Ike and the moon

Sometimes we forget that Dwight Eisenhower was president for one-tenth of the 1960s. And so I was surprised to find this picture of Ike on Sept. 8, 1960, with rocket scientist Werner Von Braun.

Here is Eisenhower, eight months before the first Mercury space flight and President Kennedy’s “man on the moon” speech, and nine years before we put a man on the moon (actually, four men on the moon in 1969 alone).

At the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Ike is looking over a model of the Saturn I rocket, and he isn’t far from the full-size Saturn I rocket engines.

A short wait. The Saturn I sent the first Apollo astronauts around the moon in 1968. The Saturn V would launch Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins toward that first manned landing 40 years ago this month.

(Correction: The Saturn IB started the Apollo manned program, but the Saturn V was the launch vehicle for every manned moon flight, including Apollo 8 in 1968. Thanks, Joel Raupe at Lunar Networks blog.)

The 1960s were a dazzling decade. If Communists were not trying to enslave the world in those days, forcing us to oppose them at considerable cost, the progress could have been even more astounding.

Frank Warner

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Note: In the enlarged photograph, you can see a sign on the floor, "Hard Hats Must Be Worn in This Area." See any hard hats?

Comments

[Joel Raupe]

What a wonderful picture. President Eisenhower, and Lyndon Johnson for that matter, don't get enough credit for getting NASA moving after Sputnik, though Explorer was long intended to be among the U.S. most important contributions to the IGY. The stereotypes and revisionism glossed over the superlatives, writ both large and small, for both men. It's a great find. (BTW, it was on top the Saturn 1b that Apollo 7 was propelled on the first successful manned mission of the series, 22 months after the Apollo 204 pad fire, also stacked on a S1b. In December 1968, Borman, Lovell & Anders were first to ride on the column of fire produced by the first manned Saturn V, on their daring first circumlunar voyage to the Moon, and all the remaining flights, including Apollo 9, through Apollo 17.

The Saturn 1b was returned to service sending crews to Skylab, which rode unmanned as a SV's third stage.

It's last use, if I remember correctly, was, of course, to launch the last Apollo CSM carrying General Stafford, Vance Brand and (finally) Deke Slayton, the last of the original Seven on his first flight, riding the Apollo-Soyuz test project in 1975... coincident to the Fall of Saigon and the beginning of that first, long six-year Gap.

Interesting site, by the way. Enjoyed the look around, and I'll be back.