Lyndon Johnson, NASA, and the South

Lyndon B. Johnson was in key positions to influence the American space program in its formative years, from the launch of Sputnik in October 1957 until he left the presidency in 1969. Johnson's involvement with NASA had more impact on the South than on any other region. The location in the South of the major NASA centers involved in Apollo made this inevitable, and of course Lyndon Johnson had influenced the selection of Houston as one of these sites. But there were also factors involved. There were echoes of Franklin Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley Authority in the economic impact of Apollo on the South. And NASA furthered other national goals, including Great Society programs, modernization, and particularly civil rights and poverty, despite the debilitating war in Vietnam. Much of this predated Johnson's presidency. For example, the John F. Kennedy administration pressured Johnson, as Space Council chair, to compel the NASA centers in the South to increase the hiring of African Americans, with the threat of transferring projects elsewhere if they did not do so.