Op-ed | Why Space Alarmism is Wrong and Dangerous

Alarms raised over minor or imagined space threats are nothing new. In his successful 1960 campaign for president, John F. Kennedy seized on the dangers of the missile gap — a presumed Soviet superiority in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) — and exploited it all the way to the White House. Yet the missile gap was a myth. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara admitted as much to Kennedy in 1962. McNamara explained that “emotionally guided but nonetheless patriotic individuals in the Pentagon” were responsible, and he noted, “There are still people of that kind in the Pentagon. I wouldn’t give them any foundation for creating another myth.”