Well, this is a bit of a change from what ETS focuses on normally, but I hope you'll enjoy this week's update for what it is.
Eyes Turned Skyward Post #13:
The practice of space advocacy--of citizen's groups pressuring Congress to undertake some activity in space, in just the same way an environmental group might lobby to protect a river or a corporation might appeal for a tax cut--was and is in many ways the child of the 1970s. During the 1950s and 1960s many people in the US supported space exploration, true, but the nature of the political process that led to the Moon program--the interactions between the aerospace industry, Cold War attitudes and politics, and, later, the martyrdom of John F. Kennedy--made public support irrelevant to the Moon program. "We" had to beat the Russians, and it didn't matter if many Americans believed that that money would be better spent on welfare, plumbing, or a tax cut (and there were many Americans, even in the heady days of the mid-'60s, who believed exactly that): Americans were going to the Moon. However, the Apollo program eventually began to wind down under the stress of Vietnam and the achievement of "victory" over the Soviets, and with it official support for space exploration and development. Slowly, a sense was growing in those who wanted an expanded space program that they could no longer stand on the sidelines and cheer; instead, they needed to take the field and become persuasive and forceful advocates of such a program.
The first stirrings of such a movement came with the fight to save Skylab and Spacelab (then known as Skylab B, or International Skylab). Many within the country, most prominently political figures such as Senators William Proxmire (D-WI) and Walter Mondale (D-MN) were fervent opponents of the space program, arguing that the resources and technical talent represented by it could be put to much better use elsewhere, perhaps in curing diseases, improving public health, cleaning up the environment, or so on. As the techno-optimism of the 1950s and 1960s faded into the malaise of the 1970s, moreover, this feeling was growing, and spreading into a broadly-based anti-technology feeling. High technology of the sort represented by aerospace endeavors like the Supersonic Transport or the Apollo program was no longer in vogue, and many who were in favor of these programs felt under attack. Naturally, a counterattack was in the offing; including such prominent members as science fiction writers Larry Niven and Arthur C. Clarke, a wide variety of small, local movements came into being to argue for such high technology, while diplomats pointed out that we had agreed with Russia to launch International Skylab, and Skylab would surely be necessary before that to gain experience in space station operations. Together, these arguments carried the day, at least for Skylab, and the Skylab-Spacelab program continued on unabated. While the organizations that had sprung up to ensure this outcome largely died off having achieved it, the seeds were still planted for larger movements later in the decade.
The first indications that those seeds would sprout into something remarkable was the foundation of the National Space Organization, still one of the Big Three space advocacy organizations. The group originated from discussions between NASA and existing professional aerospace organizations. Given the tight budgets of the 1970s, NASA officials desired an organization which could press Congress for more funds to be directed towards spaceflight, in much the same way that citizen's groups had pressed naval construction at the beginning of the century. Of course, NASA could not directly organize such a club, but outside groups could, and by mid-1975 the National Space Association had come into existence (the name was quickly changed due to feedback indicating people didn't want to pay dues to another Association). Despite quickly recruiting von Braun to serve as its public face (and almost as quickly having him retire due to increasingly ill health), the Organization grew slowly. The founding goal was to reach 100,000 members and several dozen major corporate sponsers within a few years, but by 1977 barely 15,000 had actually joined, and it became apparent that stronger measures were needed to make the Organization successful. About this time, the board had been approaching the increasingly well-known space scientist Carl Sagan, looking to recruit him to the board to replace von Braun. While Sagan made a number of demands, mostly centered around greatly increasing the attention paid by the Organization to the robotic and scientific parts of the space program, the board was ready to agree to nearly anything, and Sagan was quickly accepted.
Sagan soon realized that a direct appeal to the public was needed to show support for the space program to lawmakers and to drum up support for the NSO. While constrained by his role in the Voyager program, he turned his considerable skills towards pro-space advocacy, culminating in the production of the television show Cosmos in 1981. In parallel with this campaign, the membership of the NSO began to rapidly increase, reaching over 150,000 members by 1983. This growth made the NSO by far the largest and most influential space organization in the United States, and it began to actively lobby the government.
With its close connections to NASA, moreover, the NSO had actually begun to play a part in NASA's own efforts, particularly those related to education and publicization of its activities. However, something remarkable had happened between 1975 and 1983, something which had given the NSO a run for its money, and something which was attributable to one many alone: Gerard K. O'Neill, a physicist and passionate supporter of space colonization from Princeton University.