alternatehistory.com

June 29, 1967

Apollo program cut “to the bone”

Having to choose between Detroit, Vietnam, or the Moon, Congress has made the difficult choice: They have rejected the NASA budget that President Johnson proposed, appropriating just $4 billion for NASA for the 1968 fiscal year. This is $1 billion less than the Administration's request for $5.1 billion. [1][2][3] This is the largest reduction ever made by Congress to the space program. Conceding defeat, President Johnson reluctantly accepted the deep cuts made by the House.

As costs of the Fermi cleanup rise, there is little money left over for space adventures. Unwilling to cut neither the Great Society programs enacted by Johnson nor defense spending for the Vietnam War effort, Democrats and Republicans in Congress alike agreed that the only choice was to cut the non-defense space budget. “The NASA part of the national space program no longer has a very high priority,” said Representative Joseph E. Karth (D-MN). “There is little doubt that the worth of the space program…has been judged and found lacking by large numbers of the public and their representatives in government.” [4]

Ever since the Apollo 1 disaster, the public’s enthusiasm for space exploration has been declining. The tragedy caused many to question the wisdom of the moonshot project, which has been facing the possibility of cutbacks in order to pay for the Detroit cleanup and compensation for damages in Canada. Public opposition to the moon project has been growing over the past year as inflation mounts. [5] Polls show that a majority of Americans now believe that the government is spending too much on space and that the funds used for NASA would be better spent on social programs, or given back to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts. [6]

Republicans have jumped on the opportunity to use Apollo to criticize what they see as government waste. They consider the moon project a distraction from President Johnson’s other woes: Vietnam, inflation, and Detroit. Fiscally-minded Republicans believe that too much money is being spent on the NASA program, believing that putting the country in debt to go to the moon is not worth it. Or as former President Eisenhower put it in 1963 (to great applause by congressional Republicans), “Anybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the Moon for national prestige is nuts.” [7]

Even some Democrats believe the moonshot is a waste of money. William Proxmire, a Democratic Senator from Wisconsin and a critic of wasteful government spending, is proud of his work. Proxmire, and his Republican colleague from Delaware, John J. Williams, have led the charge against the NASA budget. “As chairman of the Senate subcommittee responsible for NASA appropriations, I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy," said Proxmire. [8]

Many Black Americans are also opposed to the moonshot, as seen in a recent article in the Los Angeles Sentinel (a Black-owned newspaper) entitled “Moon Dust and Black Disgust”. In the article, activist Booker Griffin states his opposition to the moon program and said that the billions spent on NASA could be better spent on black communities. “Here is a country that cannot pass a rat control bill to protect black babies from rats, but can spend billions to explore rocks, craters and dust thousands of miles away.” [9][10]

In response to the cuts, James Webb announced his resignation as chairman of NASA. Before his resignation, Webb pleaded that the Apollo 1 tragedy should not “obscure” the benefits of the Apollo program. But even as the Soviets’ space program is rapidly advancing, Congress has given the program the axe. No word has been made about who will replace Webb. [11]