Penultimate STG Meeting

Because Vice President Agnew had to be at the Western White House in San Clemente, California for a September 4 cabinet meeting, he scheduled a STG meeting on September 3 in nearby Newport Beach.45 Both Newell and Milt Rosen of NASA were unable to attend, and so the senior NASA staff person present was DeMarquis Wyatt, a top agency planner; Wyatt was to play a key role in finalizing the STG report over the next ten days.

The meeting was rather contentious, as the STG principals for the first time learned of Whitehead’s and Flanigan’s insistence that the STG report include an option with the NASA budget for the 1970s at the $2.5 to $3.0 billion level. By this time the draft report included four program options, A through D, each still including the same program elements in the 1970s, with even option D requiring a peak budget of almost $6 billion per year even though it included deferring a decision to send astronauts to Mars. In option C, that decision would be made in the late 1970s and the initial Mars mission would leave Earth in 1986. Drew of OST and Mayo of BOB pro­posed, in accordance with White House demands, to add a Program E that would reflect a hiatus in manned space flight after the end of the Apollo pro­gram, with no new starts on a space station or space shuttle. An angry Paine said that unless the implications of such an option were spelled out in detail, which would take some time, he would not sign the STG report. Seamans introduced into the discussion a totally new program plan that he and the DOD staff had developed as an alternative to NASA’s Programs C and D. Seamans’s alternative plan put more short-term emphasis on space applica­tions and robotic exploration and maintained a human space flight program by extended use of Apollo-derived spacecraft and launch vehicles through most of the 1970s. This would be followed by sequential development, first of a space shuttle and space tug, then in the 1980s a space station, with a decision whether to send people to Mars made in the mid-1980s. Seamans argued that such a human space flight program could be carried out for $2 billion a year, thereby keeping NASA’s budget in the $4 to $4.5 billion a year range for the next two decades.46 Vice President Agnew suggested including the Seamans plan in the report rather than a Program E without human space flight; Mayo responded that this alternative would not satisfy the White House directive. Seaborg commented that the draft report before the principals was “very thoughtful,” and that it made little sense at this late date to add a new option such as the one Seamans was suggesting. There was agreement with this position, and the Seamans proposal was tabled as far as the STG report was concerned (although it was embraced by the BOB staff preparing for the FY1971 budget review). Finally, the principals agreed that a Program E would be added to the report, but it would be added “to show a kind of limit that no one will want to adopt,” giving the president “a better possibility of choosing one of the higher level options.”

During the meeting, it became even clearer than it had been in August that the STG principals were not going to agree on a single program option to recommend to Richard Nixon. Paine suggested that all options be pre­sented to the president without a STG recommendation, and then Nixon could consult with individual members of the STG and others to get their recommendations. Agnew agreed with this idea, saying that it allowed the inclusion of a Program E option even though none of the STG members agreed with it. The STG members decided that they would meet one more time to review the final draft of their report, revised to reflect the decisions and comments of this meeting. That meeting was set for September 11.

A revised draft of the STG report, now including Options A through E, was ready for review on September 8. The report noted that the STG had not attempted “to classify the space program in a hierarchy of national pri­orities.” Rather, the STG had “concentrated on identifying major technical and scientific challenges in space in the belief that returns will accrue to the society that takes up those challenges.” The draft recommended a “balanced program” aimed at

• “application of space technology to the direct benefit of mankind”;

• “operation of space systems to enhance national security”;

• “exploration of the solar system and beyond”;

• “development of new capabilities for operating in space”; and

• “international participation and cooperation.”

The draft noted that if there were significantly lower budget levels in the future, it would not be possible to develop new space capabilities and that at lower budget levels “if important increases in science and application pro­grams were to be pursued, no manned space flight program would be pos­sible.” In its concluding section, the draft said that the STG had concluded “as a focus for the development of new capability,” the United States should “accept the long-range option or goal of manned planetary exploration with a manned Mars mission before the end of the century.”47