The Political Stream: Briefing Key Actors

The revision process continued until just before Independence Day, after which the White House had arranged briefings for outside interest groups. For three days starting on 5 July, the Administration undertook a series of briefings to explain the Civil Space Exploration Initiative to four groups from outside the administration. The first group, which the White House labeled “Space Advocates,” was composed of influential members of the space policy community not affiliated with a par­ticular government agency or private sector company. This group included former Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins, Cal Tech professor Bruce Murray, former NASA Administrator Tom Paine, and President of the Planetary Society Louis Friedman.

The briefing, which was conducted in the Indian Treaty Room of the OEOB, was very well received. Mark Albrecht recalled that the group was “obviously excited about it, very enthusiastic.” Tom Paine, who had chaired the National Commis­sion on Space, was extremely supportive and stated that this was exactly the kind of strategic direction that the American space program needed. There were universal strong positive statements; the only thing that the advocates questioned was the appropriate balance between Moon and Mars exploration. Both Mike Collins and Bruce Murray had previously come out in favor of a direct to Mars approach, so they were a little uncomfortable with NASA’s recommendation to start with a return to the Moon. The rest of the group was largely in favor of NASA’s strategy.[149]

The second group was composed of representatives from the science community. Frank Martin later remembered that this group was very supportive, “they were enthusiastic about it more than I would have imagined. They [agreed that] this is the right thing. And doing [the] Moon and then Mars is the right way to do it. It was pretty universal.”[150] Surprisingly, no one from this group made a strong argument in favor of solely robotic exploration, perhaps sensing that Vice President Quayle was strongly in favor of the Moon-Mars approach. The third group was composed of chief executive officers from major U. S. corporations—many who were important NASA contractors. Mark Albrecht recalled that “industry was excited…but they were nervous about what [existing] programs could get cut to fund it. Anytime you hit the reset button in Washington, you find that everyone gets very nervous.” Mark Craig remembered this being the most disappointing of the meetings because the level of industry support was not as robust as had been anticipated. The general reaction was that if the government wanted to do this, and was willing to put up the funding, then industry would get on board.[151] Douglas O’Handley recalled that the CEO’s were concerned that the U. S. did not have the technical manpower to carry SEI off, despite the fact the administration believed the initiative would pro­mote science and engineering education.[152] As a result, there were no impassioned speeches arguing that this was exactly the kind of bold long-term plan that the aerospace industry and national economy needed. Craig stated later, “I felt the Vice President was…knocked on his heels. He tried to elicit some kind of emotion and response from these people.”[153]

The final group, made up of key Congressional staffers, was by far the most dynamic. Mark Albrecht contends that during the Reagan administration the House “Appropriations Committee and the Appropriations staffers essentially ran the space program because NASA got no direction or interest out of the White House.. .the vacuum was filled by the appropriators.” As a result, this was by far the most skeptical group—they were doubtful about the White House taking a renewed interest in space policy making and were not convinced that selecting an expensive new initiative was the best approach for providing the space program with direc­tion. Led by Richard Malow, this group was most concerned about the potential budgetary impact of such a large undertaking. Malow was the most powerful staffer on the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funded NASA. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin had recently called him the space agency’s shadow admin­istrator’ because he had so much influence over national space policy.[154] Malow had been working on space policy issues since 1972, far longer than NASA’s senior lead­ership, and was well-known for pushing the space agency to emphasize affordable space science missions rather than expensive human exploration programs. In fact, a week earlier the Wall Street Journal had run a front-page article stating that while Malow “would love the U. S. to mount an expedition to the far side of the Moon and build a telescope there…such dreams are ‘moot’ because of the budget crunch. Instead…NASA [should] focus on more attainable goals.”[155]

At the White House briefing, Malow remembered his “…initial reaction was that maybe this is something that we ought to be doing, but I don’t think I jumped in and said ‘that’s the greatest idea in the world.’ And as I started to see the details of it, as they unfolded, I became concerned, especially given the budget situa­tion.”[156] The reactions of other staffers were much more animated. For example, Stephen Kohashi, an aide to Senator Jake Garn, asked the briefers, “have you lost your mind?”[157] Kohashi said later, “politics is the art of the possible, and so it is with budgetary politics. I recall being incredulous at the magnitude of the price tag [for] the proposed program…and feared that it would have no credibility or viability on Capitol Hill.”[158] In the end, no real champions emerged on the Congressional side. Instead, the meeting served to generate “a certain tension…between the Space

Council staff and the staffs of the various committees on the Hill.”[159] Malow recalled that one reason for this rising animus was the failure of the administration to con­sult with Congressional leaders as it was formulating a plan for the new human exploration program. Malow stated that such discussions would have led to “warn­ings about the overall budget situation, which is what we were concerned about. We may have tried to convince them that they needed to think it through a little bit more.”[160] Despite this unenthusiastic response from the Congressional staffers, who would ultimately have a great deal of influence regarding the actual adoption and implementation of SEI, the White House marched forward with its plans to announce the initiative.

Starting on 13 July, just a week before the president’s planned speech, Vice President Quayle and Admiral Truly began meeting with key members of Congress. These meetings were intended primarily to acquaint the legislators with the initia­tive before the President announced it nationally. That morning, the two briefed a group of Representatives and Senators with responsibility for space policy at a break­fast meeting. As with the Congressional staffers, the reactions were not wholly posi­tive. In particular, House Appropriation Committee Chair BobTraxler of Michigan wondered where the Administration was “coming from, we can’t afford this.. .we’ve got other things on our plate, outside NASA.”[161] A few days later, Quayle and Truly went to Capitol Hill to personally brief Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee overseeing NASA’s budget—who had been unable to attend the breakfast meeting. Frank Martin remembered later, “she was very supportive. She said “the budgets are going to be tight [but] I am glad the Administration is finally taking an interest in space.” One final briefing was given to Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, chair of Commerce, Science & Technology committee—once again, the White House received support for the program.[162] Regardless of the general support that the administration received from Mikulski and Hollings, the clear skepticism ofTraxler was more important. As chair of the House appropriations committee, he would have enormous influence over the actual adoption of this program. Therefore, even before it was announced, SEI faced a huge uphill battle to gain backing from Congress. As Malow indicated, this was at least partially because the White House did not consult with Capitol Hill during the formulation of the new plan. More important, however, was the fact that there were no great supporters for implementing an expensive new program given the fiscal crisis facing the nation.

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