Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'historic' space mission

Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by nickff on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @01:03PM (#23249208)

Having read some of the histories of NASA and spaceflight, I think you're dramatically mistaken.

Kennedy committed to the lunar landing shortly after Shepherd's suborbital flight, and the idea from NASA was that they'd orbit the moon. Kennedy thought a landing would be more spectacular, but it took NASA quite a while to settle on lunar orbit rendezvous, let alone the Saturn V architecture.

Kennedy was on the verge of cancelling Apollo when he died, and Johnston was anything but a space expert. Johnson was definitely responsible for ensuring no American woman went to space until after he was out of office, the evidence is clear on that one.

The single person most responsible for getting America to the moon was probably John Houbolt (or perhaps Konstantin Tsiolkovsky).

There is also a lot of debate as to whether the ISS has been successful; this really depends on what your objectives were/are.

[1] John Logsdon's Bibligraphy

[2] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezv...

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by Aloha on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @05:00PM (#23251737)

Johnson quite effectively used the space program as a form of political patronage, he used it to spread money and jobs around to potential voters, and it was structured in such a way to bring on key congressmen and senators to support the funding level needed.

I will argue quite firmly that without Johnson, there would be no moon landing or no space program as it developed later and as we know it now.

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by oh_sigh on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @01:44PM (#23249658)

Weren't all of the people who went into space up until at least the mid 70s all naval/AF aviators/test pilots? Was there any chance for them to be women since women couldn't be test pilots back then?

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by nickff on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @01:47PM (#23249701)

Johnson had a meeting with some advocates who made the case for a couple of women being qualified to go to the moon (I believe the meeting took place at around the time of the selection of the second group of Gemini astronauts). If you look at his hand-written notes on the meeting agenda (included in a few document collections such as the Penguin Book of Outer Space Exploration), you will see that Johnson appears to have rejected the idea for... personal reasons.

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by PopePompus on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @04:10PM (#23251188)

Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17) was not a test pilot or military aviator.

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by nickik on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @03:24PM (#23250686)

Johnson is also basically the reason why most of this happened at all.

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by nickff on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @03:29PM (#23250752)

How so?

Johnson definitely did a lot of pork-barreling with the space program funds, but I think the main reason that Apollo went forward was because Kennedy had espoused a grand vision shortly before being shot. Without Lee Harvey Oswald, I doubt that Neil and Buzz would have made it to the moon, especially given Apollo 1.

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Re:Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'histo... by nickik on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @04:38PM (#23251483)

Well money is important and it was Johnson who pushed the idea on Kennedy. Kennedy initial thought the idea pretty nonsense, Johnson early on saw NASA a soft-power instrument.

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