The Space Policy Of The Johnson Administration: Implementation Of Project Apollo

Paper number

IAC-07-E4.2.02

Author

Mr. Hirotaka Watanabe, Osaka University, Japan

Year

2007

Abstract

The new Johnson administration took over several critical issues of U.S. foreign policy from the Kennedy administration. Project Apollo was one of them. In September 1963, President Kennedy proposed a U.S.-Soviet joint lunar exploration before the United Nations General Assembly, though the Kennedy administration two years earlier had decided on and carried out Project Apollo mainly to defeat the Soviet Union in the moon race. There had been serious discussions on the joint lunar exploration within the government until President Kennedy was assassinated. If the new President Johnson had put Kennedy’s UN moon proposal into practice, the first lunar landing might have been accomplished as a U.S.-Soviet joint project. But the Johnson administration implemented Project Apollo mostly through competition with the Soviet Union.

The two aspects of Project Apollo during the Kennedy administration, competition and cooperation with the Soviet Union, have been examined especially after the end of the Cold War. But those during the Johnson administration have not been fully examined by taking advantage of the documents declassified in the past decade.

This paper will reexamine historically how the Johnson administration implemented Project Apollo in terms of competition and cooperation with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In particular, it will analyze why and how the possibility of U.S.-Soviet joint lunar exploration disappeared from the policy choices of the Johnson administration. It will also take into consideration the following contexts: U.S.-Soviet space science cooperation between NASA and Soviet Academy of Sciences, space cooperation between the United States and the Western countries, United Nations resolutions toward the Outer Space Treaty, and U.S. post-Apollo planning. Finally, this paper will summarize the changes in the possibility of Project Apollo through cooperation with the Soviet Union and discuss the purpose and meaning of Project Apollo as the space policy of the Johnson administration in the Cold War.

Abstract document

IAC-07-E4.2.02.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-07-E4.2.02.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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