Diane Sare, LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senate from New York, began her weekly New York Symposium discussion on July by describing her public warning on July 1 about threats to former President Donald Trump, including a danger of assassination, which nearly occurred on July 13, two weeks later. In a strategic briefing, she focused on the continuing global threat of nuclear annihilation, as NATO moves to place long-range missiles in Germany. “Who is running the Presidency?” she demanded to know.
Sare’s guests were Hal Vaughan and Roger Ham, like Sare, also longtime associates of Lyndon LaRouche, and both space enthusiasts who grew up during the exciting years of the manned space programs, Mercury, Gemini, and the Apollo manned Moon landing program.
Vaughan began by discussing the ultimate reason for space exploration: In about 5 billion years, the Sun will become a red giant and engulf the Earth. Can we survive beyond the life of the Solar System? Getting to the Moon is merely the first step. Space travel is a complex and dangerous activity with a myriad of problems to solve.
In 1961 President John Kennedy challenged the nation to go to the Moon within the decade, because it would organize our energies and skills. Vaughan discussed the debate over direct ascent by a huge rocket versus an Earth or lunar rendezvous of smaller spacecrafts. He gave an overview of the hardware and series of procedures that had to be perfected to get to the Moon and back. The nature of a science and engineering crash-program was detailed.
Ham said you can’t investigate how we got to the Moon without exploring the work of space science expert Marsha Freeman, who literally wrote the book, How We Got to the Moon: The Story of the German Space Pioneers, on that topic in 1993. She focused on the German space pioneers who were brought to the U.S. at the end of World War II and who were crucial to the development of the U.S. space program.
But why were they successful? Yes, they had more practical experience with rockets, but no one had experience in sending humans into space! There is a rich history of German contributions to science, philosophy, and the arts. Why? The Humboldt educational reforms of the early 19th Century were crucial to giving a broad education that would prepare students to make contributions in any field they later chose to enter. Students had to be “free individuals” who also saw themselves as world citizens whose contributions would benefit all mankind. Wernher von Braun addressed this in testimony to the U.S. Congress. When asked if Americans knew enough to tackle the challenge of manned space flight, he replied that it wasn’t a question of knowledge, but of being able to enter several new fields in which no one had any background and yet make progress.
Many of the scientists and engineers who were involved in sending men to the Moon were recruited right out of college: The average age of the people in the Apollo control room was 28 years! Von Braun fought tirelessly against the anti-science and anti-progress movements being created at the same time that we were working to send men to the Moon. As Lyndon LaRouche emphasized, fundamental discoveries, such those involved in human space exploration, are the real sources of long-term progress in the economy and society. Landing on the Moon was intended to be the first step toward a permanent presence on the Moon and beyond. It is high time, said Ham, that we return to that approach.
Sare discussed the Manhattan Project and the nature of a crash program. Sare noted that it is necessary to consider the cost of not doing something as well as the cost of doing it. These types of projects can genuinely inspire a nation’s youth: What is the dollar value of that? We must create an environment that allows people’s creative potential to be used for the Good. One of the joys of the space program was that it gave many young people with a love of science the opportunity to be part of something world-historic. One of the greatest crimes against humanity is denying people the opportunity to make their lives meaningful.
