Accelerating the Schedule

One way that Richard Nixon got information was through his daily news summary. After reading a November 26 column titled “Future of Space

Program is Reaching a Critical Point,” Nixon asked Flanigan to accelerate the public release of his statement on the post-Apollo space program. The column had claimed that the “space program was sinking into some kind of political swamp,” absent presidential guidance, with “confusion among scientists and technological communities about the future of the program, and much more dangerous confusion in the government.” It noted that “the political climate was not favorable to any decision” and warned that “the White House had best be prepared for a political hurricane when President Nixon finally decides what to do next.” Nixon on December 2, as he prepared for his December 5 meeting on the NASA budget, suggested to Flanigan that “the week after next might be an appropriate time” to issue the space statement.7

The president’s request set the White House machinery in rapid motion. On December 9, Flanigan told staff secretary Ken Cole, the coordinator of White House activities, that “we are currently preparing an outline of a speech or statement for the President regarding the future space program. It is thought that this will be delivered or released in approximately 10 days.” In turn, Cole suggested to Jeb Magruder, deputy director of the White House Office of Communications, that “it’s not too early to begin drawing up a game plan” for the announcement of the presidential decision. Cole added that “whatever the decision, there will be something there for somebody to stand up and say hurrah for the President.”8

Whitehead sent a revised version of his outline for the space statement to the White House speechwriting office on December 12; that office, headed by Ray Price, would turn the outline into presidential prose. Whitehead had made a few significant changes from the November version of the out­line, reflecting comments made by the Office of Science and Technology (OST) and BOB staffs. The pace of lunar exploration would not only be designed to maximize scientific return but also to be “consistent with the minimum launch rate for safety and reliability.” This addition reflected an ongoing debate between those advocating only one Apollo launch per year and NASA, which thought launches every four or at most every six months were needed to maintain the performance of the launch team. The 1986 date for a human Mars landing was deleted, and not replaced by any target date for when such a mission might occur. In the launch vehicle section of the outline, the just-made budget decision to suspend production of the Saturn V booster was noted, with the comment that production could “be resumed at any time in the future as the need arises.” A sentence was added saying “we will begin to design a space shuttle that will be re-usable to provide fre­quent, reliable, and low-cost launches for a wide range of payloads.” This was a significant step in decoupling the shuttle from its NASA-advocated role as a logistics vehicle for the space station, and reflected the views of OST and its external advisers of the shuttle’s importance as a lower-cost launch vehicle for all U. S. space missions.9

To this point in time, the White House had not shared the outline of the space statement with NASA. On December 16, as the text of the space statement was being prepared in the White House for a planned December 18 release, Whitehead sent the outline to Paine, promising to send him a full draft of the proposed statement “as soon as it is available.” On the same day, Whitehead shared with Paine the high-profile plan for public release of the statement that had been developed by the White House Office of Communications. That plan called for a short speech by the president before the statement was released. Nixon would be accompanied by Vice President Agnew, science adviser DuBridge, and NASA Administrator Paine. As fol­low-up to the release of the statement, a variety of activities were planned, including obtaining “strong endorsement” from the aerospace industry, preparing statements for astronauts to use in public appearances, plac­ing astronauts and Paine on various news shows, giving advance briefings for Congressional space committees, scheduling NASA briefings in both Washington and Houston for space reporters, preparing short speeches for use by supportive members of Congress, and preparing an informa­tion packet for wide distribution “on the application of space technology to earth technology.”10

A first draft of the space statement did not emerge from the speechwrit­ing office until December 17. Given the delay in preparing the statement, its release was postponed until December 23. The draft was distributed for com­ment on December 18 to Agnew, Flanigan, Paine, Whitehead, DuBridge, Mayo, director of the Office of Communications Herb Klein, and National Aeronautics and Space Council Executive Secretary Bill Anders; comments were due on Monday morning, December 22.11