Category After Apollo?

One way that Richard Nixon got information was through his daily news summary. After reading a November 26 column titled “Future of Space

Program is Reaching a Critical Point,” Nixon asked Flanigan to accelerate the public release of his statement on the post-Apollo space program. The column had claimed that the “space program was sinking into some kind of political swamp,” absent presidential guidance, with “confusion among scientists and technological communities about the future of the program, and much more dangerous confusion in the government.” It noted that “the political climate was not favorable to any decision” and warned that “the White House had best be prepared for a political hurricane when President Nixon finally decides what to do next.” Nixon on December 2, as he prepared for his December 5 meeting on the NASA budget, suggested to Flanigan that “the week after next might be an appropriate time” to issue the space statement.7

The president’s request set the White House machinery in rapid motion. On December 9, Flanigan told staff secretary Ken Cole, the coordinator of White House activities, that “we are currently preparing an outline of a speech or statement for the President regarding the future space program. It is thought that this will be delivered or released in approximately 10 days.” In turn, Cole suggested to Jeb Magruder, deputy director of the White House Office of Communications, that “it’s not too early to begin drawing up a game plan” for the announcement of the presidential decision. Cole added that “whatever the decision, there will be something there for somebody to stand up and say hurrah for the President.”8

Whitehead sent a revised version of his outline for the space statement to the White House speechwriting office on December 12; that office, headed by Ray Price, would turn the outline into presidential prose. Whitehead had made a few significant changes from the November version of the out­line, reflecting comments made by the Office of Science and Technology (OST) and BOB staffs. The pace of lunar exploration would not only be designed to maximize scientific return but also to be “consistent with the minimum launch rate for safety and reliability.” This addition reflected an ongoing debate between those advocating only one Apollo launch per year and NASA, which thought launches every four or at most every six months were needed to maintain the performance of the launch team. The 1986 date for a human Mars landing was deleted, and not replaced by any target date for when such a mission might occur. In the launch vehicle section of the outline, the just-made budget decision to suspend production of the Saturn V booster was noted, with the comment that production could “be resumed at any time in the future as the need arises.” A sentence was added saying “we will begin to design a space shuttle that will be re-usable to provide fre­quent, reliable, and low-cost launches for a wide range of payloads.” This was a significant step in decoupling the shuttle from its NASA-advocated role as a logistics vehicle for the space station, and reflected the views of OST and its external advisers of the shuttle’s importance as a lower-cost launch vehicle for all U. S. space missions.9

To this point in time, the White House had not shared the outline of the space statement with NASA. On December 16, as the text of the space statement was being prepared in the White House for a planned December 18 release, Whitehead sent the outline to Paine, promising to send him a full draft of the proposed statement “as soon as it is available.” On the same day, Whitehead shared with Paine the high-profile plan for public release of the statement that had been developed by the White House Office of Communications. That plan called for a short speech by the president before the statement was released. Nixon would be accompanied by Vice President Agnew, science adviser DuBridge, and NASA Administrator Paine. As fol­low-up to the release of the statement, a variety of activities were planned, including obtaining “strong endorsement” from the aerospace industry, preparing statements for astronauts to use in public appearances, plac­ing astronauts and Paine on various news shows, giving advance briefings for Congressional space committees, scheduling NASA briefings in both Washington and Houston for space reporters, preparing short speeches for use by supportive members of Congress, and preparing an informa­tion packet for wide distribution “on the application of space technology to earth technology.”10

A first draft of the space statement did not emerge from the speechwrit­ing office until December 17. Given the delay in preparing the statement, its release was postponed until December 23. The draft was distributed for com­ment on December 18 to Agnew, Flanigan, Paine, Whitehead, DuBridge, Mayo, director of the Office of Communications Herb Klein, and National Aeronautics and Space Council Executive Secretary Bill Anders; comments were due on Monday morning, December 22.11

At the start of his administration, President Nixon had established an Advisory Council on Executive Management, headed by industrialist Roy Ash; it soon became known as the Ash Council. That council soon came up with recommendations for reorganizing the Executive Office of the President to better serve Nixon’s interests. It would take until mid-1970 to turn the Ash Council’s recommendations into reality; the dysfunction of the FY1971 budget process was an important influence on confirming to Nixon that a major change in White House organization was needed. Richard Nixon’s goal was to centralize decision making in a few trusted individuals, with himself presiding as the final arbiter of his administration’s actions without getting directly involved with his cabinet members or other top agency officials.

Shultz and Ehrlichman met with President Nixon on the afternoon of December 1. After hearing the OMB recommendation to cancel both Skylab and NERVA, Nixon indicated he was very reluctant to take those actions, with Skylab being a particularly “tough problem.” Nixon suggested slip­ping the NERVA schedule by one year rather than canceling the program, and asked if there was also a way to stretch out the Skylab schedule to avoid terminating the program and thus causing immediate job losses. There is no record of the discussions regarding the space shuttle or Apollo 17 during the meeting.21

Based on this presidential guidance, OMB developed a proposed NASA budget that included $3.3 billion in new budget authority (NASA had requested $3.7 billion) and $3.2 billion in FY1972 outlays (NASA had requested $3.4 billion). Apollo 17, Skylab, and a start on shuttle engine devel­opment remained in the budget, but NERVA was canceled and a start on developing the space shuttle airframe was not approved. Rice called Low on December 7 to communicate this result. Meeting with Low a few days later, Rice said that the major reason for retaining Skylab and thus approving the NASA budget at a higher level than the OMB staff had recommended “was the employment situation in the aerospace industry.” Apollo 17 had been approved “because of the inputs from the scientists.”22

Low wrote President Nixon on December 14, requesting reconsidera­tion of the NASA budget decisions. He offered two reasons for such action. One was “the grave unemployment situation in the aerospace industry.” The other was that “the Soviet challenge in space science and technology threat­ens our hard-earned superiority.” With respect to the former reason, Low argued that a “visible effect” in countering unemployment was possible by 1972 “by adding only the relatively small amounts needed to make a start on the space shuttle airframe.” With respect to the Soviet challenge, adding funds for a start on the airframe would reduce the period during which the Soviet Union would be flying people to space while the United States was not “by a year and permit us to point clearly to the time when the US will again be first in space.” Low was able to meet with OMB Deputy Director Weinberger as he hand-delivered the NASA appeal letter. The meeting “was not a very satisfactory one in that Weinberger received a half a dozen or so phone calls during the course of our discussions, and I was never really able to complete a point.” Low left the meeting with the feeling that “our request for reconsideration on. . . the shuttle would be denied.”23

According to his senior advisor John Ehrlichman, the Apollo astronauts were to Nixon “very wonderful people. There was just not enough the coun­try can do for these guys, and they are doing an enormous amount for the country. . . He would always be enormously stimulated by contact with these folks. And there was an element of hero worship on his part.” Nixon “liked heroes. He thought it was good for this country to have heroes.”5 Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman suggested that the president believed that the Apollo astronauts were “something special—not as individuals so much as for what we represented.” According to veteran Time/Life correspondent Hugh Sidey, whenever Nixon met with one or more of the Apollo astronauts, “the color comes to his face and the bounce to his step.” Sidey suggested that Nixon saw the astronauts as “the sons he never had. . . They are the distill­ers of what Nixon considers to be the best in this country.”6 Nixon saw the Apollo astronauts as exemplars of the best characteristics of Americans and was eager to use them both overseas and in the United States as role models for what humans could achieve with positive intent and sufficient determina­tion. Nixon’s attitude toward the Apollo astronauts led to a judgment on the part of those planning post-Apollo space efforts that he would never accept a proposal to end U. S. human space flights; any future NASA program would have to keep Americans flying in space.

While Nixon may have had positive feelings toward all of the Apollo astro­nauts, he developed a continuing relationship with only one of the group— Frank Borman. The Apollo 8 commander was invited to Nixon’s inaugural; to Borman, the invitation suggested that “Nixon was not only genuinely interested in space, but seemed to have embraced me personally as the space program’s symbolic representative.”7 By the time of the inauguration Borman was already scheduled to go on a three-week European “goodwill” tour. One of the first decisions of the incoming Nixon administration was to give its approval to the trip; Nixon’s secretary of state, William Rogers, later told Borman “we clearly made a wise decision.”

The Apollo 8 crew was invited to the White House on January 30, as the president announced that “it is very appropriate for Colonel Borman to go to Western Europe and to bring. . . not only the greetings of the people of the United States, but to point out what is the fact: that we in America do not consider that this is a monopoly, these great new discoveries that we are making; that we recognize the great contributions that others have made and will make in the future; and that we do want to work together with all peoples on this earth in the high adventure of exploring the new areas of space.” Upon his return to Washington, Borman reported that “space technology in Europe lags behind American achievement by a considerable amount” and suggested that the United States “immediately request an international agency to select a certain number of qualified scientists from different nations of the earth to join our program to participate as scientists/ astronauts in future earth-orbital space stations.” This suggestion interested Richard Nixon; in the months to come he would press his associates to find ways to fly non-U. S. individuals on future U. S. space flights.8

Borman was surprised by “the extent to which Richard Nixon accepted me.” Indeed, until he left NASA and government service in mid-1970, Borman served as Nixon’s “in-house astronaut,” frequently consulted on space policy and personnel issues as well as serving as liaison between the White House and NASA during the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 missions. Borman in early 1969 and again in fall 1970 might even have become head of NASA if he had been so inclined. With respect to his relationship with President Nixon, Borman recalls that “I liked him, I really did. . . I know he was terribly shy, even ill at ease with people he didn’t know, and when it came to making small talk he was a disaster.” However, “we never had to engage in small talk; at every meeting I had with him, we always discussed important matters on a one-on-one basis. He took advice—and sometimes it was advice that he either didn’t want to hear or that was contrary to what his advisers had told him.” Borman was “sure that he trusted me personally and he trusted my judgment in areas in which he knew I had some knowl – edge.”9

By early 1968, James Webb had grudgingly come to accept the need for NASA to begin to plan for its future. He first commissioned an internal study led by one of NASA’s most senior people, director of NASA’s Langley Research Center Floyd Thompson, and involving other experienced NASA leaders. This “Post-Apollo Advisory Group” reported to Webb in July 1968 that “objectives for manned space flight in earth orbit for the period immedi­ately ahead must focus on deepening our understanding of man’s capabilities and needs in a weightless space environment for extended periods of time.” This advice led inexorably to identifying some form of orbital outpost—a space station—as the most appropriate post-Apollo program. A space station had been part of NASA’s planning even before the lunar landing program was begun, and there had been a number of NASA studies of space station concepts during the 1960s. To serve as the crew transportation vehicle for a space station, the group thought that initially the three-person Apollo command and service modules could be used but, as crew size increased and capabilities for a land landing and spacecraft reuse were developed, a modi­fied Gemini spacecraft launched by an expendable rocket was the appropriate choice to carry later crews to a space station.13

NASA’s Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight George Mueller was not part of the Thompson study team. A hard-charging, bril­liant, tough-minded individual, Mueller since arriving at NASA in September 1963 had become almost autonomous in his management of NASA’s human space flight efforts. He had a different idea with respect to what should be NASA’s top post-Apollo priority. In an August 1968 speech to the British Interplanetary Society, he noted that “the exploitation of space is limited in concept and extent by the very high cost of putting payload in orbit, and the inaccessibility of objects once they have been launched.” This reality, said Mueller, led him to conclude that “the next major thrust in space will be the development of an economical launch vehicle for shuttling between Earth and the installations, such as the orbiting space station, which will soon be operating in space.” Mueller characterized such a vehicle as a “space shuttle.” Over the next three years, Mueller’s idea would become central to NASA’s plans for the future.14

Webb in early 1968 also selected Homer Newell, who had been involved in NASA’s space science activities since the agency’s inception and who at the time headed NASA’s Office of Space Science and Applications, to be the NASA associate administrator, the agency’s number three position. Newell’s primary responsibility was to design and manage what was characterized as an “experiment” in NASA-wide long range planning. Newell organized the planning effort in a very bureaucratic manner. There was little prog­ress during 1968 in achieving an integrated approach to NASA’s long-range plans. The results of the planning experiment, Newell admitted, “were not up to the standards of boldness and imagination expected. . . or worthy of our first decade in space.” NASA had become “so conditioned to retreat over the past two years that an intellectual conservatism pervaded the plan­ning. . . The total effect in terms of forward motion was pedestrian, even timid.” One major issue with respect to the planning experiment was the limited participation of Mueller’s Office of Manned Space Flight. As Newell commented, “the problem with manned space flight was that they were in the habit of going it alone, they wanted to go it alone, and they intended to go it alone.”15

In addition to the thoughts of the invited contributors, there were several other inputs to the STG, none of which had much direct impact on the group’s final report except perhaps to provide background context. One con­tribution came from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the leading aerospace professional society. The AIAA report noted that the society’s members “have discussed at length the appropriateness of establishing a single national space objective for the next ten years, compa­rable with the lunar objective of the sixties.” It said that “such a course is not recommended,” because “the proliferation of useful space applications which is foreseen during the next few years is so great that a single objective would be over-restrictive.” With respect to human space flight, the report gave higher priority to activities in Earth orbit rather than continuing lunar exploration, and concluded that “it would not be reasonable” to commit to developing the capability for human missions to the planets. The AIAA report gave higher priority to developing “a partially reusable space trans­portation system” to deliver medium and large unmanned payloads to orbit than to a commitment to an “entirely new space station.” This cautious approach was somewhat surprising, coming from the organization repre­senting aerospace professionals who stood to benefit from an ambitious post – Apollo space effort.16

The Space Science Board (SSB) of the National Academy of Sciences, the country’s top nongovernment space science advisory body, also submitted an input to the STG process. As had been its traditional position, the SSB remained skeptical of the value of human space flight. Its report suggested that robotic exploration of the solar system and the use of space-based obser­vations to follow up on the rapid pace of discoveries in astronomy and astro­physics should have high priority, as should “the development of applications of space technology to the economic and social uses of mankind.” The SSB added “in the future, we can foresee possible roles for man,” but “we do not believe the country is, at the moment, ready to decide as to the nature and extent of the long-term manned program.”17

Press reaction to the STG report was generally positive. The Washington Post commented that the STG report “brought some rationality back to the dis­cussion of whither the space program,” noting that acceptance by President Nixon of the long-range goal of Mars exploration “would eliminate talk of abandoning manned space flight, which would be a foolish course of action, or of proceeding toward Mars in a crash effort.” The New York Times characterized the report as recommending a “soft deadline for [a] trip to

Mars,” noting the absence of “the ringing phrases that had launched the Apollo Project in 1961” and saying that the “sooner-or-later Mars goal was carefully phrased for reasons of politics, economics and technology,” since “neither Congress nor the American public seems in any mood to pledge the money for another accelerated, Apollo-like space project.” Less positively, Science magazine called the report a “blurred vision of the future” with a primary objective of justifying “a long term continuation of a manned space program.”54

NASA’s Milton Rosen had assisted Homer Newell in Newell’s role on the STG Staff Directors Committee. Reflecting on the outcome of the STG process, he told Tom Paine that “considering the initial attitude of a number of Space Task Group participants,” the final STG report should be seen as “a favorable result,” since it

• recognized “the importance of the first manned lunar landing” and the significance “of a focusing goal such as Apollo”;

• accepted “a strong manned-flight activity as part of any acceptable future space program”; and

• accepted “exploration, in particular manned exploration of the planets, as the principal focus of activity for the future.”

Rosen also suggested that the report “does not give much to anybody. After the ring of the glorious words in the report has subsided and the press has had a chance to examine it critically, it will be apparent to them that no com­mitments are involved.” Rosen thought that the attitude of the press, and ultimately that of the public, would be “so what?”55

The STG report certainly did not produce a “so what?” response from NASA Administrator Paine. The report over the next six months became Paine’s touchstone as he argued within the Nixon administration for budget and policy decisions that would allow NASA to implement the report’s rec­ommendations and as he traveled to Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan seeking international engagement in the programs outlined in the report. What he was to discover during that time was that this was not a productive strategy. As the Nixon administration faced decisions on the NASA budget for the Fiscal Year 1971 and developed its policy response to the report, NASA would find its budget tightly constrained and its ambitious plans for the future dashed.

The review of the draft statement went forward over the next few days in par­allel with final decisions on the NASA FY1971 budget. DuBridge submitted a “revised re-draft” that had been “reviewed with representatives of the Vice President’s office, BoB, DoD, and Mr. Flanigan’s office.” As Agnew’s office reviewed the statement, it had proposed that the vice president as well as the president make remarks to the press as the statement was released. Agnew was seeking a meaningful post-STG role in space policy, and the Space Council staff had not been able to insert itself into the ongoing debates on reacting to the STG report and shaping the NASA FY1971 budget. Tom Paine sent to the White House not only comments on the draft statement but also a totally rewritten draft reflecting NASA’s hope to get President Nixon on the record as formally endorsing the recommendations of the STG, especially by initiat­ing space station and space shuttle development immediately and setting a mission to Mars before the end of the century as a long-term goal.12

The choreographed release of the Nixon space statement was abruptly postponed just before Christmas. It is likely that the decision to take a re­look at the NASA budget in late December was the proximate cause. It would have been embarrassing for the White House to release a space state­ment just as the NASA budget was undergoing additional reductions, and that possibility may well have become evident to the White House policy and communications staff in the December 20-22 period.

As the release of the statement was postponed, the hope was to have it available soon after the president made what were anticipated to be his final decisions on the NASA budget. After a few days’ hiatus for the Christmas holiday, the release was rescheduled for January 3, 1970. But this release was also postponed, as “Rachet 1” of the NASA budget took place over the turn of the year and “Rachet 2” seemed a possibility. On January 5, 1970, staff secretary Cole told speechwriter Keogh that “public release of this statement has been delayed indefinitely.”13

The Ash Council recommendations for reorganizing the White House were unveiled on March 4, 1970, in a White House briefing to cabinet and sub­cabinet officials; the immediate reaction was concern, voiced most vocally by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development George Romney and Vice President Agnew, that such a structure would serve as a barrier to cabinet members being able to meet directly with the president. This in fact was pre­cisely what Nixon had in mind. On March 12, the president sent a message to Congress announcing his intent to establish “a Domestic Council to coor­dinate policy formulation in the domestic area.” This White House body would be provided with its own staff, and to a considerable degree would be a domestic counterpart to the National Security Council.1

John Ehrlichman was named the executive director of the Domestic Council. Ehrlichman during 1969 had steadily risen in influence among President Nixon’s advisers. He had been named Nixon’s top assistant for domestic affairs in November 1969; the creation of the Domestic Council, with Ehrlichman as its director, completed his ascendancy to Nixon’s inner­most circle of advisors. Creating the Domestic Council gave Ehrlichman a formal role in developing space policy, since NASA was considered a domes­tic agency. Even so, Assistant to the President Peter Flanigan, who during 1969 had had primary responsibility within the White House for overseeing NASA, continued with that role, operating outside the Domestic Council framework and retaining direct access to the president. This situation created some uncertainty with respect to space policy oversight, but Flanigan and his staff and Ehrlichman and his staff worked closely together on space issues in the ensuing months. In addition, Ehrlichman and the Domestic Council staff used the Office of Science and Technology (OST) for advice on techni­cal issues, including space; later in the year Ehrlichman would ask new sci­ence adviser Ed David, “since policy, as opposed to programs, is so difficult to define,” to list for him “those issues which could be considered domestic policy which are currently under study by OST. I have in mind matters such as our manned space program.”2

What Low did not know as he met with Weinberger on December 14 was that Richard Nixon was having second thoughts about going ahead with the Apollo 17 mission. The president had somehow gotten the impression that Apollo 17 was even more risky than the three missions scheduled to precede it. Nixon did not want a repeat of the Apollo 13 experience, particularly in mid-1972, when the Apollo 17 launch was then scheduled, not least of all because it would come as he was campaigning for reelection. The near­tragedy of Apollo 13 had made a strong impression on the president, and provided the background against which he decided that Apollo 17 should be canceled.