NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan Discusses NASA and U.S. Space Exploration (1960)

It's clearly the competition that arises out of the USSR activities and the achievements that they have made in this field. Remember that for decades the world at large has regarded this country as preeminent and most scientific technological and industrial fields. They've known us by our works and they've considered them to be good. But now the Soviet Sputnics are larger and they're heavier than our satellites. The Russian space probe went into orbit around the sun, millions of miles from Earth, two months before our small pioneer formed followed suit. There's no denying that the Russian successes in space have hit our prestige hard. But total success without some failures is contrary to scientific experience, and this is the part of their program in space that goes on publicize. For my part, I don't think that makes very much difference. It really doesn't. They've done the things they've done and they've done them ahead of us. The Soviets have managed to convince many, even in the relatively sophisticated western nations, and certainly in the less industrially developed nations,

that Russian achievements in space are the true measure of scientific and technological advancement, and thus the measure of the strength of a culture. achievements in space appear to have made more credible Soviet statements in other fields, in the economic and the political and ideological spheres. This Soviet propaganda drive is especially impressive to the people of nations with little industry or technology of their own. Millions are taking the technological accomplishments the Russians publicize so well and effectively, as models for their own ambitions. Not knowing fully how these advances were made, the reason that the Russian peasant hoisted himself by his bootstraps in less than a lifetime, lifting himself to technological peaks in all areas, uncritically, uncritically. They're wondering if other marginal peoples might not be well-advised to step in quietly, along behind the Communist bandwagon in the hope of being swept onto utopia overnight, and practically, painlessly. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the international problem we face, to counter the spreading communist influence that is based on Soviet space accomplishments,

it is imperative that the United States pursue its own space program actively, effectively, and with all of the ingenuity that we can muster.