Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks Following a Briefing at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

February 25, 1965

I WANT to say a word before we leave. This has been a very thrilling and inspiring experience for me. To be in the company of you men is always stimulating. I feel that the Nation and the peoples of the world have a deep debt to you people who selflessly sacrifice so much in order that we might see so far ahead and build for our future.

I came over here this morning because I wanted to see you before you left. I wanted to review your pictures. But most of all, I wanted to express the appreciation of myself and the Vice President, who is vitally interested in this program as Chairman of the Space Council, but more particularly, the understanding and appreciation of all Americans for this great agency that has just recently been born and has made such a success of the Nation's space program.

I think it is characteristic of NASA and of Jim Webb and of our American science community that you haven't dwelled much on the achievements of last Saturday of Ranger-8. Instead, you have looked ahead to the future and to the great success that you think is down the road, that you can anticipate with the Mariner mission to Mars. I feel somewhat close to this agency and this program. The Space Act of 1958 was one of the measures that I authored during my 25 years in Congress, and I expect is one of my proudest legislative accomplishments. I think it is really incredible that we have come so far. It was only 7 years ago this month that we were deliberating and debating and still seeking to come to grips with the realities of the space age.

I need not recall some of the comments made during that period about the follies that we were about to embark upon. But from that beginning we have moved in these years to realities of accomplishments far beyond our greatest expectations.

I think a great deal of that is due to the quality and the character and the morale of the people who man the ramparts here in the Space Agency. I doubt that I have ever known a more genuine or competent or dedicated administrator than Jim Webb. How he could come in here with his bare hands and lead this group to the achievements that have come to pass is nothing less than phenomenal.

I remember the morning when he started out in my office with Dr. Dryden and they made a contract that the two of them together, and later Dr. Schneiderman joined them and others, would see this thing to a conclusion.

I told Dr. Dryden and Mr. Webb as they left the office that I wouldn't be bothering them. I had made a suggestion or two before Mr. Webb had been appointed. But I wouldn't recommend any contractors, I wouldn't suggest any personnel, I wouldn't try to pass any of my kinfolks down the line to him or recommend any brother-in-law. But that if he got in trouble to come to see me, I would be ready and willing. And he hasn't been back.

That is a tribute not only to the personnel that roans this shop but to the Congress and to the scientific community and to the great industrial genius that is America.

Now I want to say a word about the space feats last week, the continuing Mariner probe, the forthcoming Gemini flights. I think they are indications of the rapid advances that we are making and that we are going, in the name of this country, to continue to make in the exploration of space.

Our purpose is not, and I think all of you realize never will be, just national prestige. Our purpose remains firmly fixed on the fixed objective of peace. The frontier of space is a frontier that we believe all mankind can and should explore together for peaceful purposes, and I have enunciated that doctrine in all the forums in which I have been allowed to trespass. This has been and is going to continue to be the policy and the purpose of the United States Government.

Administrator Webb reminded me, as I went down the line and met some of your top officials--that more than three-fifths of the nations of the earth have voluntarily joined us in these endeavors. I hold the hope that some day all mankind may be united in this common exploration of the dominion of the stars.

I was rather surprised yesterday to see the great acceptance of the communications satellite by other nations. We know as the space age develops that it becomes increasingly clear that space technology will serve us in most practical ways. It will improve the quality of life on earth for all humans, regardless of their national origins or their races or their religions.

Our weather forecasting is already better around the world because of our space developments.

It could be better here in Washington. A young man told me this morning, "This is your day, Mr. President. It's going to be 70 and sunshiny." I said, "Where did you get that?" He said, "That's the forecast."

That was about 6:30, and when I got ready to leave my office he said, "Here's you hat and raincoat." I said, "What's happened?" He said, "It's snowing in Johnson City--and it has changed a good deal here since 6:30."

So we still have a good way to go. But we have made great developments in forecasting and our communications between continents will be advanced significantly in the months to come. So the potential is really unlimited in regard to improvements in navigation and map making and many fields. The job that all of you have done deserves the greatest praise, and as your President, I want, on behalf of all the people of America, to express it this morning.

I would also like to mention that the Department of Defense, in cooperation with NASA, has made a very great contribution in this field. One of the things I think that has pleased me most and surprised me the greatest, is that two strong characters like Jim Webb and Bob McNamara could avoid the fights about billions of dollars and about authority and about power and about areas. It is a tribute to their character and to their dedication, and also to you fellows who work under them who do not promote them and provoke these fights.

I doubt that we have spent but very few hours resolving disagreements between the Administrator of the Space Agency and the Secretary of Defense, and yet I have seen hundreds of reasons why we could have had serious disagreements and had the Government divided among itself.

So I want to say to all of you--well done. You serve freedom and you serve peace and you serve progress. You have served them richly and well. We are proud of you, we are grateful to you, and in the years to come we will come to rely on your devotion and your dedication to duty, and I think you are an example for all the rest of our Government and for public servants everywhere. Thank you very much.

[At this point James E. Webb, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said, "Mr. President, I simply can't sit here without expressing our deep appreciation for what you have said, and also indicating that I know better than you or anyone how much too generous your remarks are about me personally .... till we have done is follow you since you took up this cause and enacted that piece of legislation (the Space Act of 1958), which I said as near to Johnson City as l could, at Rice University Just about to days ago, that I thought was one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation ever enacted by which a modern nation would meet the requirements of a modern world." The President's implementation of the act, he concluded, would go down in history.

[The President then resumed speaking.]

I remember in the late riffles when we had a Democratic conference--and the distinguished Vice President, who as you know is Chairman of the Space Council, will remember it--we assembled there to tear each other apart, because Democrats through the years, as Will Rogers said, always had one thing in common--they belonged to no organized party.

But we met there in that conference to tear each other apart, and I talked to them about the future of space. And some sixty of them listened attentively, but most of them were rather addled, and a good many of them scratched their heads and looked at me as if they wondered what had happened--had I gotten a little fuzzy during the fall when I had some hearings on Sputnik? They just wondered if I was all there.

After we left that meeting I spent a good many days, and maybe weeks, exchanging viewpoints with Speaker Rayburn and particularly Majority Leader McCormack at that time, about the commitment that we would make in this field, and the depth of it and the wisdom of it, and the Doubting Thomases we would meet at each corner and how we would resolve them, and how to handle the folks that would make light of it, and so forth. And now as you look back to the late fifties and see here in the middle sixties what this small group of men has done, I think it will be truly one of the most memorable periods of achievement in American political and industrial affairs.

Mr. Vice President, do you want to say anything?

[Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey responded and said he thought the/act that the President was the author of the Space Act and "not only authored it but shepherded it to success and then nourished it to fulfillment" was the real strength of the program. He remarked that the President had told him many times that of all the endeavors in the Government that were "fascinating, interesting, and would have an impact on the future,"the space program was it. The President, he added, had admonished him to take a keen interest in it. "Mr. President," he concluded, "lest you have forgotten, l voted for the bill."

[ The President then resumed speaking. ]

I want Mr. Webb and Dr. Dryden, for whom I have the greatest admiration and deepest affection, to know this. A few years ago, Jim Webb was practically unheard of in this town. Dr. Dryden was not a familiar name on the tongue of nearly everybody in the country, and Bob McNamara was a subordinate way down in the bottom of the Defense Department. Out of those departments have come these men who are leading the country today.

I spend a good deal of my day trying to find the Dr. Drydens and the undiscovered Jim Webbs and the unheard-of McNamaras that may be back under that table. If any of you feel like you can qualify, call up, I want to see you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:26 a.m. at the Headquarters Building of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington following a briefing by NASA officials on the progress of Mariner 4. During his remarks he referred to Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, James E. Webb, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, Deputy Administrator, Dr. Dan Schneiderman, Mariner '64 project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense.

On the same day the White House released the questions asked by the President at the briefing, as follows:

THE PRESIDENT. How long did it take to develop the Mariner spacecraft?

A. It took about 3 years of intensive work to develop the Mariner spacecraft.

MR. WEBB. It took longer than that because you had the experience of Ranger behind you. You built on a big platform of experience to do it in 3 years.

A. That is absolutely correct.

THE PRESIDENT. Do you think there is an excellent chance that it will complete its mission?

A. I would like to pass that one to Dan Schneiderman

DR. SCHNEIDERMAN. Chances are good, but we are all mortal, including machines.

THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Vice President, do you want to ask something?

THE VICE PRESIDENT. NO,

MR. WEBB. Mr. President, I would like to invite you to make any remarks that you would like to make to these distinguished experimenters who have come to Washington. They are the ones who do the science in universities and laboratories. Before that, however, I would just like to say that Dr. Draper, whom you awarded the Medal of Science, even though he is an engineer, is here. He is going to be sworn in as a NASA consultant and will advise us on a number of things. You will see a little bit later this lunar landscape. Dr. Dryden, Schneiderman, and others faced the problem of how to guide ourselves to the moon. We asked him, "Can you make a guidance system whereby we can get a man on the moon and back home?" He thought a while and said, "Yes, I can." I said, "How soon?" He said, "It will be ready when you need it." It is ready and two models are now under test. So Dr. Draper is a distinguished addition to our staff.

THE PRESIDENT. What happens to Mariner after it completes its picture transmission?

A. The Mariner spacecraft after it completes its picture transmission, which will take a few days, as Dr. Schneiderman indicated, will continue to orbit about the sun. In other words, it will be basically a little planet of the sun. We will lose contact with it a month or so after it goes beyond Mars.

THE. PRESIDENT. How much money is this costing ?

MR. WEBB. Well the program managers know about the money as well as science. Let's ask them.

A. This is one I would like to pass to my deputy.

Mr. WEBB. There has to be an administrator even in a science group, you know.

A. The total cost of the program is in the vicinity of 110 to 115 million dollars.

THE PRESIDENT. What is the next step in our planetary exploration?

A. The next step in our planetary exploration is to bring into being a Voyager spacecraft. It will be a larger, more versatile type spacecraft than the Mariner. The agency is going into a study period right now to determine what the Voyager ought to do and to lay the groundwork for making a decision about a year from now as to whether we really should get into the hardware part of the program.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks Following a Briefing at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238627

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