Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

The 4th paragraph begins:
"I was born on the last day of August, 1957. The year Sputnik went up and touched off the space race, stepping all over Kennedy's dick."
I don't understand the reference. John F. Kennedy, at the time, was a senator from Massachusetts who had the previous year lost his bid to get his party's nomination for vice president. Ike was president. The Nixon-Kennedy contest for the presidency is three years away.
Maybe the story means some other Kennedy? Or some reference I don't understand? Of maybe I'm misunderstanding the phrase "stepping all over Kennedy's dick"?

Occam's Razor: The author had his/her timeline mixed up. At one time I, like many others, believed NASA started with Kennedy, when in reality it started with Eisenhower.

Kennedy was a pretty staunch anti-communist (ironic, considering his brother) so it could be related to that.

As for NASA, the origins of that was the army scooping Von Braun and as many of his friends as they could get before the Russkies got their hands on them.

Kennedy was a pretty staunch anti-communist (ironic, considering his brother)

Robert, Joseph, or Ted?

Mostly Ted.

Some aspects of operation paperclip are still classified. Placing the unclassified information around the boundaries of the classified holes in knowledge sketches an abstract outline of some nazis being given a pass.
Then again, the rest of the world, in particular Russia, was doing the same.

What's lesser known are the Japanese personnel snatched up from project 713. The massive leap in biological and chemical weapons tech post WW2 had a reason behind it.