ONE SMALL PREDATORY STEP

At the end of World War Two the entire structure of the world had changed.

Everything previously hinged on the European powers: France, Britain, and Germany.

Now small European countries with large empires abroad were obsolete.

The world was split between two massive superpowers: Russia and America.

But America wasn’t worried because they had the wealth, the technology, and the industrial might.

At least America wasn’t worried until 1957.

Then something happened that shook the entire USA to its core.

Sputnik.

Without warning, the Russians had a satellite circling the earth.

Passing over America whenever it pleased.

America couldn’t build their own satellite, and they had no way to stop the Russians putting as many satellites over America as they wanted.

It wouldn’t be long before the Russians could put a man in space.

And it wasn’t.

In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the earth.

This wasn’t just worrying for the USA, it was embarrassing.

They were supposed to be technologically superior, but they’d been left in the dust by the Russians.

How did that come about?

Well, during World War Two the Germans invented the V2, the world’s first ballistic missile.

A sophisticated rocket they could fire straight up into space, and have it land wherever they wanted.

And it did, on London around 1,500 times.

At the end of the war, the V2 scientists had to decide which of the conquering powers to surrender to.

A few of them chose the Americans, but most of them chose the Russians.

This gave the Russians the knowledge, the technology, and consequently the lead in missiles.

President Kennedy gets the credit for what happened next.

But really Bob Gilruth, head of NASA, should get the credit for predatory thinking.

Gilruth advocated that if America tried to catch the Russians they’d fail, they were too far behind.

So instead of trying to solve a problem they couldn’t solve, get upstream and change it to a problem they could solve.

Change it to a game where the Russians didn’t have an advantage.

And so President Kennedy made a speech to the world.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

The important words are the ones underlined.

“Returning him safely to earth” he knew the soviets could probably get someone there, but they didn’t know how to bring them back.

“None will be so difficult or expensive” that was where the USA could beat Russia.

Kennedy threw down that challenge, in front of the world.

And he gave it a time limit of ten years because that made it a race.

And he knew time cost money, and the USA could throw more money at any race than the Russians could.

In a speech, he wiped out the soviet lead in intercontinental missiles.

He changed the game to interplanetary missiles.

Something the soviets, and their German scientists, hadn’t even tried yet.

Now the Americans and Russians were starting from the same place.

And so, eight years later, the Americans were the first to land a man on the moon and bring him safely back.

They changed the game, and they won the game.

Read more from Dave Trott.