The question is examined of whether it makes sense to believe that there will one day be an interferometric array of telescopes on the Moon. The question is really one of national commitment to a lunar base, since it is not likely that a scientific undertaking of this magnitude would occur in the absence of permanent human presence on the Moon. A discussion is also given of the real possibility if the exploration of space should be a multinational effort

Pilcher, Carl B.

English

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N93-13591
TELESCOPES ON THE MOON OR PIE IN THE SKY?.
Carl B. Pilcher
Director for Science (Acting)*
Office of Exploration
NASA Headquarters
Washington, DC 20546
[The following is a revised version of after-dinner remarks presented to the Workshop on Optical
Interferometry on the Moon, Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 9, 1989.]
The title of this talk poses a question of realism. Does it make sense to believe that there
will one day be an interferometric array of telescopes on the Moon, or is it just pie in the sky? The
question is really one of national commitment to a lunar base, since it is not likely that a
scientific undertaking of this magnitude would occur in the absence of permanent human
presence on the Moon.
One can argue that of course there will be a permanently occupied lunar base someday, but
that sidesteps the key question of what circumstances would lead a nation, the United States in
particular, to make the major commitment of resources that a lunar base would require.
Fortunately, there is a precedent: the Apollo Program. At its peak it commanded more than 4
percent of the federal budget, a proportion four times that of NASA's share today. Understanding
the factors that led to the Apollo commitment may help us understand why the nation might make a
similar commitment to return humans permanently to the Moon.
There has been much written about the Apollo decision, but I will draw here principally on
Walter McDougall's account in "...the Heavens and the Earth," for which McDougall won the
1986 Pulitzer prize for history. Three events encapsulate the rationale for Apollo. The first was the
launch of Sputnik in 1957. Eleven years earlier the RAND Corporation had predicted that
satellites would become one of the most potent scientific tools of the twentieth century, and that the
orbiting of a satellite by the United States "would inflame the imagination of mankind and would
probably produce repercussions in the world comparable to the explosion of the atomic bomb."
*Dr. Pilcher is currently Chief, Advanced Studies Branch of the Solar System Exploration Division, Office of
Space Science and Applications, NASA Headquarters.
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https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19930004403 2020-03-17T10:20:05+00:00Z
In displaying this remarkable degree of foresight, RAND failed to anticipate one thing:
that the Soviets might beat us to it! The launch-0f Sputnik caused Americans to question the basic
assumptions on which their security and prosperity were based. American defense at the time was
based on Eisenhower's "New Look," a policy under which nuclear weapons were considered to be
as available for use in time of war as other munitions. Suddenly, with the launch of Sputnik, this
policy was revealed to be hollow. The Soviet now had the ability, or so it seemed, to lob H-bombs
over the U.S. at will! How could the U.S' continue to rely on bomber-based nuclear retaliation to
deter a Soviet attack? In fact, the U.S. was well ahead in guidance technology, warhead design,
and solid-fuel technology. We were slightly behind only in the development of ICBMs
themselves. But that didn't lessen the public outcry.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Sputnik was the implicit political challenge that it
posed. It not only undermined the assumptions on which western defense was based, it
undermined the very values of western society. Here was the Soviet Union, an agrarian society
just 40 years earlier, challenging the U.S. with a demonstration Of technological and military
might• If 40 years of Communism could so transform one nation, what could it do for others?!
McDougall illustrates the point with a cartoon of the time (figure 1), in which Khrushchev
romances the "Lesser Nations" under a Soviet moon, while the hapless suitor Uncle Sam drops his
gift of candy in astonishment.
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The second event occurred less than three months after John Kennedy took the Presidential
oath of office. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, and the first to i
orbit the earth• Once again, cartoons illustrate the political power of the Soviet feat (figures 2-4). i
• " " ° " " • i ' °American newspapers echoed Sowet wews. a psychological wctory of the first magn tude, I
"new evidence of Soviet superiority"; "cost the nation heavily in prestige"; "marred the political
....... li heand psychological image of the country abroad ; and neutral natmns may come to be eve t
! wave of the future is Russian." The Soviets were laying claim to the future on the power of their
space program.
The third event was the final blow in the sequence of blows to U.S. self-esteem. It came just
5 days after Gagarin s flight, and it was self-inflicted. On April 17, 1961, 1450 CIA-trained Cuban
expatriots landed at the Bay of Pigs. Within 24 hours their beachhead was overrun. Two hundred
were killed, and 1200 were taken prisoners. The message to the world and to the U.S. public was
clear: the U.S. was once again impotent in the face of the Communist revolution. =
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Thesewerethe challengesfacingthe Kennedyadministration: Sputnik,Gagarin,and the
Bayof Pigs. TheU.S.responsewasmoldedlargelyby oneman: Vice-PresidentLyndon
Johnson.Johnsonwentto Kennedyandaskedfor aPresidentialmandateto make
recommendationsaboutspace.Hegotit, andreturnedareportsoloadedwith assumptionsthat the
conclusionwasinescapable:theU.S.mustgoto theMoon!Johnsonsummarized:"Onecan
predictwith confidencethat failureto masterspacemeansbeingsecond-bestin the crucialarena
of ourColdWarworld. In theeyesoftheworld,first in spacemeansfirst, period;secondin space
is secondin everything." That the U.S. meant to be first is again illustrated in cartoons
reproduced by McDougall (figures 5, 6).
Apollo was enormously successful on its own terms. Its objectives were never permanent
human presence on the Moon, or even in space. Rather, its goal was to "land a man on the Moon
and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade." In accomplishing this goal, Apollo
became the standard by which American's judged themselves. Standard phraseology became, "If
we can put a man on the Moon, why can't we...; " and the ellipsis was filled in with "cure cancer,"
"end poverty," or any one of a dozen difficult and distant societal objectives.
The Apollo decision was underlain by a Soviet political challenge posed in technological
terms. Apollo was a U.S. response in kind: a technological solution to a political problem.
Technology harnessed in the service of broad state interests--technocratic government--is the
theme of McDougall's book.
The U.S. and the Soviets were not alone in turning to technocracy. Robert Gilpin of
Princeton University documented French technocracy in his 1968 book "France in the Age of the
Scientific State." In the mid-1960s, European leaders repeatedly expressed the view that
European's independence was threatened by the overwhelming scientific, technological, and
economic power of the United States. France had years earlier decided to do something about it.
The French "countermeasure" was to develop their own technology base. Three areas were seen
as key; aerospace, energy, and electronics. These ares remain to this day
the focal points of French science and technology.
147
Frenchobjectivesin developingthesetechnologieswere at least three-fold: first, to
maintain independence from both superpowers, but especially from the U.S.; second to achieve
primacy within Europe; and last, to pursue Third World foreign policy objectives, particularly in
former French-African colonies.
France developed several specific capabilities in pursuit of these objective. First, the force
j_,_J_, an independent nuclear deterrent that freed France from reliance on the U.S. nuclear
umbrella. Second, telecommunications and remote sensin_ satellite industries that rely on
launchers whose development was based in part on force de frappe delivery technology. These
satellite industries give France independence from the U.S. in crucial technologies and
simultaneously allow it to be a supplier of services to the Third World. Third, an _l:fzAlar_liI_
avionics industry which was developed to some degree at the expense of France's European
neighbors. France thus became a supplier to the Third World and a challenger to the U.S., through
French partnership in the Airbus Consortium, in the large airframe market, one of the few
lucrative world-wide markets the U.S. still dominates. And fourth, a nuclear oower industry that
makes France relatively independent of Middle Eastern oil, and hence of U.S. guarantees of the
continued flow of that oil.
France's post-war embrace of technocratic government was not immediately emulated by
the United States. Although the "New Look" was a reliance on technology to address a
fundamentally political issue, Eisenhower was wary of the downside of technocracy. He
expressed his concerns most eloquently in his Farewell Address, citing economic, political, and
even spiritual dangers posed by the growth of a "military-industrial complex"--a phrase he coined-
-and a "scientific-technological elite."
"Largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our military-industrial posture has been
the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has
become critical; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily
increasing share is conducted by, for, or at the direction of, the Federal gowrhment.
...Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a
substitute for intellectual curiosity .... The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars
by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present--and is
gravely to be regarded. In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we
should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself
become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
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But as McDougall illustrates, with Eisenhower's departure, American political resistance
to technocracy faded. John Kennedy proclaimed that the torch had been passed to a younger
generation, and this generation proved to be, in David Halberstam's words, the "Best and the
Brightest," united in "the belief that sheer intelligence and rationality could answer and solve
anything." In turning to Apollo to meet the Soviet challenge, this generation made the final
transition to American technocracy.
One need look no further than the Strategic Defense Initiative to see that America has not
retreated from technocratic government. Might technocracy and the issues confronting modern
America lead it back to the Moon or beyond it to Mars? Are there factors today that could play the
role that Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin, and the Bay of Pigs played two decades ago?
I think the answer is yes, and the factors are at least three. First, a redefinition of the U.S.-
Soviet relationshin. There is general agreement today that fundamental change is occurring in
the Soviet Union. This change may lead to an equally fundamental change in the U.S.-Soviet
relationship. But the process of change in that relationship is apt to be long and complex. We need
to learn to work together toward common objectives - not an easy task. The intermediate Nuclear
Force Treaty is a major step. Simply developing the procedures for implementing the treaty will
us a lot about how to work together, and will lay both psychological and organizational foundations
for future cooperation. A major space initiative with the Soviet could play a similar role. We
would develop procedures and precedents for working together that could in turn provide part of a
framework for cooperation in other areas. We would not transform the U.S.-Soviet relationship,
but we would take a major step toward its redefinition.
The second factor acts somewhat in tension with the first, but I believe points in the same
direction. That factor is the need to nreserve defense industry, capability in an era of arms control
and declining defense budgets. Let us say the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks succeed and the
U.S. and Soviet Union cut their nuclear arsenals by 50 percent. Even more important, let us say
that major conventional arms cuts are also made. These developments would almost certainly
lead to significant declines in real defense spending, particularly in an era of $100-billion-dollar
plus fiscal deficits. But we cannot afford to let defense industry R&D capability decline along
with defense spending. Gorbachev could be overthrown tomorrow and replaced by a neo-Stalinist.
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Theoppositionto reformin theSovietUnion is strong, and the U.S. is not about to bet its security on
Gorbachev's success. Few projects have both the magnitude and character that could allow them to
substitute in part for decreased defense spending. The construction of a lunar or Martian base
could serve this role.
The third factor involves the Western alliance. Europe is anxious to join a major space
initiative begun by the U.S. and the Soviets, since this will allow Europe to pursue its relations with
both superpowers, while simultaneously developing its own technology base. But what if the United
States decides to sit it out? There is little doubt that the Soviets intend to send humans beyond low
earth orbit, perhaps to the Moon and eventually to Mars. The Europeans have already shown their
willingness to work with the Soviets. The French have a long history of cooperation with the
Soviets in space. The Germans and Soviets have just signed a space cooperation agreement. If the
Sovietsgo out intothe SolarSystem whilethe U.S.stayshome. the Sovietswillalmost sureivtake
our alliesalongwiththem. And thatwillbe unacceptabletothe leadersofthe United States.
So what does this all boil down to? I think it boils down to a program undertaken largely for
foreign policy and domestic reasons. The program would involve not only the U.S. and the Soviet
Union, but Europe and Japan as well, and eventually other nations. We would not rely on the
Soviets for any critical technologies or systems, but we might place such reliance on our allies.
The initial goal could be either the Moon or Mars, but my hunch is the Moon won't be overlooked.
And someday an array of lunar telescopes will be revealing the secrets of distant stars and
galaxies.
Acknowledgment
Partsofthispaper were developedwhilethe authorwas a VisitingFellowatthe Woodrow
Wilson SchoolforPublicand InternationalAffairsat PrincetonUniversity.He was supported
thereby a MacArthur Foundation PostdoctoralFellowshipin InternationalPeace and Security
awarded by the SocialScienceResearch CouncilofNew York.
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WHO ELSE CAN GIVE YOU A MOON?
October 13, 1957. Courtesy of the Sacramento Bee.
Figure I.
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Used by permission.
The cartoon plays on the names of the naval ship Aurora (the dawn), a cradle
of Russian Revolutionary agitation, and Vostok (the East), the first manned
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spacecraft, implying that the future is always made in the Soviet Union. From
The Morning of the Cosmic Era (Moscow, 1961). ---
Figure 2. Used by permission, i
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"In Tune with the Times....Africa!"
The cartoon depicts Yuri Gagarin saluting the African people from space,
implying that each is engages in the same, mutually supporting struggle
against imperialism. From The Morning of the Cosmic Era (Moscow, 1961).
_g_e3.
153
Used by permission.
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"Even His Compass Won't Help Him. Which Way is West?"
The cartoon depicts two "ten-foot-tall" cosmonauts riding Vostoks III and IV to
glory, while an American on his hobby-horse, intimidated by Soviet technical
superiority, can no longer tell West from East. From Izvestia, August 1962.
II
Plgm'e 4. Used by permission.
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"Fill 'Er Up---rm in a Race"
Herblock, May 24, 1961. Copyright 1961 by Herblock in the Washington Post.
Figure 5.
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Used by permission.
/"They Went Thataway"
1964). appeared inFrom Straight Herblock (Simon & Schuster, Originally
the Washington Post.
_ - .....-=-n-- ..... Flgm'e 6. Used by permission.
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Telescopes on the Moon or pie in the sky?

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