Category After Apollo?

NASA Administrator Fletcher also met with science adviser David on August 24, separately from the David-Low meeting on the same day, to discuss the best approach to getting a shuttle program approved by the White House. While he had developed a sense of trust with David, he was not sure “how much we could trust OMB” if NASA came in with a budget proposal at the $3.2 billion level through the 1970s, as Don Rice had suggested in May, given the low budget target OMB had provided in early August. Fletcher, as had Low, told David of NASA’s internal discussions of a shuttle program that could be carried out for less than $1 billion per year and a total invest­ment of $5 billion. David advised him to keep that thinking confined to a few people within NASA, and instead to let David propose the low-cost shuttle to OMB, with NASA resisting that proposal. This gambit, thought David, would put NASA in a “better bargaining position.” As Fletcher saw it, the issue was that “OMB can’t entirely be trusted to commit to any kind of program and that if we [NASA] agreed too easily to the low-cost shuttle, they might try to work us down to a smaller budget yet.” David felt that “there was not anyone in OMB who could be completely trusted—not that they were dishonest, but that their sole function was to put a ratchet on the budget and [they] couldn’t make a commitment on anything.”23 Clearly, OMB and OST were not working harmoniously with respect to space issues, and Davis was angling for increased influence within the White House deci­sion process.

As usual, the NASA budget request for FY1973 was due at OMB on September 30. What to request with respect to the space shuttle was a major issue in formulating the budget proposal. Three basic alternatives were con­sidered:

1. A lower-cost glider or mini-shuttle, as suggested by Low in August;

2. The Mark I/Mark II shuttle. Low noted in mid-September that “OMSF [Office of Manned Space Flight] is now focusing on a ‘phased technol­ogy’ Shuttle, wherein today’s technology is used in a Block I version and any more expensive, more sophisticated subsystems are phased in at a later date”;

3. No shuttle at all. Low had considered such an option during August, and during the final two weeks before submitting the budget recorded that “Fletcher and I debated whether we should not forego the shuttle entirely and develop instead some alternate manned space flight program.”

Fletcher and Low finally decided to include “something like the Mark I/ Mark II shuttle,” but to delay the start of shuttle development by approxi­mately six months to “give us more time to reach final decisions on the con­figuration.”24 As it had done a year earlier, NASA would request presidential approval of the space shuttle without being able to specify the shuttle design being approved.

As NASA prepared its budget request, its leaders also concluded that the space agency needed “a new justification for manned space flight.” Low rec­ognized that “during the past year we begged the issue by stating that we needed a new transportation system—a space shuttle—and it just happened to be manned.” It was now time to “try to justify manned flight in its own right.” This shift in emphasis likely reflected James Fletcher’s influence at the top levels of NASA. Discussing the issue, the NASA leadership “agreed that the main justification for manned space flight is the ‘American presence in space’ and not the fact that man can twirl knobs better than machines can.”25 The NASA FY1973 budget request contained funding proposals at three levels—a “minimum recommended program” with budget authority at $3.385 billion and outlays at $3.225 billion, close to the FY1972 levels; an “alternate recommended program” at $3.54 billion in authority and $3.305 billion in outlays; and a budget at the OMB target of $2.975 billion in out­lays. To reach that lowest figure, NASA would cancel Apollo 16 and 17 and not start the space shuttle, actions that would cause “irreparable damage.” NASA argued that “this nation must continue to fly men in space. Man will fly in space, and for many reasons the United States should not forego its responsibility—to itself and to the free world—to take part in this great venture.” This was a theme that would reappear throughout the next few months and would be important to convincing Richard Nixon to approve the shuttle.

The budget letter contained “detailed figures on the effects of the vari­ous program options on unemployment,” an issue that NASA knew was of increasing interest to the White House. The letter pointed out that “the NASA program is labor intensive: small changes in program funding now have immediate, and nearly one for one, effects on employment.” With respect to the space shuttle, NASA told OMB that “the single most impor­tant consideration” was how to “achieve it with lower annual funding in view of continuing severe budget constraints.” NASA’s plan was “to select the optimum shuttle configuration, considering both technical and budgetary factors, next spring, to select the contractor next summer, and to proceed then with development leading to the first manned orbital flight in 1978 or 1979.”

NASA described “a promising configuration that would substantially reduce the funds required prior to the first manned flight.” This was the Mark I/Mark II approach, although those designations were not mentioned in the letter. NASA noted that “the reduction in shuttle development fund­ing will come at the expense of somewhat higher operational costs initially and of delaying by several years the full realization of the planned opera­tional capabilities.” The NASA letter argued that delaying a decision on the shuttle configuration past spring 1972 “would be expensive and unsettling to the aerospace industry, which is forced to maintain a capability to respond to the government until our decisions are reached.”

The budget letter noted that NASA was proposing “run-out costs, in future years, at or below the FY1973 level” of $3.385 billion in new budget authority that NASA was requesting. This “constant budget” was an inven­tion of NASA’s Willis Shapley, and allowed NASA to propose a six-year pro­gram “at a level between $500 million and one billion [per year] below the financial plans presented to OMB and the Congress at the time the FY1972 budget was approved.” NASA’s hope was that OMB would not only approve a new start on the shuttle, but would agree in advance to a constant budget level for the next several years that would provide the space agency with some stability after the several prior years of budget uncertainty.26

In its budget submission, NASA was asking OMB, and ultimately President Nixon, to approve development of a still rather fuzzily defined space shuttle. Fletcher, Low, and their associates fully realized that it would not be easy to get OMB and then the president to approve that request.

As Magruder acknowledged, the New Technology Opportunities effort was in large part an attempt to find employment for those aerospace workers who had lost, or were in danger of losing, their jobs as a result of the Nixon administration’s budget reductions in the defense and space sectors. This was part of a broader concern—that unemployment in states key to Richard Nixon’s reelection in 1972, particularly California, would negatively impact the president’s election prospects. As of late 1971, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination was Senator Ed Muskie of Maine, and in some polls Nixon was running behind Muskie.

The unemployment issue had been a White House worry since at least early 1971. The concern was that at the time of the 1972 presidential election, the California unemployment rate might be 6.2-6.9 percent, significantly above the national average of 5-5.5 percent. By the end of August 1971, the White House had launched a “California Employment Project.” President Nixon set a goal of creating 100,000 new jobs in California before the election, which would bring California unemployment down to the national aver­age. Nixon had directed that most of those new employment opportunities would be the result of DOD actions. An individual named Fred Foy had been brought into the White House to coordinate efforts in DOD and other government agencies to target job creation in California as a high priority. John Ehrlichman remembered Foy as “a retired business executive” who would go to a community in California and “smoke out. . . opportunities to let contracts on an accelerated basis.” Foy would report back to Flanigan, “who would pick up the phone and talk to the Defense Department and shake things loose.” As a result, “they would accelerate these things and cre­ate jobs by the scores in a relatively small geographic area. The impact was dramatic.” Flanigan’s assistant Jonathan Rose was the White House link to the California Employment Project. Rose in an August 28 memorandum to the president indicated that a “politically loyal” employee in the DOD would provide the White House “bi-weekly reports on the status of the agency’s job creation effort” and that “Governor Reagan’s office has designated a team of competent economists and others” to work with the White House on this effort. That was not enough assurance for Nixon; he asked Cap Weinberger at OMB to “personally stay on the project of jobs for California and that you make sure that there is no let up in the efforts on this.”36

It was becoming clear that the decision to approve the space shuttle would be influenced by job-creation considerations. A member of the California Legislature, Newton Russell, wrote Haldeman in early June 1971, for­warding a letter he had sent to NASA making the case of why the shuttle program “should be located in California.” Among the good reasons were “unemployment, source of supply, available technical engineers” but “if you want to put it down to crass politics. . . California will be a key state in ’72.” Haldeman forwarded Russell’s letter to Weinberger, who responded, saying that “because of all the factors you mentioned. . . I am sure that this [locat­ing the shuttle program in California] will be the case.” Weinberger noted that “there is still a problem in financing the whole project because of all of the overall budget totals,” but that “I am sure that whatever is done will be largely based in California.”37

Low noted that “on the unemployment situation, we are feeding a lot of information, first to Fred Foy, who is working in the White House on just that problem, and also to Jonathan Rose.” He added that “it is clear that a small acceleration of some of the new NASA programs would have a rather dramatic influence on the unemployment situation, particularly on the West Coast.” On November 3, Fletcher had written both Flanigan and Weinberger, noting the employment impacts of the space shuttle program, and especially “the substantial impacts of a possible acceleration of the Mark I/II Shuttle program.” NASA in its September 30 budget submission had proposed a budget level above the “minimum acceptable program” that would accelerate the pace of the shuttle program, thereby creating jobs sooner and in larger numbers than if only the minimal program were funded. The accelerated program increased the FY1973 shuttle budget request from $228 million to $400 million, and resulted in a first shuttle flight in 1977 rather than 1978. Fletcher called particular attention to “the very sharp build up (from 5,600 to 14,300) that would occur in the last six months of calendar year 1973” with the NASA minimal budget, and, more relevant to Richard Nixon’s reelection, “the very substantial increases in 1972 . . . that are possible with the acceleration indicated.”38

In mid-November, NASA sent Don Rice a brief report titled “California employment.” The report noted that “the prime contractors for the shut­tle have not been selected, but the majority of competitors are California firms and so the most favorable employment impact will be in that State.” It added that “historically, NASA spends 50Ф of each dollar in California.” The report noted that “the $500M contract for the rocket motor for the shuttle has already been placed with Rocketdyne (a division of North American Rockwell) in California.” But if the shuttle configuration was changed or if a glider were approved, so that the shuttle engine was not needed, “Rocketdyne says it will have to go out of business.” NASA provided addi­tional employment estimates to Rose on December 1, indicating a variety of NASA-related actions, including accelerating shuttle development, that would result in increased employment.39 NASA by this point recognized that the shuttle’s employment impact could be a decisive consideration in White House thinking.

That impact did not go unnoticed at the top levels of the White House. John Ehrlichman recalled that the issue of shuttle-related employment in Southern California “was a very important consideration in Nixon’s mind. . . I can recall conversations about that, which were highly persuasive. . . You must not underemphasize that element, that employment element, in Nixon’s deci­sion [on the shuttle].” Ehrlichman remembered “the quantitative breakouts of the number of jobs involved. . . When you look at the employment num­bers, and you key them to the battleground states [Those states with electoral votes important to winning the presidency in the 1972 election], the space program has an importance out of proportion to its budget.” Ehrlichman sat “in the Cabinet Room with Nixon, [Secretary of the Treasury John] Connally, and [OMB Director George] Shultz. . . looking at issues. We went all the way across domestic issues, the problems of veterans, the problems of the aged, space, health. . . and putting slides up showing where people were who were concerned about these issues. And then doing an overlay of the battleground states. . . It was very interesting then to see how some of these issues fell out of bed, because the people who were concerned with them were not in battleground states.” In this political exercise “space was way up to the top of the list, along with one or two other issues.”40

There was also a representative of California employment interests with direct access to the White House. Willard “Al” Rockwell, Jr., head of North American Rockwell, one of the contenders for the space shuttle prime contract and with its space operations based in California, was a long-time acquaintance of Richard Nixon and a major contributor to Nixon’s election campaigns. Ehrlichman recalled that “there was kind of a direct line between Nixon and Rockwell, which was important. . . I knew that there was a tight relationship.” Rockwell and one of his top execu­tives, Robert Anderson, visited Flanigan, Weinberger, and Rice in late November to discuss prospects for the shuttle. Flanigan told them that “there would definitely be a shuttle program, that the government was about to make the decision but that there is still some sorting to be done.” Flanigan added that “the big shuttle that NASA supported a year ago was definitely out but that NASA is still not ready to move out now. . . NASA is still not completely in tune with the realities of the day, but is slowly coming around.” The fundamental question, Flanigan told Rockwell, was “whether the shuttle should be a research vehicle or one that is produc­tive.” This was an indication that Flanigan was aware of the NASA-OMB/ OST argument about how best to proceed. When the administration deci­sion on the shuttle was made, indicated Flanigan, there would be “a very soft pronouncement. . . This was so the people in the aerospace industry will clearly see Administration support for their industry, while those not in that industry will not get overly excited.” Apparently Anderson in this meeting had made a case for the shuttle in terms of its being a bailout for the aerospace industry, and Flanigan had responded that this was not a rationale acceptable to the White House, at least publicly. Flanigan wrote Rockwell a few weeks later, saying that “I do hope my taking exception to what seemed to be excessive vehemence on the part of your subordinate [Anderson] regarding the shuttle did not leave the impression that we lack enthusiasm for the concept. I am quite convinced that we will come up with a viable and positive solution on the shuttle in a short period of time.”41

On December 27, Low met with those at NASA headquarters involved in the shuttle program “to discuss the various options of payload size and shape, payload carrying capability, booster options, etc.” On the next day, he held individual meetings with his senior associates to get their frank assessment of the best course to pursue. The decision coming out of these meetings was to accept a slightly less ambitious shuttle design; Low reported that “as a result of these meetings, we decided that we should proceed with a Shuttle that has a 14 x 45′ payload [bay] and a payload carrying capability of 45,000 pounds. We further decided that we should hold open the option of a liquid vs. a solid

booster for another two months.” Jim Fletcher had not been involved in the December 27-28 meetings, but quickly accepted their conclusions. Low observed “from NASA’s point of view, and not necessarily out in the open, the size and weight we picked could do most NASA missions and some of the DOD missions, but particularly would have the growth capability to the full size Shuttle should such a decision be made at a later date.”2

Richard Nixon made it clear to his associates that he did not want the post – Apollo space effort appear to take money away from government programs on Earth. As the March 1970 statement outlining his space policy was being prepared, Nixon stressed that it should avoid “positive statements on space” being “invidiously” compared to his attitude toward “problems in poverty and social problems here on earth.” He did not want to be seen as “taking money away from social programs and the needs of the people here [on Earth] to fund spectacular crash programs out in space.” Nixon was a care­ful reader of opinion polls and other indications of public sentiment, and his generalized sense that space achievements were part of “exploring the unknown” did not override his sense that an ambitious space program was not something that would gain political support. He was not interested in leading the nation to accept an ambitious post-Apollo space effort.

This perspective was applied in an ad hoc fashion to budget decisions on the NASA program in December 1969 and January 1970, and space did not fare well as it competed for funding with other Nixon administra­tion priorities in the overall context of an imperative to balance the federal budget. In parallel with the chaotic Fiscal Year 1971 budget process, there was a move to formalize the approach the Nixon administration would take to setting the priority of post-Apollo space efforts. The result was what has been characterized in this study as the “Nixon space doctrine,” clearly stated in the March 7, 1970, presidential statement on space. Characterizing this statement as a “doctrine” may be rather overstating the reality; it was more an after-the-fact rationalization of the perspectives that led Nixon and his associates to reject the recommendations of the Space Task Group and even in the aftermath of the Apollo success to continue to reduce the NASA bud­get. But in the sense that the framework for space decision making set out in the Nixon statement has in its essence been accepted by most presidents since, it can be said to deserve being called a “doctrine.”

The Nixon space doctrine had two elements. The first was to change the status of the space program from an effort formally assigned the highest national priority, as had been the case during Apollo, to just one of many “normal” government activities. In the language of the space statement: “We must think of them[space activities] as part of a continuing process—one which will go on day in and day out, year in and year out—and not as a series of separate leaps, each requiring a massive concentration of energy and will and accomplished on a crash timetable.” Space was to become “a normal and regular part of our national life.”

The second element of the doctrine was to declare that the space program from 1970 forward would have to compete with other discretionary govern­ment activities for priority and corresponding budgetary support. The space statement said: “Space expenditures must take their proper place within a rigorous system of national priorities. What we do in space from here on in. . . must therefore be planned in conjunction with all of the other under­takings which are also important to us.”

The “Joint DOD/NASA Study of Space Transportation Systems” was sub­mitted to the STG on June 16, 1969. The three-volume report was (and still is) classified “Secret.” A separate “Summary Report” shared the same classi­fication for 30 years, but was declassified in 1999; the following information is extracted from that declassified document.9

The study team provided an extremely positive assessment of the poten­tials of the space shuttle and reusable upper stages to carry payloads from the shuttle to higher orbits; the combination was called the Space Transportation System (STS). Its report concluded that “the development of an STS is needed to provide a major reduction in operating costs and an increased capability for national space missions.”

NASA from 1969 on had stressed that the overriding objective of the shuttle program was to lower the cost of space launch and operations. By empha­sizing the lower cost aspect of shuttle use rather than the new capabilities it would provide and its role in maintaining a human presence in space, NASA left itself open to having the shuttle evaluated on economic grounds. Indeed, the Bureau of the Budget (BOB) in March 1970 had asked: “Is full scale development of a new launch system to reduce the cost of payload in orbit economically justifiable?” That question set in motion a process of eco­nomic analysis that would parallel shuttle technical studies throughout 1970 and 1971. The impact of the economic analyses would come to be seen, in George Low’s words, as “important and unfortunate.”34

In his cover letter transmitting this question, BOB Director Robert Mayo told NASA to use a 10 percent “discount rate” in comparing future benefits of the shuttle program with the current investment required to obtain them and with other uses of that amount of funds.35 One way of looking at the discount rate is as representing the equivalent for a government program of the interest that a private investment would have to earn in order to be justified. The discount rate used determined how much in future benefits was required to justify a current investment. A 10 percent discount rate was associated with a particularly risky government program, one with uncertain future benefits; this was the category in which BOB placed the space shuttle program.

Critical to showing a high level of future benefits from the space shuttle was a high flight rate, since each shuttle flight would save money compared to the use of an expendable launch vehicle to launch the same mission. Additional savings would also come from the reduced costs of payloads for many missions. Thus it soon became evident that to justify the shuttle in economic terms, there had to be very active U. S. civilian and national security space programs in the 1980s, and the shuttle would have to launch essentially all flights in those programs. The shuttle would also have to be complemented by a space tug so that the combination could carry out the many missions to geosynchronous and other high orbits. Thus developing a plausible “mission model” for future space activities was a key starting point for an economic analysis; the benefits from flying the missions in that model, when compared with a forecast of the one-time costs required to develop a shuttle and the anticipated lower costs of operating it, would allow a judg­ment of whether the shuttle was a justifiable investment at the 10-percent discount rate.

As NASA submitted its budget request, it did not know that President Nixon had already made a tentative decision that NASA’s budget for FY1973 would be in the $3.3-$3.4 billion range, with a strong bias toward approving space shuttle development. That decision originated with OMB Deputy Director Cap Weinberger and had been approved by the president. But that informa­tion had not been communicated to the White House technical and budget staffs, much less to NASA, and thus had little impact on NASA’s interactions with OMB and OST over the next four months.

Weinberger had discovered as he met with Fletcher on August 5 that the budget target for NASA that had been recommended by his staff would mean the eventual end of the U. S. human space flight program. This was not an acceptable option to Weinberger, and on August 12 he had sent a thoughtful memorandum to President Nixon. That memorandum is worth quoting at some length.

Present tentative plans call for major reductions or change in NASA, by elimi­nating the last two Apollo flights (16 and 17), and eliminating or sharply

reducing the balance of the Manned Space Program (Skylab and Space Shuttle)

and many remaining NASA programs.

I believe this would be a mistake.

1. The real reason for sharp reductions in the NASA budget is that NASA is entirely in the 28% of the budget that is controllable. In short we cut it because it is cuttable, not because it is doing a bad job or an unnecessary one.

2. We are being driven, by the uncontrollable items, to spend more and more on programs that offer no hope for the future: Model Cities, OEO [Office of Employment Opportunity], Welfare, interest on the National Debt, unemployment compensation, Medicare, etc. Of course, some of these have to be continued, in one form or another, but essentially they are pro­grams, not of our choice, designed to repair mistakes of the past, not of our making.

3. We do need to reduce the budget, in my opinion, but we should not make all our reduction decisions on the basis of what is reducible, rather than on the merits of individual programs.

4. There is real merit to the future of NASA, and its proposed programs. The Space Shuttle and NERVA particularly offer the opportunity, among other things, to secure substantial scientific fall-out for the civilian economy at the same time that large numbers of valuable (and hard-to-employ – elsewhere) scientists and technicians are kept at work. . . It is very difficult to re-assemble the NASA teams should it be decided later, after major stop­pages, to re-start some of the long-range programs.

5. Recent Apollo flights have been very successful from all points of view. Most important is the fact that they give the American people a much needed lift in spirit (and the people of the world an equally needed look at American superiority). Announcement now, or very shortly, that we were cancelling Apollo 16 and 17 . . . would have a very bad effect, coming so soon after Apollo 15’s triumph. It would be confirming, in some respects, a belief that I fear is gaining credence at home and abroad: that our best years are behind us, that we are turning inward, reducing our defense commitments, and voluntarily starting to give up our super-power status, and our desire to maintain our world superiority. America should be able to afford something besides increased welfare, programs to repair our cit­ies, or Appalachian relief and the like.

6. I do not propose that we necessarily fund all NASA seeks—only that if we decide to eliminate Apollo 16 and 17, that we couple any announcement to that effect with announcements that we are going to fund space shuttles, NERVA, or other major, future NASA activities.

7. I believe I can find enough reductions in other programs to pay for con­tinuing NASA at generally the $3.3-$3.4 billion level.27

Richard Nixon read Weinberger’s memorandum and wrote on it a cryptic message, “I agree with Cap.” He also wrote “OK” next to point 7. What exactly he meant by these notations was not clear. A month later, one of Haldeman’s staff provided some clarification, telling OMB Director Shultz that the “the President read with interest and agreed with Mr. Weinberger’s memorandum of August 12, 1971, on the subject of the future of NASA. Further, the President approved Mr. Weinberger’s plan to find enough reductions in other programs to pay for NASA at generally the 3.3-3.4 bil­lion dollar level.”28

If the NASA leadership had known of Weinberger’s memorandum and Nixon’s response, they likely would have been much less nervous about the outcome of NASA’s negotiations with OMB over the FY1973 budget. The Weinberger memorandum represented one of several points in 1971 when it could be said that a decision to approve space shuttle development had been made. But if there was such a decision made on the basis of the memo, it was to approve the idea of a space shuttle, not a specific shuttle design. NASA in its budget submission left itself vulnerable to continued debate over what shuttle design merited presidential approval by its admission that it would take another six months to make the configuration choice. That debate was not long in coming.

By late November, there was increasing pressure to reach some sort of deci­sion with respect to the space shuttle. A final budget decision needed to be made in time for it to be reflected in the president’s FY1973 budget request; the text of that request had to go to the printers in early January. NASA decided to make as strong as possible a case that its concept of the shuttle deserved to be approved.

The sense of urgency in getting the NASA case before White House deci­sion makers was reinforced by reports of the initial decisions on the NASA FY1973 budget. Anders had attended a meeting at which the OMB space staff had made some tentative decisions on the NASA budget based on the discussions at the director’s review; he relayed this information to Low, as usual on a very confidential basis. He told Low that the staff was recom­mending cancelation of Apollo 16 and 17 “because there is no public inter­est.” The fact of President Nixon’s desire to cancel the missions was still not widely known. The OMB staff was recommending, rather than the space shuttle, a small glider, and, to make up for the employment losses from the Apollo cancelations and not starting an ambitious shuttle program, “three gap-filler missions” using surplus Apollo hardware. Marshall Space Flight Center was to be closed in 1974 and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1975. Anders also had been “taking the pulse of those in the Executive Branch involved with the NASA program”; that pulse was “rapidly changing with time.” He perceived “two opposing forces.” One wanted “to cut NASA back to a much smaller program”; the other wanted “not to increase unemploy­ment in the aerospace industry.” He also suggested that there was “a faction in the Executive Branch that would like to cut $1 billion out of the NASA program” to start the new technology initiatives, but that “Magruder is not among those who want to cut back on space.”42 All of this added up to NASA seeing itself in a very precarious position.

On the afternoon of December 29, 1971, Fletcher and Low met with George Shultz, Cap Weinberger, and Don Rice from OMB, Peter Flanigan and Jonathan Rose from the White House, and science adviser Ed David to present NASA’s proposal of how best to proceed with respect to the space shuttle. A decision was needed soon; the president’s budget message was due to go to the printer in the first week of January, and it would have to contain some indication of the fate of the space shuttle program.

Fletcher on the morning of the meeting sent to Weinberger a letter reflecting the decisions reached within NASA in the past few days. The letter said: “We have concluded that the full capability 15 x 60′ 65,000# payload shuttle still represents a ‘best buy’ and in ordinary times should be developed. However, in recognition of the extremely severe near-term budgetary problems, we are recommending a somewhat smaller vehicle—one with a 14 x 45’—45,000# payload capability, at a somewhat reduced overall cost.” The letter added “this is the smallest vehicle we can still consider to be useful for manned flight as well as a variety of unmanned payloads.” NASA gave highest priority to retain­ing a shuttle configuration that was large and powerful enough to eventually launch components of a space station, and the 14 x 45 foot shuttle it was now recommending had that capability, even though it would not be able to launch the largest intelligence satellites or astronomical observatories.

The Fletcher letter also reported NASA’s assessment of the shuttle design suggested by OMB, saying that “we have not been able to meet” the objec­tives of a development cost of less than $4 billion and a cost per flight of less than $5 million. NASA noted that the 30-foot payload bay length sug­gested by OMB “eliminates nearly all DOD payloads, some important space science payloads, most application payloads, all planetary payloads, and useful manned modules.” Attached to the letter was a table (reproduced on next page) showing the results of NASA’s evaluation of various shuttle configurations.

The letter said that “the question of a liquid as opposed to a solid booster is not yet completely settled—there are some open technical questions” and “the differences in operating costs [for the two boosters] have not yet been determined with accuracy.” For these reasons, NASA recommended that the choice among booster options should be deferred for two months to allow additional study.

NASA also asked for a “funding contingency,” saying that “it is our inten­tion to manage the program to bring it in” at the costs spelled out in the

Fletcher letter. NASA added “nevertheless, we believe that we should include a contingency against future cost growths due to technical problems. . . We believe a 20% contingency would be appropriate. . . Approval of a $5 billion program [for the 14 x 45′ orbiter] would thus constitute a commitment by NASA to make every effort to produce the desired system for under $5 bil­lion, but in no case more than $6 billion.”

Finally, the letter argued that it was time for “a decision to proceed with full shuttle development” to be made. “Further delays would not produce significant new results,” and “additional delays would have many unsettling effects. . . There is a great deal to be gained, and nothing to be lost, by mak­ing a decision to proceed now.”3

Going into the meeting, Fletcher and Low were uncertain of its outcome; they even agreed in advance that they could accept a shuttle as small as one with a14 x 40′ payload bay and 40,000 pound lift capability, but that anything smaller “would require a Presidential decision.” At the meeting, “the prin­cipal negative guy, once again, was Don Rice who indicated that he did not believe NASA’s figures or the figures presented to us or to him by our contrac­tors.” However, “during the meeting Shultz looked at the facts and figures and decided that really the only thing that makes any sense, as NASA had said all along, is the 15 x 60’—65,000 lb. Shuttle capability.” Fletcher recalled that “at the end of the meeting, George said, well, it’s a pretty easy decision. We’ll go for the 60-foot one. We had George saying that and no one arguing with him.”4

Low noted that “no decision was made in the meeting,” but added that “Fletcher and I were fairly confident that our recommendation of the 14 x 45′ 45,000 lb. Shuttle would be accepted as a minimum and that even the full capability [shuttle] might still be accepted.” A second senior-level meet­ing was scheduled for Monday, January 3, 1972, after the New Year’s week­end, to make the final decision.5

The proposition that the space program should not be based on “a series of separate leaps, each requiring a massive concentration of energy and will and accomplished on a crash timetable,” has had a continuing impact on presidential decisions on the space program. President Jimmy Carter in 1978 approved a space policy statement that explicitly echoed the Nixon declara­tion; it said “our space policy will become more evolutionary rather than centering on a single, massive engineering feat.”3 Even though most presi­dents since Richard Nixon have proposed some type of major new space development and in most cases provided a timetable for its achievement, in none of those proposals was the undertaking to be carried out on a “crash” basis, and certainly none were accompanied by a “massive concentration of energy and will,” not to mention adequate financial resources.

The Nixon decision that “space expenditures must take their proper place within a rigorous system of national priorities” has had an even more last­ing impact on the U. S. space program. At the peak of the Apollo buildup in 1966, the NASA budget comprised nearly 4.4 percent of federal spending overall and 19 percent of discretionary nondefense federal spending. (The

NASA share of the federal budget is most frequently cited in terms of a percentage of the overall budget. Given the inexorable growth of the por­tion of the budget devoted to mandatory entitlements, it seems more use­ful to discuss the NASA budget in terms of its share of the discretionary nondefense budget, since it is in that realm that space spending competes with other discretionary government programs.) As President Lyndon B. Johnson refused to approve any of NASA’s post-Apollo proposals, NASA’s budget share quickly began to decline from its Apollo high point; by the time Richard Nixon became president the NASA budget had dropped to just above 8 percent of discretionary nondefense spending. The early Nixon space decisions continued this trend; in Fiscal Year 1973, the budget in which space shuttle approval was first reflected, the NASA discretionary budget share was approximately 6 percent and on a downward trajectory. While it was under Lyndon Johnson rather than any of his successors that the biggest percentage reduction in NASA’s budget share occurred, that reduction came from deferring a decision on what to do in space after Apollo, not on the basis of a specific decision to lower the space program’s priority. By contrast, Richard Nixon consciously made that crucial decision—to reduce NASA’s priority rather than assign it new, expensive programs and thus continuing rather than reversing the decline in NASA’s budget share. The NASA por­tion of discretionary nondefense spending vacillated between 6 and 4 per­cent between 1977 and 2002 and between 4 and 3 percent since. By any measure, the space program has not done well in competition for budget resources; in fact, compared to other government programs, it has declined in priority over the past 40 years.4

The consequences of this declining share of the overall discretionary bud­get have been clear to most observers. For example, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003 observed that “NASA has had to participate in the give and take of the normal political process in order to obtain the resources needed to carry out its programs.” In this give and take, “NASA has usually failed to receive budget support consistent with its ambitions. The result. . . is an organization straining to do too much with too little.”5