Pacs 203 Peace Movement Profile Essay (1)

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Peace Movement Profile Essay Civil Response to National Objectives: Anti-Poverty Protests During the Apollo Space Program HIST 232/PACS 203 August 2023 Hassan Sadiq

On the 4 th of October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit around the earth on a refurbished R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) rocket (McDougall, 1985). This was the first artificial satellite to be launched from earth and into space, being successfully placed into low-earth orbit making the achievement the first of its kind. The success of the Sputnik 1 mission raised alarm bells for the military and intelligence establishment in the United States. Although it was not uncommon for the unveiling of numerous military and aerospace technologies to raise concern between the US and USSR during this era, the Sputnik program was of particular concern. The Soviets had attained a significant lead over the US in a new domain; space. Within a year, spurred on by domestic political force, the United States would establish a federal space agency known as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA (Dawson, 2021). Yet, in the following years the US would continue to trail the Soviet space program. In 1961 the Soviets launched the Vostok 1 mission, which successfully launched man into an orbital spaceflight for the first time (Dawson, 2021). The following year saw US President John F. Kennedy give the now iconic “We choose to go to the Moon” speech in the fall of 1962 (McDougall, 1985). This speech set the goal for the national effort of landing a man on the moon and returning him to earth safely before the end of the decade. History would prove the American state triumphant, with the Apollo program succeeding in landing man on the moon for the first time in July of 1969. However, the victory in beating the Soviets to landing man on the moon came with a significant expense of resources and finances which saw scrutiny from some social justice groups. Thorough cost analysis shows that the Apollo program cost 25.8 billion dollars during the program's run (Dreier, 2022). When adjusted for inflation, the figure stands at 257 billion dollars (Dreier, 2022).

The 1960’s was a defining period for American society. As it saw the peak of the civil rights movement, a non-violent civil-disobedience campaign against state sanctioned racial discrimination and structural socioeconomic inequality (Santoro, 2015). Seeing as to how the government was spending immense financial resources to sustain Apollo program, civil rights activists targeted NASA with non-violent peaceful protests. The aim of these demonstrations was to voice discontent with the government's priorities of space prestige and insist on redirecting funds for socioeconomic uplift. Activists argued that money going into the Apollo and associate space programs could be better spent on eliminating poverty and reducing income inequalities, particularly among racialized communities. The space race as it came to be known was an aspect of the cold war and reflected the nature of great power competition of the era. Unlike the arms race which focused on developing the most sophisticated nuclear armaments and delivery systems at the time, the space race was far more politically motivated. The development of nuclear armaments provides strategic military capability that fundamentally redefines the thresholds of war. In fact, the arms race is one the major reasons as to why the cold war remained ‘cold’. Since a direct confrontation between nuclear armed states risks mutually assured destruction. On the other hand, the struggle for achieving greater milestones in space exploration was a clash of ideology. Both the US and USSR aimed to prove that their societies and systems of governance were superior, thus greater attainment in space had become a staging ground for this struggle. The political push for space exploration with the purpose of outdoing the competition is well documented. The development of space technology initially began as a military endeavor and was subsequently seen as a domain that falls under that jurisdiction. However, as the US fell

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behind the USSR, space came under greater civilian directive. This culminated when the 85 th United States Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act that would be signed into law by President Eisenhower in 1958 (Dawson, 2021). One of the objectives of the legislation explicitly reads as “ The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology”, reflecting the nationalistic motivations behind space exploration at the time (Dawson, 2021) . In the lead up to the Apollo 11 mission launch, prominent civil rights activists Ralph Abernathy and Hosea Williams led a series of protests outside the launch center (Combs, 2021). Hundreds of followers, predominantly working-class African Americans took part in the non-violent peaceful demonstrations. Williams publicly stated, “Our purpose is to protest America’s inability to choose human priorities” (Perry, 2019). Placards that read “$12 a day to feed an astronaut. We could feed a starving child for $8.” were held at the protests (Smith, 2019). Ralph Abernathy who succeeded Martin Luther King Jr., proclaimed that “space flight represented an inhuman priority while one-fifth of the nation lacked adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care” (Perry, 2019). Thomas O. Paine, the administrator for NASA met with Abernathy where the two had an amicable discussion outside the launch site (Combs, 2021). O. Paine's’ willingness to heed the concerns of the protesters highlighted how even those most dedicated to the cause of space exploration were able to sympathize with the overall message of the protestors. Overall, the movement can be deemed as being partially successful. It did not generate any significant response from the government, nor did it lead to any concessions from the political establishment. Because of this and the Apollo program's success, it is very easy to see how the protests can be seen as largely insignificant or as nothing more than a minor spinoff to the far

more impactful civil rights protests that preceded it. However, it would be disingenuous to suggest that the movement was a failure. The protests led by civil rights activists outside of cape Kenedy, played a role in raising awareness surrounding national priorities that overlooked social justice and equity. The movement also captivated the support of other peace movement advocates such as anti-Vietnam war activists, environmentalist groups and feminists (Combs, 2021). These groups all sympathized with the anti-poverty protestors and the call for greater government focus on socioeconomic development. Anti-Vietnam war protestors viewed NASA as a component of the civil-military establishment alongside the military industrial complex, with the purpose of fulfilling an inherently destabilizing foreign policy agenda in the name of subverting communism. Environmentalists raised concern with the space programs' impact due to pollution (Combs, 2021). Feminist activists voiced opposition to what they saw as sexist hiring practices as no female astronaut acted as crew for any of the apollo missions (Lovell, 2021). Disconnect in this case is not too dissimilar as to that felt by some racial minorities. As the apollo space program continued into the early 1970’s the overall opposition from the various groups was compounded by waning public interest in space exploration. From 1970-1974 the Richard Nixon administration rolled back NASA’s funding from 4% of the federal budget to less than 1% (Dawson, 2021).. It is these budget cuts that cut short and ended the Apollo space program. President Nixon actively perused an anti-poverty policy agenda, with the family assistance plan being announced in August of 1969, just one month after the first apollo moon landing. The family assistance program aimed to provide a basic universal income for low- income working-class families with children (Asen, 2001). Therefore, it can be said that the movement led by civil rights activists to invest in anti-poverty programs rather than space

exploration was in fact successful even if the motivation on behalf of the US government to do so had little direct link to the protests outside Cape Kennedy. Nonetheless, the family assistance plan was never implemented, and in the following years, anti-welfare sentiment would prominently grow in the US political space (Asen, 2001). It can be said that the core principles of the movement persist to this day in one form or another. There continues to be discontent among progressive political voices against large sums of government spending in certain state institutions, particularly in national defense. It is these same left-leaning political voices that call for greater spending on social upliftment such as a single-payer healthcare system. Therefore, the core concept remains where a section of the population believes government priorities are misplaced. More importantly, there continues to be discussion in the United States surrounding the issue racial equality. While the civil rights movement as whole achieved success through the 1960’s with several landmark anti- discriminatory legislation being passed, challenges regarding institutional racism remain to this day (Santoro, 2015). One aspect that has been dominant in mainstream political discourse relates to the issue of police violence. The rise of movements that focus on racial justice such as the Black Lives Matter organization highlight the reality that structural challenges remain for racialized communities. These challenges relating to social justice for racialized communities are linked to income disparities and economic health (Hardy, et al., 2019). With these factors in mind, there is a possibility for the movement to see a revival in the upcoming years that closely mirrors the original of the Apollo era. NASA is currently pursuing the ongoing Artemis program that seeks to return man on the moon (Dawson, 2021). Once again, billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on the moon missions at a time where sizeable economic challenges such as

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inflation and affordability stifle low-income communities. Thus, the debate continues regarding the worth of space exploration and similar ventures with unpredictable outcomes when a number of critical challenges exist closer to home.

References: Asen, R. (2001). Nixon’s Welfare Reform: Enacting Historical Contradictions of Poverty Discourses. Rhetoric and Public Affairs , 4(2), 261–279. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41939671 Combs, V.R., (2021) The Dark Side of the Moon: Unpacking Civil Rights and Student Antiwar Criticism of the Apollo Program. Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. Butler University 605. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/605 Dawson, L. (2021). Politics and the Space Race. In: The Politics and Perils of Space Exploration. Springer Praxis Books . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56835-1_8 Dreier, C. (2022). An Improved Cost Analysis of the Apollo Program. Space Policy , 60, 101476. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2022.101476 Hardy, B. L., Samudra, R., & Davis, J. A. (2019). Cash Assistance in America: The Role of Race, Politics, and Poverty. The Review of Black Political Economy , 46(4), 306–324. https://doi.org/10.1177/0034644619865272 Lovell, B.D. (2021). Sex and the Stars: The Enduring Structure of Gender Discrimination in the Space Industry. Journal of Feminist Scholarship 18 (Spring): 61-77. 10.23860/jfs.2021.18.04. McDougall, W.A. (1985). Sputnik, the space race, and the Cold War, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 41:5, 20-25, DOI: 10.1080/00963402.1985.11455962 Santoro, W. A. (2015). Was the Civil Rights Movement Successful? Tracking and Understanding Black Views. Sociological Forum , 30, 627-647. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/stable/43654410 Perry, I. (2019) For the Poor People’s Campaign, the Moonshot Was Less Than a Triumph. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/us/for-the-poor-peoples-campaign- the-moonshot-was-less-than-a-triumph.html Smith, D. (2019) 'Whitey's on the moon': why Apollo 11 looked so different to black America. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/14/apollo-11-civil-rights-black- america-moon

Pacs 203 Peace Movement Profile Essay (1)

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