The Vostok capsule that carried Yuri Gagarin – the world's first spaceman – into orbit on April 12 1961 looked nothing like the sleek craft Buck Rogers used to travel the cosmos in science-fiction fantasies. It had two tiny windows; Gagarin did not need to see where he was going since he had little control over his craft. The spherical shape brings to mind circus performers shot from cannons.
In truth, that analogy is accurate; Gagarin's feat was an exponential embellishment on that fairground stunt. Far more meaningful space spectaculars had already occurred, but their importance went unrecognised because they lacked human passengers. On that day nearly 50 years ago, Gagarin demonstrated a principle that remains rock solid: in order to garner attention, space needs a face.
Gagarin returned to a world changed profoundly by his achievement. His mission was the latest in a long line of space stunts that had embarrassed the United States. The Americans had prided themselves on being the technologically superior nation; capitalism and modernity were supposed to go hand-in-hand. Yet the Russians upset that paradigm, in the process sending a powerful message to non-aligned nations. They were first to launch a satellite, first to launch a dog and, now, first to launch a man. The reason they were so good at these stunts was because they were so bad at building nuclear weapons.
Their bombs were inordinately heavier than American ones of similar payload. A heavier bomb necessitated a bigger rocket to carry it on a transcontinental trajectory. The Russians, masters of propaganda, soon realised that those rockets, pointed skyward, could be used to throw symbols of dominance into space. The sound and fury, it seemed, signified everything.
Prior to Gagarin, the US did not have a clearly defined space strategy. President Dwight Eisenhower had resisted being drawn into what seemed to him a shallow weightlifting competition. He saw manned space travel as "a complex and costly adventure" without useful purpose. When Nasa sent proposals for the Apollo Moon mission to the White House for approval, he vetoed the idea. Presidential advisers erupted in laughter when someone suggested that, after reaching the Moon, Nasa would probably want to go to Mars.
Eisenhower's successor, John Kennedy, shared those doubts. His advisers warned that "a crash programme aimed at placing a man into an orbit may hinder the development of our scientific and technical programme". They were right. Since Kennedy knew that the US led the Soviet Union in satellite technology, he saw no need to indulge in machismo. That, however, annoyed the American people, who craved heroes like Gagarin, not clumsy contraptions circling the Earth. In newspapers across the nation, Gagarin's mission was presented as an American failure, rather than a Soviet success.
It seemed that Gagarin had singlehandedly won a huge battle in the Cold War. Kennedy's friends warned him that non-aligned nations would conclude that the Soviet Union was the real superpower. Then, five days later, came the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The US, it seemed, could do nothing right.
In public, Kennedy feigned confidence, but in private he panicked. "Is there any place we can catch them?" Kennedy asked a group of space experts. "If somebody can just tell me how to catch up. Let's find somebody, anybody. I don't care if it's the janitor over there, if he knows how. There's nothing more important." Up stepped Nasa's Robert Gilruth. He told Kennedy: "Well, you've got to pick a job that's so difficult that it's new, that [the Soviets] will have to start from scratch. They just can't take their old rocket and put another gimmick on it and do something we can't do. It's got to be something that requires a great big rocket, like going to the Moon."
Convinced by the logic of bigness, Kennedy announced on May 25 1961: "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." The Moon was important "because it is there" – a finishing line in a race for prestige.
Kennedy always struggled when asked to explain why it was necessary to go to the Moon. In a brief moment of candour, he once asked a reporter: "Don't you think I would rather spend these billions on programmes here at home, such as health and education and welfare? But in this matter we have no choice. The nation's prestige is too heavily involved." When his science adviser Jerome Wiesner argued that there were more sensible ways to spend money, Kennedy replied: "Well, it's your fault. If you had a scientific spectacular on this Earth that would be more useful – say desalting the ocean – or something that is just as dramatic and convincing as space, then we would do it."
Nasa hated the way the Moon mission was conceived. The agency wanted an open-ended commitment to space exploration, not a single race with a distinct finishing line. When the Nasa administrator James Webb complained to Kennedy about America's distorted priorities, the president gave him an earful: "Everything that we do should be tied into getting on to the Moon ahead of the Russians. Otherwise, we shouldn't be spending this kind of money because I am not that interested in space. We're talking about fantastic expenditures. We've wrecked our budget, and the only justification for it is to do it in the time element I am asking."
Thus Gagarin pulled Kennedy by the nose into space. At the time of that historic mission, the US was five years ahead of the Russians in space science and satellite technology, yet American priorities were suddenly shifted to a macho race to the Moon. Kennedy's reaction to the Gagarin embarrassment set a pattern that remains predominant to this day. The main reason the Americans have not returned to the Moon is because they originally went for the wrong reason. Once the race was won, a point was proved, and further missions seemed senseless.
As the ambitions of China and India now indicate, the fixation with man in space became a paradigm, a test of a nation's virility, important not for what could be discovered out there but for some flimsy prestige earned back on Earth.
The space industry today suffers from acute schizophrenia. The great achievements that have transformed our lives have occurred in near space, thanks to boring satellites. Advances in communications, weather forecasting, intelligence gathering and so on have brought enormous benefit. But there's still this obsession with astronauts, reflected in that old Nasa adage: "There's no bucks without Buck Rogers." Space agencies realise that their ability to attract funding is directly proportional to their capacity to produce heroes. Nations, still tempted by that siren prestige, channel scarce funds toward absurd expressions of vanity.
That schizophrenia was evident earlier this month when the Royal Aeronautical Society celebrated the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight. The MP Phillip Lee, vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Space Committee, gave a rousing speech that borrowed heavily from Star Trek, complete with split infinitives. Space, he suggested, provides a spiffing adventure. "My great dream," Lee said, "is that some day a British person will walk on the Moon or Mars."
That brought bemused smiles from European Space Agency (ESA) representatives, who were there to sell satellites. "It's interesting," one ESA engineer remarked, "that we now use satellites to explore the Earth, yet, when we talk about exploring Mars, there's this insistence that a man should go."
A statue of Gagarin will soon be placed on the Mall. That seems a fitting tribute to a spectacular achievement. His heroic feat was, however, similar to that of conquering Everest – something that brought great vicarious excitement but little real benefit.
While China and India still feel the need to emulate Gagarin with shallow quests for kudos, one hopes that the future belongs to the more humble ESA. Practical projects in space are so enormously expensive, yet still so essential, that it makes sense to share the cost and spread the value. Co-operation will also ensure that prestige no longer corrupts the space equation.
Britain has an important role to play, but it should not be the stuff of Lee's fantasies. The British should do what they can do best, namely help build satellites to improve our lives. If Buck Rogers feels neglected, there's a home for him in China.
Gerard DeGroot is the author of 'Dark Side of the Moon' (NYU Press)