SEI Hits the Road

In early May, with congressional support still very much in doubt, the Space Council staff began preparing for President Bush to make a major space policy speech. The intention was that this address would provide some much needed focus for the program, and at the same time allay Congressional fears that Bush was com­mitted to a $400 billion, crash program. Mark Albrecht recalled that by this time NASA had “leaked their numbers out to everybody on the Hill, attempting the crib death of this whole initiative. We still didn’t have the full support of the space agency, I don’t believe even at this time NASA was embracing it. I think they were more worried about the space station than they were interested in setting a new course.” To combat this behind the scenes attack, the White House decided that a presidential rebuttal was needed to make it clear that the Administration was not talking about a crash program[281]

On 11 May, ten days after the space summit, President Bush delivered the com­mencement address at Texas A&I University. He utilized this speech as an opportu­nity to discuss the role the national space program would play in America’s future. Bush told the assembled graduates that SEI formed the cornerstone of his far-reach­ing plan for investing in America’s future, saying, “Thirty years ago, NASA was founded, and the space race began. And 30 years from now I believe man will stand on another planet. And so, I am pleased to return to Texas today to announce a new Age of Exploration, with not only a goal but also a timetable: I believe that before Apollo celebrates the 50th anniversary of its landing on the Moon, the American flag should be planted on Mars.” With this speech, Bush set a timetable for SEI and answered critics that argued he lacked the vision of a great president.[282] As he had done ten months earlier, he did not speak to the cost of achieving these lofty goals. When asked by reporters as he boarded Air Force One where the money would come from to fund the initiative he simply said, “Thirty years is a long time.”[283] Coming in the wake of months of strategizing within the Space Council regarding how to get SEI back on it feet, this answer was most unsatisfying. It left the impres­sion that either Bush was not fully engaged in the decisions that were being made with regard to space policy, or that the White House simply couldn’t produce a good answer to this fundamental question.

As had been the case with his speech announcing SEI the previous summer, the reaction to President Bush’s commencement address was not entirely positive. The New York Times complained he “did not give any estimate… of how much the program would cost. Nor did he discuss whether the mission would be mounted alone or with international partners.”[284] The Washington Post quoted Senator A1 Gore saying, “before the President sets out on his mission to Mars, he should embark on a mission to reality by giving us some even faint indication of where the $500 billion is going to come from.”[285] Dick Malow actually felt that setting a 30-year timeframe weakened the initiative on Capitol Hill. It was the “antithesis of the whole Apollo idea. How do you spread an initiative like this over so many presidential adminis­trations?”[286] These reactions from key Democratic leaders pointed to the difficult position the administration still found itself in due to the expensive policy alterna­tive generated within the 90-Day Study. Even some NASA officials felt that setting a timetable for the initiative was a mistake, believing it would drive costs up whereas a ‘go-as-you-pay’ program would have had a significantly reduced budgetary impact on an annual basis.[287]

Outside the Capitol Beltway, the speech seemed to play even worse. The edito­rial page of Salem, Oregon’s Statesman Journal contended, “A rocket trip to Mars begins on a foundation of common purpose and sound finances at home. A nation that doesn’t know how to balance its budget, reduce a $3 trillion deficit, and fight the decay of its citizens through the effects of drugs, disrupted families and crippled schools will never find the money and willpower to visit the heavens. Bush has given us an empty challenge. We should ask him to return to Texas and repeat the same speech. This time let him add a page at the beginning, one that spells out how this country can first get its feet back on the ground. Then we can head for Mars.”[288] The response was no better in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where the opening line of an opinion editorial read, “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to space we go!”[289] A letter the White House received from a local official in Kittery, Maine (just south of President Bush’s vacation home in Kennebunkport) suggested, “American pride will best be shown by meeting the needs of all the people here on Earth. $500 billion would make a good start.”[290] Once again, this was not the reaction the administration was hoping to elicit from a presidential address on the importance of space exploration.

A few weeks later, Vice President Quayle met briefly with the person the Space Council hoped would be able to build confidence in SEI—Lieutenant General Tom Stafford (USAF-retired). Stafford was a former astronaut who commanded Apollo 10, the ‘dress rehearsal’ for the first lunar landing mission, and the U. S. portion of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. He had recently agreed to head the Explora­tion Outreach Program, which had been created by NASA in response to the Space Council request that the agency seek out new technical approaches that might reduce SEI’s implementation costs. Under this outreach effort, the space agency expected to obtain wide-ranging ideas through public solicitations, which would be evaluated by the RAND Corporation—a California-based think tank. The most promising of these proposals, and others directly from NASA, DOD, and DOE, would then go to a “Synthesis Group” headed by General Stafford. This group’s recommenda­tions would be reviewed by the NRC and reported directly to the Space Council in early 1991. At the meeting with Stafford, Vice President Quayle expressed his belief that the Synthesis Group would serve as a vehicle for generating enthusiasm and support for SEI. He concluded the meeting by conveying his hope that the group would identify at least two fundamentally different approaches to carrying out the initiative.[291]

In early June, at the fourth Case for Mars conference, an alternative emerged that would captivate Mars enthusiasts for years to come—and would work its way into NASA planning years later. The most talked about presentation of the symposium was delivered by Martin Marietta aerospace engineers Robert Zubrin and David Baker. Named ‘Mars Direct,’ their system architecture included several key elements designed to reduce mission costs and increase scientific return, including:

• Direct flight to and from the Martian surface (which eliminated the need to use Space Station Freedom)

• No earth orbit or lunar orbit rendezvous (which eliminated the need for multiple spacecraft)

• Fueling of the Earth Return Vehicle using propellant generated on Mars from the atmosphere

• Extended operations on the Martian surface (up to 555 days)

Although this approach was considered a high risk alternative to the TSG architec­ture highlighted in the 90-Day Study, Zubrin and Baker argued Mars Direct would only cost $20 billion—approximately one-twentieth the price tag associated with the space agency plan. Because it was based on existing technologies packaged in an innovative system architecture, many in the space policy community viewed this as an option worth serious consideration.[292]

In mid-June, the Bush administration set in motion a flurry of events intended to garner public support for SEI. These activities were commenced largely in response to a House Appropriations subcommittee vote to eliminate all spending associated with the initiative.[293] This lobbying effort began with a series of meetings to brief key actors within the space policy community. Held at the White House, the presenta­tions were tailored to the corresponding audiences in a coordinated effort—with Vice President Quayle and Admiral Truly as the featured speakers. The message conveyed to a group of congressional staffers was that a failure to provide funding for SEI would create the impression that the United States lacked the political will to take risks to expand humanity’s reach into the solar system. Reporters that regularly covered NASA were told that SEI would produce significant economic, technical, and educational benefits for the nation. Finally, industry and academic leaders were informed that SEI would be part of an overarching administration strategy designed to foster innovation by permanently extending the research and experimentation tax credit and reducing regulatory burdens on corporations.[294]

These briefings were immediately followed by a major presidential address on space policy at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. After attending a fundraising luncheon for Governor Guy Hunt, President Bush arrived at the center for a tour. This included a visit to the Hubble Space Tele­scope (HST) Orbital Verification Engineering Control Room, where a NASA team was coordinating the adjustment and final checkout of the groundbreaking orbital observatory.[295] Bush then conducted a full press conference on the center grounds. Despite the setting, the majority of the event was spent detailing the American response to ongoing unrest in the Middle East. However, Bush was asked a few questions regarding the national space program, among them one directed at SEI:

Q: A question about space. How serious are you about this lunar base and Mars mission proposal? Would you go so far as to veto the bill that con­tains NASA appropriations if Congress decides to delete all the money?

A: I haven’t even contemplated any veto strategy. I’d like to get what I want. I think it’s in the national interest. I think that the United States must remain way out front on science and technology; and this broad pro­gram that I’ve outlined, seed money that I’ve asked for, should be sup­ported. But I think it’s way too early to discuss a veto strategy. We took one on the chops in a House committee the other day, and I’ve got to turn around now and fight for what I believe.[296]

Following the press confer­ence, the President took the stage before a crowd of 4,000 MSFC employees.[297] President Bush opened his remarks by recalling his campaign speech at MSFC two and a half years earlier, during which he had vowed to launch a dynamic new program of exploration.

“I’m pleased to return to Mar­shall to report that we have made good on these prom­ises,” Bush said, “and we’ve done it the old-fashioned way, done it the American way— step by step, program by program, all adding up to the most ambitious and far – reaching effort since Marshall and Apollo took America to the Moon.” He criticized House Democrats for voting to deny funding for SEI-related concept and technol­ogy development, stating that partisan politics had led his opponents to turn their backs on progress. He compared them to naysayers in the Court of Queen Isabella who argued against Columbus’ voyage that discovered the New World. President Bush stated that during the Apollo era, significant funding for the space program had fostered a golden age of technology and advancement—one that he hoped would be equaled by a permanent return to the Moon and crewed missions to Mars. He concluded his remarks with a challenge for Congress “to step forth with the will that the moment requires. Don’t postpone greatness. History tells us what happens to nations that forget how to dream. The American people want us in space. So, let us continue the dream for our students, for ourselves, and for all humankind.”[298] The day after President Bush spoke at MSFC, the administration coordinated a full day of events aimed at further building support for SEI. Newspapers through­out the nation contained opinion editorials written by supporters of the initiative, including: Representative Tom Lewis (R-FL) in the Orlando Sentinel, former astro-

naut Buzz Aldrin in the Los Angeles Times-, Dartmouth University Professor Robert Jastrow in the Baltimore Sun-, and former astronaut Eugene Cernan in the Hous­ton Chronicle.[299] [300] [301] On Capitol Hill, Representatives Bob Walker and Newt Gingrich hosted a press conference praising Bush for his leadership with regard to the Ameri­can space program. On the Senate floor, Senator Jake Garn formally introduced the program and Senators Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, and Malcolm Wallop spoke on SEI’s behalf. In the late afternoon Vice President Quayle appeared in a series of satellite interviews in targeted states, including California, Florida, Texas, and Virginia. Finally, the Republican National Committee released radio actualities in key districts around the country.3839 By mid-June, there was a feeling that “SEI was gaining momentum.”[302]