Apollo Nostalgia

Brian Balogh: In 1959 NASA unveiled its inaugural class of astronauts, dubbed the Mercury Seven, after a rigorous selection process.

Speaker 10: From all of the active-duty pilots in the Navy, Marines, and Air Force, the service records of 473 test pilots were selected for review. 110 met the basic qualifications. Each must be-

Brian Balogh: These early astronauts were cut from the same cloth. They were all white, middle-class, family men which many, at the time, considered to be the touchstones of American virtue.

Roger Launius: In addition to being these exceptional individuals, they are our knights in shining armor. They are our representatives. They are us, in other words, in this Cold War environment and rivalry with the Soviet Union.

Brian Balogh: That’s former NASA chief historian, Roger Launius. He says while these astronauts looked like snapshots of the “ordinary American,” major sections of the population were left out of that frame.

Roger Launius: They were often the first generation in their family to attend college. Many of them went to school after World War II on the GI Bill or to the service academies. They were all married. They had children. So in terms of mainstream society in 1959, 1960, the early 1960s, they were a representation of all of us, with obviously the notable exception of there weren’t any women. There weren’t any minorities. That was a major hole in the effort.

Brian Balogh: Was any thought given to going beyond that white, male, middle-class-seeming person? I understand that they were selected from the military. That obviously limited the number of people they might choose. But was there any discussion of thinking outside the box on this one?

Roger Launius: Oh absolutely. I mean there was lots of discussion. I mean before the first astronauts were selected, there was some talk about who would be the best in terms of handling small, tight, cramped spaces. Maybe submarine officers would be better. There was acrobatic skills that might be necessary. Maybe somebody from a circus would be good, who does high-wire acts or something. A lot of those sorts of things were considered and immediately rejected. The one area that was considered in a more serious way, but didn’t get anywhere at the time, was the issue of women.

Roger Launius: There were very fine pilots, and some of them were taken to the Lovelace Clinic on a private endeavor to test and see how they would perform in the same environment that the astronauts had been tested on. They found that many of them were quite good at doing the same things the astronauts were called upon. Some of those women really did believe that they were going to become astronauts. The so-called Mercury 13, 13 women who did as well as the males did in those tests, became a cadre and became a public force up to the point where there was actually hearings on Congress about whether or not NASA should have women astronauts.

Roger Launius: But in the end, they did not do that. To the discredit of NASA, they stood up and said, “We do not want to do this.” They sent John Glenn up to Capitol Hill and he testified how this would be inappropriate. Later, he recanted that and said, “I was wrong, but it was a different time and place.” The result was there were no women that entered the American Astronaut Corps until 1978.

Brian Balogh: Well, they did select all white men as far as I know. How were they portrayed by the press?

Roger Launius: It is fascinating to watch. I mean everybody sort of fawns over these individuals. When they unveiled the first astronauts in 1959, the seven of them were sitting up behind a table. They began to announce their names, and all of the people in the room, this is a press conference, so they’re mostly hard-boiled reporters and television news people, and they stand up and cheered.

Brian Balogh: Wow.

Roger Launius: That, in itself, is pretty remarkable. In fact, there’s a famous exchange between Deke Slayton and Alan Shepard in which one of them leans over to the other and says, “Can you believe this? We haven’t even done anything yet.” That’s sort of true, but I think it does get back to the sense that these are our avatars for this rivalry with the Soviet Union in space, and we’re going to be supportive of them.

Brian Balogh: You talked about the reaction of the press corps to the astronauts. How quickly did the astronauts become American heroes?

Roger Launius: Almost immediately. James Reston, who was a newspaper reporter for the New York Times at the time, was at the unveiling of the first astronauts. He wrote in his story about that event. He said, “You know.” He says, “Most of us are pretty hardheaded when it comes to looking at these big events. But when you see these individuals and their boyish charm, their good looks, their contagious enthusiasm for what they’re doing, you’ve got to feel good about it.” In that sense, they won over everybody. Those stories that were put out in the newspapers, done on the evening news, wherever, really did bring to the attention of the public the best things about these astronauts. Mostly they ignored the bad things. It wasn’t until years later that those came out.

Brian Balogh: Just to underscore what an incredibly popular phenomenon this was, I remember writing to NASA during the 1960s and making suggestions. As everybody in my family can tell you, I don’t know how to turn on my vacuum cleaner. But this is just something that a lot of people in the country got behind and felt a part of.

Roger Launius: It’s hard not to feel a part of this when it’s on the news on a regular basis. At the time of a launch, for instance, there would be a pause in the day where everybody would watch it on television. When I was in school, they rolled TVs into, usually it was the lunchroom which was the one place they could get us all into, and we’d watch these launches on TV. But it became a part of our lives in ways maybe NASA has not been since that time.

Roger Launius: The other thing I’d like to say about this is that in the 1960s there were all of these weekly news magazines. My parents subscribed to, I think, three or four of them. Time and Newsweek and The Saturday Evening Post and Life and Look and so on were all magazines that were popular during the time. Life Magazine especially made a big deal out of the astronauts. In fact, they paid a million dollars that went to NASA for the privilege of writing the personal stories of each of the astronauts in their magazines. That million dollars that was held in escrow to be paid out in case something happened to the astronauts. It was sort of a life insurance policy.

Brian Balogh: Of course, this is all going on during the escalating war in Vietnam during a very contentious period, to say it mildly, for racial equality in the United States. How did Americans square the two?

Roger Launius: Well, in many cases they didn’t square them that well. At the same time that you’ve got this positive, good news story of America’s race to the moon, you’ve got these very historic events, Civil Rights crusade, the escalation in Vietnam, and the antiwar protests that resulted from that, and so on. They come together at some level at the time of the launch of Apollo 11 in July of 1969 where Ralph Abernathy brings some protestors during his poor people’s campaign to the Kennedy Space Center to protest this launch.

Roger Launius: To the credit of the NASA administrator, fellow by the name of Tom Payne, reminiscent of the 18th century Tom Payne, not the same person at all. He went out and met with him. He heard their concerns. Their concerns were, “Why are we spending money on this when there are so many needs here on Earth?” That is a very valid question, one that NASA struggled to answer throughout its history, without very good success. Abernathy made clear that, “We don’t object to the astronauts. We don’t really object to going to the moon, but we do think that we could spend our money better.”

Roger Launius: Payne, to his credit, said, “I’m in agreement with you on a lot of this. If I could solve the problems that you have identified by not pushing the button tomorrow to send the astronauts to the moon, I would not push that button. But you and I both know that this is not going to solve the problem. I would urge you to be supportive of this and I will be supportive of you and your desires as well. We can solve a lot of problems in this nation through our use of science and technology and that’s what NASA’s all about.” Abernathy bought that. Payne then asked him to pray for the safety of the astronauts, which he did beautifully. And then some of the members of his campaign went over to the launch and saw it the next day.

Roger Launius: In response to that experience, and it’s a moving experience to watch a rocket go up. It’s sort of an epiphany in a lot of ways as you see this thing rise majestically in the distance. Abernathy, when interviewed about it, said, “I’m as proud as any American about this, but I really think we need to reconsider our priorities.”

Brian Balogh: Well, you’ve actually written about a kind of Apollo nostalgia that developed for a bygone era. Tell us about that. What did you mean by that, Roger?

Roger Launius: Well, I mean one of the things that tends to happen is that when we look back on the Apollo era after 50 years, we long for a time and a place that was simpler, where everything seemed more black and white and you know what was good and you knew what was bad. Now, never mind the fact that the reality was always different. But that’s how we tend to, I think, look at history in a lot of ways. I like to point to the sense that white males are in charge and there’s not that much in the way of multiculturalism or any of those sorts of things that are so common in our society today, and that somehow when we think back on that, yeah, things were better then.

Roger Launius: So does that mean because white males were in charge, things were better? I can guarantee you that might be the lesson that some people take, but that certainly wasn’t true. That’s that nostalgia for a time and a place that actually never really existed, but we would like to think did.

Brian Balogh: Well, part of the nostalgia may be for white males to be in charge again.

Roger Launius: Absolutely. The counterculture responded to the Apollo program with this love/hate thing. They look at these guys in short-sleeved white shirts and dark ties and pocket protectors sitting in mission control. They are the epitome of the establishment, the organization men.

Brian Balogh: Don’t forget those thick black glasses.

Roger Launius: Absolutely. They were able to do all this stuff. At some level, you have to say, “God, I hate that society. I want a culture that is more open and so on and so forth.” But then you look back and you say, “But God, they really did pull it off.” They were able to land on the moon, not once but multiple times. And so there’s something to be said for that.

Brian Balogh: What role did pop culture play in this whole nostalgia industry, if you will?

Roger Launius: Well, I mean obviously you see it in a variety of settings. You can see it in the music. Think about all the music that has been … and great music that has been made that celebrates space flight. You can start with Rocket Man by Elton John and you can certainly very quickly move to a variety of other artists doing really interesting songs. And they’re all celebratory at some level. That’s one strain of this. There is film that celebrates that tendency. The movie I like to point to is Apollo 13 in 1995 starring Tom Hanks that really does lay out this geeky mindset of how a bunch of squares can accomplish all this great stuff.

Roger Launius: The only counterculture pieces of this that show up in the film is when Tom Hanks’ daughter, he plays Jim Lovell in the movie, is complaining about the breakup of The Beatles, which of course did happen. But that’s the only thing in which it intrudes all of the other things that are taking place. Vietnam, civil rights, the women’s movement, on and on and on and on as this desperate time in late ’60s, early ’70s that this all plays out in is just sort of lost in that particular story.

Brian Balogh: One last question, Roger, did you ever secretly want to go to the moon?

Roger Launius: Not so secretly. I want to go now. I got involved a few years ago in the effort to preserve the lunar landing sites, especially Tranquility Base from ’69. We haven’t had a problem yet, but one of the things that’s always happened with historic sites, cultural sites is that as soon as people go there they tend to degrade those sites in various ways. Sometimes they do it intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. I have volunteered to NASA that I would be happy to be the first curator on the moon to put the ropes and stanchions up around Tranquility Base to make sure that the tourists who visit there, and someday they will, no question, will be able to preserve the site.

Brian Balogh: Roger Launius is a former NASA chief historian and associate director at the National Air and Space Museum.