Eisenhowers Future Theater of War

Dominique Awis
twitter.com/spaceloss

12 January 2017

Technocracy

The management of society by technical experts.

McDougall (1985)

A society which uses technology in purpose of state security.

Technocratic States
Russia and the U.S. were technocratic societies given their work on
satellites and ballistic missile technologies.

Huntsville
I
I

The Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, AL had long

been working in ballistic missile technology.
Von Braun saw space and national defense linked.

Figure 1: Text Modeling graph of Von Braun statement to Congress

(1959).

Sputnik

Figure 2: Scientific earth satellite

News out of Moscow reached the U.S. in a press release, The first
satellite was successfully launched in the U.S.S.R. on Oct.4. It is
fitted with radio transmitters continuously emitting signals.
New York Times (1957)

The World Reacted

News of the Sputnik had reached television. When John Glenn was
asked the same night of Sputniks news his reaction was, Well, to
say the least, George, theyre out of this world.

Figure 3: John Glenn on Name that Tune (Oct. 4, 1957)

Ball in the Air

I

In 1955 Eisenhower originally approved of Project Vanguard as

a scientific Department of Defense project to be separate from
the militarys ballistic missile project.

Project Vanguard was set to be launched within the

International Geophysical Year but was not finished by the
time Sputnik launched and When news of Sputnik reached
Eisenhower.

Space Race
Eisenhower repeatedly discussed the U.S. was not in a space
race with the Soviet Union and that the Soviet achievement in
space was not a military threat. (Logsdon, 1970)

Congressional Subcommittee
I

Johnson began collecting information shortly from the

Pentagon after Sputniks launch and assembled a list of
witnesses to hear from to prepare a Congressional hearing on
national defense and US science and technological security.
Our country is disturbed over the tremendous military and
scientific achievement of Russia. Our people have believed
that in the field of scientific weapons and in technology and
science, that we were well ahead of Russia. Johnson,
1957

Figure 4: Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas (1957)

Congressional Hearings
Agents
Congress met with various agents over this period, however during
the years 1957-1960 met the most with national defense agents,
military and government defense agency (DOD).

As Johnson Feared
I

The Soviets were ahead of the US in space, science, and

technology and Johnson could not stand for that.

He thought of space as a potential battleground, a place the

Soviets might try to assert their Communist dominance. The
US was lagged behind militarily, national defensively.

Johnson remembers asking von Braun, Why do you want to

go to the Moon? Most certainly, when Columbus discovered
America, he found very little here that was worth talking
about and he could not possibly have possessed the
imagination to predict all the things that developed on the
continent he discovered. I think curiosity, and nothing else,
should be the motivating power in exploration and research,
and it is just curiosity why I would like to go to the moon.

Eisenhower
Eisenhower did not see the military significance of satellite and
rocketry. He assured the public and the press U.S. space would not
be militaristic. He saw human spaceflight as futuristic warfare and
not present warfare. He might have thought of humans on the
Moon as science fiction rather than science possibility.

More than science fiction

To Johnson, space was more than science fiction. To Johnson,
space was a battleground to be fought against the Soviet Union.
Johnson was sure to lead for U.S. dominance in space under the
rationale of national security and national prestige.