A few days ago, I watched that box office hit, Interstellar. The movie focuses on a group of NASA astronauts who go through a wormhole in an effort to save Earth from its supposed problems. Putting aside a review of the movie as a whole, the movie shows space travel as exciting and NASA at the forefront. This article stems from that movie, and some research in which I uncovered a truth about NASA which challenged my previous perceptions. This article tells what some may see as an uncomfortable truth about NASA and the space program.

Over four years ago, in a competition for National History Day, I made a website, along with the help of two other students, about the space race during the Cold War. On the website, I wrote that “American and German contributions to space technology” led to the beginning of the space race, with contributions by an American, Robert Goddard, and a German scientist, Wernher von Braun, who “escaped charged of war crimes by helping America…win the Space Race.” On another part of the website, I noted that the V-2 Rocket program, which had been headed by Von Braun, was a jump start for programs in the US and USSR, that in the 1950s “U.S. armed forces competed to develop missiles,” how the space race was about in part wanting “long-range rockets to go over the ocean, put satellites in space, and land a man on the moon.” Additionally, on the website, it was also noted that the Space Race, which NASA was part of, “created a renewed interest in science among citizens,” and had technological byproducts. While I stand by the website, there were aspects of NASA that had been missed in my research.

NASA’s little-known PR effort on the moon landing

“Any analysis of the moon landing must consider the entire gamut of factors. Technological achievements should not be neglected and the annals of human existence will continue to extol it. But one would be loth to ignore the competitive, even destructive spirit of this race, which saw powers militarize a frontier beyond earth while ignoring problems on earth. Not even this achievement in space could distract Americans long enough from pressing wars on earth.”- Binoy Kampark

Its best to start with the moon landing and NASA’s role in it. Recently, there was an interesting article in the American Scientist about this very subject, reviewing a new book by David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek, titled Marketing the Moon. The article noted how “public fascination with space travel long predated the Apollo program” and that the “hugely popular” Disney-von Braun series about space exploration “which ran between 1955 and 1957…cemented the idea of space travel as a near-term plausibility.” [1] Such a plausibility was exploited in a “public relations and marketing effort” in favor of the moon landing, with NASA, a civilian, rather than military, agency, wanting to “sell its message directly to U.S. voters.” [2] This effort started with the founding of NASA in 1958. At that point, NASA recruited, as the article noted, “PR workers with journalism backgrounds and set them up to operate…as reporters…throughout the 1960s” and it also “offered technical briefings in advance of missions and opened media access to its labs as well as to its employees’ lives.” [3] That wasn’t all. This “high-wire PR act” was simply “a decade-long campaign to keep America obsessed with a costly, dangerous, wildly ambitious shared adventure” and it “worked spectacularly well” as long as the message of NASA aligned with the “nation’s mood.” [3] In order to feed “the media beast” brought on by such PR, NASA engaged in much effort to develop a “compact, reliable TV camera that went to the Moon with the Apollo 11 crew.” [3]

However, when a man landed on the moon, there was a major change. Since “all of NASA’s marketing and publicity” had been devoted to putting “a man on the Moon,” it then became “just another agency spending money.” [3] This, in and of itself is not surprising since support for space exploration among the US public “was neither widespread nor very deep” through the 1960s, rather Americans “had supported was completing an awesome challenge [getting to the moon] and…beating the Russians.” [3] This fed the Apollo program which had become a “national movement” thanks to NASA’s efforts. [3] It also was not surprising that in 1971 that when word leaked that “the Apollo 15 crew had brought back 100 stamped envelopes “postmarked” on the Moon and sold them to a German collector,” there was an “angry closed-door inquiry [and] reporters wrote outraged stories,” despite the fact astronauts were not involved, which showed that “something profound had changed since the early days of the heroic, untouchable space heroes.” [4]

Taking this article into consideration, one must not draw the conclusion that this “proves” that the moon landing is fake. The moon landing happened regardless of what some wacky theories about it being faked in the desert, possibly coming from an over-studying of the pictures taken during the moon landing, conjured up by people sitting in their basements or those with too much time on their hands.

NASA and National Military Establishment: Great buddies?

After watching a video by the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, titled ‘Arsenal of Hypocrisy’ which focused on the connections between the space program and the military-industrial-complex, I found something which shocked me. In an article about US Army Astronauts, the author declared something that hadn’t occurred to me before:

“Active-duty and retired Soldiers of NASA’s Astronaut Detachment are among some 90 astronauts…at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, who are today’s space pioneers…The first U.S. astronauts were all servicemembers, and all were selected for the U.S. space program in 1959, before manned spaceflight had even taken place…NASA had queried the services for names of prospective astronaut candidates who met specific qualifications. At that time, the seven nominees were all pilots. And all were men…When NASA began concentrating on a space-shuttle program in 1976, the Defense Department agreed to help furnish astronauts, and each service began conducting its own astronaut-selection board…Soldiers interested in becoming astronauts have a chance to do so every two years.”

After reading this, some may focus on the fact that all of the nominees for the space program were men, and argue that the journey into space is largely a male endeavor. This means that one could bring in gender and feminist analysis to look at the space program. This article will not do that, but this would be an interesting approach to follow.

For me, I looked more into this to see if there was more of a connection between the US military and NASA. On webpage about federal government bureaucracy, run by the Independence Hall Association, noted that at NASA’s creation, many assumed it was “a defense-related agency” and that it would “be a part of the Department of Defense” but that it instead was made as an “independent agency because the space program has many other purposes than the defense of the nation.”

In an article by Roger Lannius, the Associate Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs at the Air and Space Museum, he noted that from NASA’s beginning, it was recognized it would have work with other agencies other than itself. He also noted that it was also

“recognized that NASA would be establishing a partnership with many of the same companies with which the DoD already had longstanding relations, and that partnership would be similar to that already established with the DoD…Finally, the Cold War context in which the U.S. civil space program arose ensured that foreign policy objectives dominated the nature of the activity. This naturally led to the need for cooperative ventures with allies.”

A 2011 report by the National Research Council which focused on Interagency Cooperation on Space and Earth Science Missions, made a similar point. That report noted that the NASA Act of 1958, or the “Space Act” was part of a response by Congress and Eisenhower to “technology and national security threats that were perceived following the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik in October 1957” and that the law created NASA “to conduct the nation’s civil space activities” and that the law “provided NASA with the authority to enter into agreements with other U.S. government agencies, commercial entities, academic institutions, and other organizations.”

Official NASA history, written by historian Arnold Levine, focuses on cooperation and disputes between the military establishment (“defense” department (DOD)) and NASA. One chapter noted that there were our ways that the interests of each encroached on each other: a continuation of “support of military aeronautics,” a great “dependence in its early years on the launch vehicles and ground support provided by the Air Force and on the Saturn rocket and von Braun team transferred from the Army” and many attempts by “the Air Force to investigate the military applications of space.” The chapter also notes that NASA relied on vehicles developed by the Air Force and that there were “crossovers between military and civilian programs” which has included “flying DOD experiments aboard Gemini” and releasing a DOD satellite. It is also important to recognize that in the early years of NASA, it made numerous agreements with the DOD, which was contentious, but there was still “NASA support for DOD” which came in three firms “testing DOD prototypes at NASA facilities, sharing knowledge gained in NASA programs with other agencies, and conducting research on behalf of DOD,” as noted by the chapter. This, in and of itself, is not a surprise, since at its beginning, NASA “depended heavily on DOD support,” but it had freed “itself from overt DOD control by 1963 even though the Air Force, which had tried to become a “dominant partner in the national space program,” needed NASA “almost as much as NASA needed the Air Force” since NASA was “doing basic research in the life sciences, in the composition of the upper atmosphere, and…propulsion that was as valuable for military as for civilian purposes.”

Another chapter written by Levine also touches on relations between NASA and the DOD. The chapter notes that NASA had an Office of Defense Affairs to handle these relations, and that there was resentment of attempts by NASA “to expand its area of cognizance into the military field [among]…the minds of those in the Defense Establishment.” The chapter also noted that in 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had been persuaded to have the Air Force take over NASA. This history also noted that the Space Act allowed the NASA administrator to “enter into agreements for detailing active duty military personnel to serve with NASA,” many of which were explained in the chapter. It was also noted that there were, between DOD and NASA, a “general environment…marked by agreements for cross-support, cooperation, and coordination in a number of areas,” with such a relationship “the desire and intent of the Congress” when they passed the Space Act in 1958.

One of the most important resources was a transcript of a 2004 congressional hearing on two specific issues: NASA-DOD cooperation, and privatizing space travel. In Section III of this transcript, it gave a ‘brief overview.’ This section noted that DOD and NASA have contracts with certain industries to “build the rockets, or launch vehicles, needed to launch each agency’s payloads into orbit” and that, importantly, “from the 1950s through the 1990s, the DOD funded the development of the Atlas, Delta and Titan families of rockets to lift payloads such as reconnaissance satellites of varying sizes into orbit.” This section also noted that many of the launch vehicles used by NASA are developed by defense contractors, er war profiteers, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. There was also a part which noted that while NASA and DOD has had “mixed success,” their collaborations “have produced spectacular successes” such as the Bell X-1 experimental vehicle and the Space Shuttle. Funny enough, the section noted that after the Challenger accident, the DOD was unable to launch supposed “critical national security satellites” and as a result, they “stopped using the Shuttle to launch its national security payloads and turned solely to expendable rockets.” The section went on to say that U.S. aerospace companies have also faced too much “competition from foreign launch companies” and that the federal government needs to help out.

The next section of this transcript, section V, was titled “History of NASA and DOD Space Transportation Development Efforts.” This section, like the previous one, notes that the “the DOD funded the development of the Atlas, Delta, and Titan families of ELVs…based on ballistic missile technology from the 1950s-60s.” It also noted that “Boeing and Lockheed Martin build portions of NASA’s Space Shuttle,” and that they own “equal portions of the United Space Alliance (USA), which manages Shuttle operations and maintenance.”This section also noted that during the 1980s and early 1990s, “NASA and DOD worked together on an ultimately unsuccessful effort to develop a new reusable launch vehicle to replace the Shuttle, as well as new expendable launch vehicles” which included the “X-30 or National Aerospace Plane project initiated by President Reagan,” a proposed supersonic plane that was scrapped in 1993. There was also something interesting. The mention of a National Space Transportation Policy in 1994 implemented by President Clinton “that designated lead responsibility for improving expendable launch vehicles to DOD and lead responsibility for upgrading the Space Shuttle and technology development of new reusable launch vehicles to NASA.” This policy, according to the transcript, directed NASA to have research that showed that “a rocket engine that could fly to orbit using only a single stage” by 2000 and it directed the DOD to “work with industry to modernize or “evolve” the expendable launch vehicle fleet under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.”

There were a number of interesting quotes in the transcript as well that further showed that numerous officials and politicians recognize that there is NASA-DOD cooperation.

“…NASA and DOD have had a long history of cooperation across a range of activities, dating back to the early years of the space age. While there have occasionally been difficulties and tensions over the years, I believe that the Nation has benefited from NASA-DOD cooperation.”- Former Representative Nick Lampson (D-TX) “NASA and the Department of Defense have a long history of cooperation…NASA’s relationship with the DOD has been coordinated primarily through the Partnership Council…The Partnership Council is a multi-agency forum with a diverse membership… Space launch systems are inextricably woven into the fabric of America’s national security. As a result, the ability of the United States to launch critical space assets when and where they are needed is a national security requirement…NASA’s Office of Space Flight and the Department of Defense (DOD) have a long history of cooperation on services that range from staffing our astronaut corps to collaborating on numerous space technology projects…Through numerous cooperative efforts, the American people have benefited by our joint endeavors in space and on the Earth.”- Retired Rear Admiral Steidle, then the Associate Administrator for the Office of Exploration Systems at DOD “Civil and DOD space organizations have worked together since 1958. We share our commitment to excellence in our space endeavors. Sometimes we forget that the Atlas and Delta launch vehicles that were the centerpiece of our own launch capability in the military over the last 15 years were developed by NASA and transitioned to military vehicles…Given these bounds on when DOD and NASA might work together, there are many fruitful areas of ongoing and future collaboration…Since 1958, the White House has created several organizational mechanisms to coordinate civil and military space programs and activities, including R&D investment…Historically, the DOD and NASA have fostered a collaborative relationship to maximize responsive access to space and national space investment strategies, and we will continue to do so in the future.”- Major General (Ret.) Robert S. Dickman, Deputy for Military Space, Office of the Under Secretary of the Air Force, Department of Defense “…it is also important to understand how the research and development (R&D) activities for space and aeronautics technologies within the Department of Defense are integrated. There are several mechanisms for coordination of R&D activities between DOD and NASA…Collaborative efforts between DOD and NASA over the past several years have been encompassed in the National Aerospace Initiative (NAI)…The Department of Defense and NASA research and development programs support building the technology base to enable future capabilities.”- Ronald M. Sega, Director, Defense Research and Engineering, Department of Defense “NASA-DOD cooperation is a delicate subject because it evokes institutional and philosophical biases that have in the past gotten in the way of mission objectives. Lockheed Martin has, for many years, worked with each of these fine organizations. In partnership with NASA we have built spacecraft and systems that have surveyed the surface of Venus, monitored the Earth’s environment, landed on Mars, photographed storms on Jupiter, analyzed the rings of Saturn and sampled the dust of a distant comet. With DOD, we have built the space-borne eyes and ears of our military forces, from surveillance to communications to weather analysis and more. For both institutions, we have provided the boost vehicles that take these spacecraft to orbit and beyond…If the Space Exploration initiative is to be successful, NASA and DOD must work together. Lockheed Martin supports productive cooperation between them, focused on areas of common interest and respectful of their differing charters.”- Michael C. Gass, Vice President, Space Transportation, Space Systems Company, part of Lockheed Martin

Why would the military want NASA’s cooperation?

There are a number of reasons that the military would want to be partners with NASA. For one, NASA microchips were created and developed by the US military, and were later used by the PC and internet industries. Hence, there were a technology spin-off. Nuclear physicist Herbert York had something interesting to say about the space program, saying that when Sputnik was launched the American space program was “coming along and doing very well” with NASA created to “carry out some of this programme” and that at the same time, the US also “had the secret reconnaissance satellite programme going on.” In sum, the US military would benefit from technology spin-offs, as would other industries, and that NASA was part of a broader effort to counter the Soviets. The latter is true when one takes into consideration that in 1967, the US Air Force had, for example, a program called “MOON DUST”, which simply “involved the collection of man-made material deorbited from space.” The former is true when one takes into consideration a former DOD-NASA tech development program about nano-satellites. This program meant that DOD and NASA teamed up “to address common challenges, take advantage of the resources and opportunities available, and expedite the development and subsequent infusion of distributed spacecraft control technologies.” Such a program additionally distributed “spacecraft control technology products” with the help of numerous people in “the broader US government, industry, and academic community,” with numerous groups in this communities exhibiting “strong working relationships and commitments.”

On a simpler level, those in the military establishment may see NASA as vital to national security. The Soviets may have thought the same thing when they rejected Kennedy’s request, genuine or not, to have US and Soviet forces work together in a flight to the moon.[5] Gary Oleson, Bob Silsby, and Darin Skelly argued this exact point, saying that NASA is vital for national security, a view likely shared by others within the National Military Establishment:

“NASA is essential for national security, not only because of its role in developing new space capabilities and technologies, but also because it is explicitly excluded from military activity by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. Simply stated, NASA is uniquely positioned to facilitate international collaboration on peaceful uses of space in ways the military cannot…NASA is uniquely positioned to inspire and mobilize tomorrow’s aerospace workforce…US space policy highlights the importance of international cooperation in promoting the responsible, peaceful, and safe use of space. NASA has a distinct role in creating and supporting this international cooperation….it can form collaborative relationships with international civil agencies that are prohibited from cooperative relationships with US national security agencies.”

There is something even more direct that could contribute to NASA-DOD cooperation: payloads of the military go up in the space shuttle, or did before 2011. A RAND Corporation report published in 1980 had this to say: “Space shuttle operation…refocuses attention on NASA-DOD cooperation…factors essential to NASA-DOD cooperation are a common subset of missions, a common organization responsibility, and an extensive period of time to develop the organizational mechanics; and the successful NASA-DOD cooperation model is not easily transferred to other situations.” Additionally, there’s a quote from Hans Mark, a person who worked for the National Reconnaissance Office or NRO in the 1970s:

“I was very anxious to get the military involved in the shuttle because it was in fact the most capable launch vehicle that we were building at the time. The things that we have done since then, you know, repair on orbit, and check out on orbit before you deploy a satellite and all that stuff with human beings I thought was a very valuable capability to have. My military friends don’t agree with that to this day.”

Beyond what Mark said, there’s an article by Roger D. Launius, an academic researcher, about the connections between the NASA’s space shuttle and the Defense Department. Rather than summarizing, it is probably best to quote directly from the article itself:

“During the 1970s, the Space Shuttle became the “sine qua non” of NASA, intended as it was to make spaceflight routine, safe, and relatively inexpensive. Although NASA wanted the shuttle for its purposes, the Department of Defense (DOD) agreed to support the shuttle because of its perceived use as a means for military operations in space. That military mission, as it came to coalesce around the new Space Shuttle in the 1970s, took as its raison d’être the deployment of reconnaissance and other national security payloads into low-Earth orbit (LEO)…Without those design modifications to support the military space program, the DOD would have probably withheld monetary and political support from the project. In essence, NASA embraced a military mission for the Space Shuttle program as a means of building a coalition in support of an approval that might not have been approved otherwise. In return, military astronauts would fly on classified missions in LEO…In keeping with plans developed in the Carter administration of the latter 1970s, the Space Shuttle would thereafter carry all U.S. government payloads; military, scientific, and even commercial satellites could all be deployed from its payload bay…Throughout the 1990s, a succession of studies argued for the potential of military personnel in space…Notwithstanding these conclusions, it is obvious the decision made initially by President Eisenhower in the latter 1950s to split the civil and military space programs and to assign the human mission to the civil side remains controversial.”

There is a reason beyond the space shuttle. That is the launching of satellites. As noted on the website of the California nonprofit, the Aerospace Corporation, there has been an evolution from a time “when commercial consortiums paid NASA to launch their early satellites to a time when NASA and DOD are now paying contractors for launches.” Additionally, there was, during the mid-1960s, a military spying program, “an earth-sensing satellite program”which included a “possible transfer of classified equipment to NASA for use in such a program, and strategies for advancing acceptance of space observation.” There are many other examples as well. [6]

The Intelligence Community and NASA

The National Military Establishment is not all that has a relationship with NASA. There’s also the US Intelligence Community. In 1963, there was the creation of the Foreign Missile and Space Analysis Center (FMSAC), which included form “CIA satellite reconnaissance efforts,” a Center which had a role in “providing intelligence to NASA on Soviet space efforts.” Additionally, the Intelligence Community (IC) later used “imagery, including multispectral imagery” in two “commercial systems –LANDSAT and SPOT,” the first of which began “in 1969 as an experimental…NASA…program [called] the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS).” If that’s not enough, in the 1960s, “NASA and the intelligence community explored the potential use of reconnaissance satellite technology to help map potential Apollo landing sites on the Moon.”

There is something even more interesting: the fact that the IC (and the military) did not like the Space Shuttle, since it disrupted the launching of intelligence satellites, as Dwayne A. Day writes in The Space Review:

“From a space policy perspective, the shuttle represents the biggest decision of the last four decades. When President Richard Nixon approved the shuttle in 1972, this set in motion a series of policies requiring the transfer of all American spacecraft to the shuttle…and the eventual shutdown of expendable launch vehicle production—i.e. the cancellation of the Atlas, Titan, and Delta launch vehicles that carried American intelligence satellites. There were a lot of dissenting voices within the military and intelligence communities in the years after this decision. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about this dissent.”

Finally, there is the fact that there were secret elements to the US and Soviet space programs, including efforts to establish a military base/outpost on the moon, as noted by the National Security Archive:

“While NASA’s lunar program helped preclude — undoubtedly along with international political considerations — any military service ambitions to establish an outpost on the moon, the military and the Intelligence Community found at least two ways, after 1961, to make use of the moon without leaving Earth. Both approaches involved signals bounced off the moon, a possibility that had been confirmed by experiment as early as 1946…While NASA pursued its lunar program, the U.S. Intelligence Community closely monitored the entire Soviet space program, including its lunar component. The declassified documents in this posting concern a number of aspects of that effort — collection through a variety of means, different levels of analysis, and analysis of specific missions…Much of the U.S. lunar program that followed President Kennedy’s decision to assign NASA the responsibility to send men to the moon was conducted openly — but there are other aspects of U.S. plans with regard to the moon are revealed, at least in part, by declassified documents.”

A conclusion

This article has aimed to highlight a number of things, what one could call NASA’s hidden truths, mainly looking at cooperation between NASA, the DOD, and Intelligence Community. There is much more I could have written about, like the “marriage of nuclear power and space at NASA” as some writers have called it, despite the alternatives that exist. [7] This article also didn’t cover the criticisms and reactions to “Obama’s plan,” which is more accurately Bush’s plan for the Space Shuttle but continued. [8] Additionally, this article doesn’t cover the launching of satellites by NASA, the DOD admitting it has had a “key role it has played in lending technology and expertise to NASA’s space exploration and research mission,” NASA acquiring drones to study hurricanes, and NASA getting two military spy telescopes that are in storage. That wasn’t all this article didn’t cover in detail. It didn’t look at how “the U.S. military, NASA and other federal agencies are increasingly looking to commercial companies for help getting satellites to space,” that the main contractor of the Orion spacecraft is none other than Lockheed Martin,” or a focus on a tri-agency program (NOAA, DOD and NASA) called NPOESS which is “designed to merge the civil and defense weather satellite programs in order to reduce costs and to provide global weather and climate coverage with improved capabilities above the current system.” This article, instead, covered other issues.

After doing all this research, it is worrisome to me the connections between NASA, the Intelligence Community and the National Military Establishment. This is because such connections mean that NASA has, to some capacity, become an arm of the national security state. The coordination between the military and NASA still exists even after the space shuttle, but was likely stronger then than it is is now. This also means that one can question how “peaceful” NASA is if it is collaborating with those entities that support mass surveillance and the war machine. In the end, if NASA does not cut its ties with the military and intelligence communities, along with the defense contractors, in order to fulfill a mission for peaceful space exploration, then it is is just another cog in the machine of the national security state, something that no one should want.

Notes

[1] Powell, Corey S. “The Men Who Sold The Moon.” American Scientist Nov. 2014: 471. Print.

[2] Ibid, 471-2.

[3] Ibid, 472.

[4] Ibid, 470.

[5] If someone was to use this as part of their assassination conspiracy, then I’d just have to laugh at them. That’s because JFK had a corporate and imperialist presidency. If you want to learn more about the space program in reference to that, then this article would be a good one.

[6] See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

[7] Numerous writers have said that there “are safe, clean alternatives to nuclear power” which would take away money from the “scientific vested interests established during the [Second World]War.”

[8] Buzz Aldrin, Elon Musk and Robert Gibbs all put out statements supporting this plan. See here, here and here. Some criticism came from the Civil Intelligence Group, along with Neil Armstrong, James Lowell and Eugene Cernan, which showed their commitment to nationalism.