Space Task Group Debates Alternatives

If Paine’s faint hope was that the August 4 presentation, which he had intended to “substantially shake up” the STG, would lead to a decision to recommend the program he and von Braun had outlined, he was quickly disappointed. Immediately following the presentation, the STG principals began to discuss the content of their report, and it was soon clear that they were not in agreement with the NASA proposal.

Speaking after von Braun and Paine, Secretary of the Air Force Robert Seamans indicated that he was not prepared to endorse the humans to Mars goal, and in fact thought that the focus of NASA’s activities during the 1970s should be on space applications of direct service to mankind rather than on creating the capabilities needed for human exploration. Seamans had been a member of the transition task force on space headed by Charles Townes, and his comments to the STG on August 4 echoed many of the themes of that transition task force report. Before the meeting he had pre­pared a letter to the vice president outlining his views, and he used that as the basis for his remarks. He supported continued missions to the Moon, but only on a “careful step-by-step basis reviewing scientific information from one flight before going on to the next.” Seamans argued for the use of Apollo hardware for additional missions in Earth orbit, including investiga­tions of the planet’s environment, but he judged that it was premature to “commit ourselves to the development” of a large space station. Seamans, in contrast to the bullish assessment of the space shuttle recently completed by a DOD/NASA team (see chapter 9), suggested that “it is not yet clear that we have the technology” for a reusable space transportation system that would produce major reductions in the cost of transporting payloads into space, and suggested “a program to study by experimental means including orbital tests” the feasibility of such a system. With respect to human mis­sions to Mars, Seamans did not think “we should commit this Nation to a manned planetary mission, at least until the feasibility and need are more firmly established.” The funds needed for such a mission “would compete with the resources needed to provide immediate benefits from NASA’s capabilities.” Given the ambitious proposals that NASA had just presented, Seamans felt he was “sort of like a skunk at a garden party” for espousing such a “go slow” view. Agnew expressed his disappointment with Seamans’s views, suggesting that while it was difficult to argue in terms of concrete payoffs for the ambitious NASA proposal, it represented “a new vista for mankind.”35

Undersecretary of State Johnson indicated that he was sympathetic to Seamans’s perspective, and science adviser DuBridge indicated that PSAC was thinking along similar lines. DuBridge suggested that a NASA pro­gram at the $4-$5 billion level for the next twenty years could achieve many of NASA’s objectives, although on a stretched-out scale. Although he was an observer, not formally a member of the STG, budget director Robert Mayo spoke next, commenting that Seamans and DuBridge “had made his speech already.” Mayo’s comments carried particular weight, since it would be through budget decisions in the fall of 1969 that any recommen­dations that the STG might make would begin to be implemented. Mayo was quite cautious, arguing that pursuing the ambitious NASA program would make it impossible to meet the budget needs of such high priority issues as alleviating poverty and better control of the environment, in addi­tion to avoiding a budget deficit. Glenn Seaborg, another STG observer as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, disagreed, saying that “the country can certainly afford the suggested space program and still take care of its domestic needs.” In the subsequent discussion, Mayo indicated that while he recognized “some social dividends to space,” he did not see “how we could announce an exciting new goal when we have these problems on earth that need to be solved.” Agnew and Mayo engaged in a spirited debate over national priorities that ended with the vice president calling the budget director “nothing but a cheapskate.” DuBridge suggested that the target date for an initial Mars landing be set at 1990 or even the end of the century. Paine objected, saying that such slow forward movement “would change the character of NASA.” He continued to argue that NASA needed a definite goal and decisions by President Nixon on specific things that NASA should do next. Agnew closed the discussion by suggesting that perhaps the STG should suggest a first mission to Mars in the 1980s as the culmination of a broadly based space effort.36

The STG principals and observers, without their staff present, then dis­cussed the actual content of their report, at that point due on September 1, less than a month away. They had before them a draft of the report’s sum­mary and recommendations section prepared by Russ Drew of DuBridge’s staff. Drew had identified four “major issues. . . for which additional guid­ance is requested.” These were:

1. Shall there be a single powerful theme or goal for the post-Apollo decade?

2. If so, what should that goal be, and how should it be presented?

3. Should there be a large space station program, and should it precede the availability of a low-cost transportation system?

4. Should a reusable space transportation capability be developed, and how should the program be managed?

Drew’s draft noted that “there was complete agreement [among the staff directors] on the importance of programs that are directed toward the application of the nation’s space capabilities to a wide range of problems.” There was also “general agreement” that “exploration of the solar system and beyond” should be “an important continuing broad objective of the Nation’s space program.”37

At the suggestion of the vice president, the STG members agreed that rather than present a single recommended program of human space flight, the report would provide the president with three options: [3]

• an “intermediate” program with a commitment to sending humans to Mars but with no fixed date for such an achievement, and with NASA’s budget increasing to $5-6 billion by the mid-decade;

• an “austere” program with funding level at approximately $4 billion per year, with no commitment to a Mars mission, while retaining the option of such a commitment at a later date.38