Drafting a Nixon Space Statement

In recommending that President Nixon endorse Option II of the STG report, NASA Administrator Tom Paine on September 19, 1969, had also suggested that the president quickly issue a statement announcing that endorsement. Peter Flanigan, the assistant to the president with oversight responsibility for the space program, agreed with Paine, and intended to take the lead in pre­paring such a statement. Although an immediate declaration was opposed by BOB Director Robert Mayo, Flanigan persisted in his effort, asking his assis­tant Tom Whitehead on October 6 to “draft a statement that the President might use, picking Option 2 but providing his flexibility along the lines sug­gested in my memorandum of October 4.” In that memorandum, Flanigan had argued that he did not “believe that the President can delay until the budget review to respond to the Space Task Group report to him” and had proposed a presidential statement saying “that after a review of the Space Task Group’s report. . . we should plan on a Mars landing in the mid-1980s,” without also endorsing the STG recommendation that NASA should first develop a space station and space shuttle during the 1970s. Science adviser Lee DuBridge joined Flanigan in arguing for an earlier statement, saying that “many thousands of people employed in the Space Program, as well as many millions of citizens, are anxiously awaiting an indication of the President’s proposals for the future.”4

Despite the urgings of Flanigan and DuBridge, the White House decided that no immediate presidential space statement was desirable; Mayo’s posi­tion that such a statement should follow and reflect, not guide, FY1971 bud­get decisions prevailed. Given the lack of time pressure, Whitehead did not complete an initial outline of a possible statement until mid-November. In transmitting his draft to Flanigan, Whitehead noted that it was “a compro­mise between strong positive words and the restraint necessary to maintain the President’s flexibility in budgeting.” He alerted Flanigan to the fact that he had “not specifically referred to Option II of the STG,” since “to do so would have the effect of locking us into the spending stream projected for that option as a floor on NASA expectations.” Whitehead suggested that “a draft outline should be sent to the President along with a memo showing what we are and are not letting Paine commit us now to begin spending on.”5

Many of the features of the eventual presidential statement issued in March 1970 were already present in Whitehead’s November 17, 1969, draft, which listed three goals for the nation’s space efforts—exploration, science, and Earth applications. Notable was that exploration was separated from science as an activity “worthwhile in and of itself.” The outline suggested a policy shift “to a continuing program of exploration and application” which would be “a continuing process rather than a series of crash timetables.” Listed among “major program goals and initiatives for the next decade in space” were continued lunar landings “paced at a rate to maximize scien­tific returns”; a “newly designed Experimental Space Station” (This was the orbital workshop soon to be named Skylab); and a “longer lived Space Station Module that will serve both as a near-earth space station and a building block for manned interplanetary travel.” A Mars landing, “perhaps as early as 1986,” would follow. The outline called for efforts to “lower the costs of space launches,” but did not mention the space shuttle. Rather, it sug­gested that “our recently developed rocket technology will provide a reliable launch capability through the next decade,” with continuing research “to make possible even lower costs for launching space payloads in the future.” A final initiative was to “expand international cooperation.” With respect to funding, the outline suggested that the president should say “we will seek to provide a stable level of expenditures to enable steady progress consistent with other pressing national priorities,” but also hold out the hope “to be able to expand our effort in some years and move some accomplishments nearer in time.”6