[339][340]

Space policy
Further information: Space policy of the United States and Space Race
Accompanied by astronaut John Glenn, Kennedy inspects the Project Mercury capsule Friendship 7, February 23, 1962
The Apollo program was conceived early in 1960, during the Eisenhower administration, as a follow-up to Project Mercury, to be used as a shuttle to an Earth-orbital space station, flights around the Moon, or landing on it. While NASA went ahead with planning for Apollo, funding for the program was far from certain, given Eisenhower's ambivalent attitude to manned spaceflight.[341] As senator, Kennedy had been opposed to the space program and wanted to terminate it.[342]

Wernher von Braun and Kennedy
In constructing his presidential administration, Kennedy elected to retain Eisenhower's last science advisor Jerome Wiesner as head of the President's Science Advisory Committee. Wiesner was strongly opposed to manned space exploration,[343] having issued a report highly critical of Project Mercury.[344][345] Kennedy was turned down by seventeen candidates for NASA administrator before the post was accepted by James E. Webb, an experienced Washington insider who served President Truman as budget director and undersecretary of state. 