Editing Space Race (section)

===Kennedy aims for a crewed Moon landing===
{{Main|Apollo program}}

{{see also|Moon landing}}

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| quote = These are extraordinary times. And we face an extraordinary challenge. Our strength, as well as our convictions, have imposed upon this nation the role of leader in freedom's cause.

... if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. ... Now it is time to take longer strides{{snd}}time for a great new American enterprise{{snd}}time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.

... Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines, which gives them many months of lead-time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own.

... I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

... Let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action—a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs: 531 million dollars in fiscal '62—an estimated seven to nine billion dollars additional over the next five years. If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all.
| source = John F. Kennedy,<br />Special Message to Congress on Urgent National Needs, May 25, 1961<ref name="Special Message">{{cite AV media |people=Kennedy, John F. |date=May 25, 1961 |title=Special Message to Congress on Urgent National Needs |medium=Motion picture (excerpt) |url=http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/xzw1gaeeTES6khED14P1Iw.aspx |access-date=August 1, 2013 |publisher=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum |location=Boston, MA |id=Accession Number: TNC:200; Digital Identifier: TNC-200-2}}</ref>
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Before Gagarin's flight, US President [[John F. Kennedy#Space policy|John F. Kennedy]]'s support for America's piloted space program was lukewarm. [[Jerome Wiesner]] of MIT, who served as a science advisor to presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and himself an opponent of sending humans into space, remarked, "If Kennedy could have opted out of a big space program without hurting the country in his judgment, he would have."<ref>Quoted in John M. Logsdon, ''The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest'' (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970) p. 111.</ref> As late as March 1961, when NASA administrator James E. Webb submitted a budget request to fund a Moon landing before 1970, Kennedy rejected it because it was simply too expensive.<ref>[[David E. Bell]], Memorandum for the President, "National Aeronautics and Space Administration Budget Problem", March 22, 1961, NASA Historical Reference Collection; U.S. Congress, House, Committee of Science and Astronautics, ''NASA Fiscal 1962 Authorization'', ''Hearings'', 87th Cong., 1st. sess., 1962, pp. 203, 620; Logsdon, Decision to go to the Moon, pp. 94–100.</ref> Some were surprised by Kennedy's eventual support of NASA and the space program because of how often he had attacked the Eisenhower administration's inefficiency during the election.<ref>Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York: Picador, 1979.(179)</ref>

Gagarin's flight changed this; now Kennedy sensed the humiliation and fear on the part of the American public over the Soviet lead. Additionally, the [[Bay of Pigs invasion]], planned before his term began but executed during it, was an embarrassment to his administration due to the colossal failure of the US forces.<ref>Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy, eds, Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 56.</ref> Looking for something to save political face, he sent a memo dated April 20, 1961, to Vice President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], asking him to look into the state of America's space program, and into programs that could offer [[NASA]] the opportunity to catch up.<ref>Kennedy to Johnson,[http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/apollo1.pdf "Memorandum for Vice President,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131222858/http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/apollo1.pdf |date=January 31, 2017 }} April 20, 1961.</ref> The two major options at the time were either the establishment of an Earth orbital space station or a crewed landing on the Moon. Johnson, in turn, consulted with von Braun, who answered Kennedy's questions based on his estimates of US and Soviet rocket lifting capability.<ref>{{cite web|title=Memo, Wernher von Braun to the Vice President of the United States|last1=von Braun|first1=Wernher|url=http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/apollo3.pdf|date=April 29, 1961|publisher=NASA|access-date=January 8, 2023|archive-date=May 13, 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050513043040/http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/apollo3.pdf}}</ref> Based on this, Johnson responded to Kennedy, concluding that much more was needed to reach a position of leadership, and recommending that the crewed Moon landing was far enough in the future that the US had a fighting chance to achieve it first.<ref name="lbjmemo">{{cite web|title=Memo, Johnson to Kennedy, Evaluation of Space Program |last1=Johnson|first1=Lyndon B.|url=https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/apollo2.pdf|date= April 28, 1961|access-date=January 8, 2023}}</ref>

Kennedy ultimately decided to pursue what became the Apollo program, and on May 25 took the opportunity to ask for Congressional support in a Cold War speech titled "Special Message on Urgent National Needs". {{Cws |title=Full text |link=Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs|nobullet=yes}}
He justified the program in terms of its importance to national security, and its focus of the nation's energies on other scientific and social fields.<ref name="wechoose">{{cite web
|last=Kennedy
|first=John F.
|url=http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03SpaceEffort09121962.htm
|title=Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort
|work=Historical Resources
|publisher=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
|date=September 12, 1962
|access-date=August 16, 2010
|archive-date=May 6, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100506113709/http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical%2BResources/Archives/Reference%2BDesk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03SpaceEffort09121962.htm

}}</ref> He rallied popular support for the program in his "[[We choose to go to the Moon]]" speech, on September 12, 1962, before a large crowd at [[Rice University]] Stadium, in Houston, Texas, near the construction site of the new [[Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center]] facility.<ref name="wechoose" /> {{Cws |title=Full text |link=We choose to go to the moon|nobullet=yes}}

Khrushchev responded to Kennedy's challenge with silence, refusing to publicly confirm or deny the Soviets were pursuing a "Moon race".<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=French |first2=Francis |title=Imagining a World Where Soviets and Americans Joined Hands on the Moon |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/imagining-world-where-soviets-and-americans-joined-hands-moon-180972692/ |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref> As later disclosed, the Soviet Union secretly pursued [[Soviet crewed lunar programs|two competing crewed lunar programs]]. Soviet Decree 655–268, ''On Work on the Exploration of the Moon and Mastery of Space'', issued in August 1964, directed [[Vladimir Chelomei]] to develop a Moon flyby program with a projected first flight by the end of 1966, and directed Korolev to develop the Moon landing program with a first flight by the end of 1967.<ref name="Stabell2012">{{cite book|first1=Oddbjørn |last1=Engvold |first2=Bozena |last2=Czerny|first3=John|last3=Lattanzio |first4=Rolf |last4=Stabell|title=Astronomy and Astrophysics – Volume I|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DXgvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA228|date=30 November 2012|publisher=Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)|isbn=978-1-78021-000-1|pages=228–}}</ref> In September 1965, Chelomei's flyby program was assigned to Korolev, who redesigned the cislunar mission to use his own [[Soyuz 7K-L1]] spacecraft and Chelomei's [[Proton (rocket)|Proton rocket]]. After Korolev's death in January 1966, another government decree of February 1967 moved the first crewed flyby to mid-1967, and the first crewed landing to the end of 1968.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |title=THE SOVIET MANNED LUNAR PROGRAM |url=https://spp.fas.org/eprint/lindroos_moon1.htm |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=spp.fas.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Yes, There Was a Moon Race |url=https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0490moon/ |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=Air & Space Forces Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>

====Proposed joint US-USSR program====
After a first US-USSR [[Hugh Dryden|Dryden]]-[[Anatoly Blagonravov|Blagonravov]] agreement and cooperation on the [[Project Echo|Echo II balloon satellite]] in 1962,<ref name="technology" /> President Kennedy proposed on September 20, 1963, in a speech before the [[United Nations General Assembly]], that the United States and the Soviet Union join forces in an effort to reach the Moon.<ref name="JFK Library 1963">{{cite web | title=Address before the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations, September 20, 1963 | website=JFK Library | date=1963-09-20 | url=https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/united-nations-19630920 | access-date=2021-11-16 |quote="''Finally, in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity—in the field of space—there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon. Space offers no problems of sovereignty; by resolution of this Assembly, the members of the United Nations have foresworn any claim to territorial rights in outer space or on celestial bodies, and declared that international law and the United Nations Charter will apply. Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries—indeed of all the world—cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all of our countries.''"}}</ref> Kennedy thus changed his mind regarding the desirability of the space race, preferring instead to ease tensions with the Soviet Union by cooperating on projects such as a joint lunar landing.<ref>Stone, Oliver and Peter Kuznick, "The Untold History of the United States" (Gallery Books, 2012), p. 320</ref> Soviet Premier [[Nikita Khrushchev]] initially rejected Kennedy's proposal.<ref name="spacedaily">{{cite web|last=Sietzen|first=Frank|title=Soviets Planned to Accept JFK's Joint Lunar Mission Offer|url=http://www.spacedaily.com/news/russia-97h.html|work="SpaceCast News Service" Washington DC|date=October 2, 1997 |access-date=February 1, 2011}}</ref> However, on October 2, 1997, it was reported that Khrushchev's son [[Sergei Khrushchev|Sergei]] claimed Khrushchev was poised to accept Kennedy's proposal at the time of [[assassination of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy's assassination]] on November 22, 1963. During the next few weeks he reportedly concluded that both nations might realize cost benefits and technological gains from a joint venture, and decided to accept Kennedy's offer based on a measure of rapport during their years as leaders of the world's two superpowers, but changed his mind and dropped the idea since he lacked the same trust for Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson.<ref name="spacedaily" />

Some cooperation in robotic space exploration nevertheless did take place,<ref>{{cite web |author=Sagdeev, Roald |author2=Eisenhower, Susan |date=28 May 2008 |title=United States-Soviet Space Cooperation during the Cold War |url=http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/coldWarCoOp.html |access-date=19 July 2009 |archive-date=December 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225032051/https://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/coldWarCoOp.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> such as a combined ''[[Venera 4]]''–''[[Mariner 5]]'' data analysis under a joint Soviet–American working group of [[COSPAR]] in 1969, allowing a more complete drawing of the profile of the [[atmosphere of Venus]].<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/0019-1035(69)90052-9|author=[[Carl Sagan]]|date=September 1969|title=The COSPAR Meetings in Prague|journal=[[Icarus (journal)|Icarus]]|volume=11|issue=2|pages=268–272|bibcode=1969Icar...11..268S}}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |title=Report on the Activities of the COSPAR Working Group VII |page=94 |date=11–24 May 1969 |location=Prague, Czechoslovakia |book-title=Preliminary Report, COSPAR Twelfth Plenary Meeting and Tenth International Space Science Symposium |publisher=[[National Academy of Sciences]]}}</ref> Eventually the [[Apollo–Soyuz mission]] was realized afterall, which furthermore laid the foundations for the [[Shuttle-Mir program]] and the [[ISS]].

As President, Johnson steadfastly pursued the Gemini and Apollo programs, promoting them as Kennedy's legacy to the American public. One week after Kennedy's death, he issued [[s:Executive Order 11129|Executive Order 11129]] renaming the Cape Canaveral and [[Kennedy Space Center|Apollo launch]] facilities after Kennedy.