, A Report for the Task Group, September, 1969, pp. 78, 81.
27 The text of the address is given in The Department of State Bulletin, October 6, 1969, pp. 297-302. The quotation is from p. 301.
28 James E. Webb, “NASA As An Adaption Organization,” John Diebold Lecture at Harvard University (Washington: NASA News Release, September 30, 1968), p. 17. This accounting of space capabilities is based upon Harvey, Mose L., “Preeminence in Space,” Orbis, Winter, 1969, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar
29 A Post-Apollo Space Program: Direction for the Future—Space Task Group Report to the President, September, 1969, p. 10.
30 Documentary materials on the agreement and its background, including Sarabhai's comments, are given in Congressional Record—House. “United States- India ETV Agreement.” September 30, 1969. H8717.
31 Brazil and the United States are working on a cooperative project utilizing direct broadcasts in the regular education process in Brazil of even greater sophistication. This Journal will carry in a later issue an article on Brazilian plans and expectations for this project.
32 The Washington Star, October 17,1969.
33 The year 1985 has frequently been set for direct home broadcasts from satellites. A much earlier date seems probable, and particularly since the USSR is giving priority to the development. There is a vast literature on the rapidly advancing technology of communications satellites. A convenient overview can be found in papers presented to the UN Conference on the Exploration in Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Vienna, Austria, August 14-27, 1968, by Joseph V. Charyk, president of Communications Satellites Corporation and John A. Johnson, chairman, Interim Communications Satellite Committee
34 See, for example, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, The Post-Apollo Space Program—An AIAA View (New York, 1969), pp. 7–8 Google Scholar. It should be noted that this conviction is held not only in the West, but also in the Soviet Union. See Voprosy Filosopii, no. 12, December, 1968, p. 24.
35 National Academy, National Research Council, Report of Central Review Committee—Useful Applications of Earth-Oriented Satellites (Washington: National Academy of Sciences, 1969), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
36 Memorandum of Understanding Between the Comissão Nacional do Atividades Espaciais and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, January 11, 1968, p. 1.
37 The Program of Remote Sensing in Mexico, a paper presented by Lic. Carlos Elizonda A., executive secretary of the National Commission on Outer Space to Secretariat of Communications and Transport National Commission on Outer Space, May, 1969, p. 3.
38 World Weather Program—Plan for Fiscal 1970 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969). President's letter of transmittal.
39 Ibid., pp. 2-3.
40 The Space Program in the Post-Apollo Period—President's Science Advisory Committee (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1969), p. 34.
41 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, America's Next Decade in Space, pp. 51–52.Google Scholar
42 President's Science Advisory Committee, Space Program, p. 34.Google ScholarPubMed
43 See pp. 1-2 of the “Plan.”
44 The “dimensions” to which this has reference are those involving the use of “space applications” to the performance of concrete tasks that would bring immediate and direct economic and other benefits to men on earth. There are a number of other concrete near-term possibilities besides those discussed above that we cannot go into in this article but feel should be noted, including particularly: (a) a global satellite system of navigation and traffic control that would make possible a spectacular increase in safety and efficiency in air and sea travel and transportation; (b) the utilization of satellites and other space technology in the study and utilization of the world's oceans; (c) the use of satellite and related technology to achieve a new-order understanding of earth physics—including the movement of earth land masses, earthquakes and other crustal motion, the gravitational field, the tides, ice masses, etc.—and to construct a dynamic earth model on the basis of which cataclysmic disturbances of the earth could be predicted. To this list should be added a somewhat different but extremely exciting series of pilot efforts that look toward adapting to the requirements of developing countries the “technology utilization” system developed in the United States in order to facilitate the rapid introduction of space-generated technology into the mainstream of U.S. economic life.
45 Stevenson, Adlai E., “Science and Technology in the Political Arena,” Science and Society: A Symposium, Xerox Corporation, 1965, p. 4.Google Scholar
46 Webb, James E., Space Age Management, p. 55.Google Scholar
47 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Americans Next Decades in Space—A Report to the Space Task Group (Washington, September 1969), p. 4.Google Scholar
48 As reported in The New York Times Magazine, June 8, 1969, p. 63.