Posted by Ray Katz in NASA, history, moon
JFK: A joint Soviet-American moon landing?
The document is called National Security Action Memorandum Number 271. The date is November 12, 1963. It’s signed by President John F. Kennedy.
NASM 271 directs the administrator of NASA, who was at that time James Webb, to reach out to the Soviet Union and try to introduce the notion of co-operating on space exploration.
Yep. Ten days before he was shot to death, JFK—the man who challenged the Soviets in a race to the moon—was working to (possibly) work with them. I’m not really sure what all that meant. Kennedy was killed, after all, and we did not work with the Soviets to explore space and land on the moon. (After the moon landing, we DID work with them, of course. But that was after…we were being gracious winners.)
The memorandum specifically refers to “co-operation in lunar landing programs.”
