Intermission

With NASA’s cancelation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, deferral of space station development, and the decision to make the space shuttle the centerpiece of its post-Apollo hopes, the curtain came down on the first act in the drama of setting the content and direction of the post-Apollo space program. NASA Administrator Tom Paine’s hope of getting, in the months following the success of the Apollo 11 lunar landing and the submission of the Space Task Group (STG) report, White House support for a fast-paced space effort in the 1970s had been decisively denied. The Nixon White House in shaping a post-Apollo space effort had decided not to build on the national investment in the capabilities that had made Apollo possible.

In February 1969 Richard Nixon had asked for a "definitive recom­mendation on the direction which the U. S. space program should take in the post-Apollo period." When seven months later he received that recommendation in the form of the STG report, he and especially his policy and budget advisors found it not at all to their liking. NASA, with the active assistance of Vice President Spiro Agnew, had in essence seized control of the STG; none of the other members had fought hard for a different recommendation than one centered on space station and space shuttle development during the 1970s, lead­ing to missions to Mars in the 1980s. Secretary of the Air Force Robert Seamans in both August and September had presented alternatives to that approach, but had not been persistent in his advocacy. Science adviser Lee DuBridge, rather than act as an advocate for the views of his external advisory committee, which favored the space shuttle and

was skeptical about the value of a space station, chose to be a media­tor with respect to his fellow STG members, seeking an outcome that all could accept. Budget Director Robert Mayo decided to deal with space issues in the context of FY1971 budget decisions rather than argue within the STG for a program he thought the president could support. The STG participants from the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of State had narrower interests that the totality of the post-Apollo program, and thus deferred to NASA’s recommenda­tions.

Even in the aftermath of the triumph of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the question of the content and pace of the post-Apollo space program had relatively low priority in the Nixon White House, as the president grappled with a recalcitrant economy and a looming budget deficit, not to mention various overseas involvements of higher interest to him. This lack of top-level interest in the future of the space program allowed a junior member of the White House staff, Clay Thomas "Tom" Whitehead, to exercise substantial influence on how the president and his senior advisers responded to the STG report. Although there was significant confusion and competition in roles between the White House policy staff, represented by Whitehead and his boss, Assistant to the President Peter Flanigan, and the Bureau of the Budget staff mem­bers dealing with space issues and their director, Robert Mayo, the two groups were united in their skepticism regarding the value of the kind of post-Apollo space program Paine was so insistently advocating. Their views carried the day with President Nixon, who by most indications was personally in favor of a more ambitious NASA program than his advisers favored. Nixon, apparently reluctantly, came to the conclusion that there was neither the public and political support nor the budget wherewithal to support such space ambitions. As Flanigan commented at the time, there was in the White House in 1969 and early 1970 "a feel­ing that the country had had enough excitement for now"; the result was "a series of negative decisions—no, we won’t do this."1

The March 1970 presidential statement on space was deliberately noncommittal, seeming to echo the STG report by identifying the space station and space shuttle as desirable future developments, but also indicating that they and other NASA proposals would have to compete with other government programs for funding. To optimists like Paine, the statement seemed still to leave the door slightly open for future approval of some version of the STG program, but that was not a realistic reading of White House intent.

All of this was clear to Whitehead, who observed that "no compel­ling reason to push space was ever presented to the White House by

NASA or anyone else." Reflecting in 1971 on his space policy experi­ences, Whitehead suggested that

this Administration has never really faced up to where we are going in Space. NASA, with some help from the Vice President, made a try in 1969 to get the President committed to an "ever-onward-and-upward" post – Apollo program with continued budget growth into the $6-10 billion range. We were successful in holding that off at least temporarily, but we have not developed any theme or consistency in policy. As a result, NASA is both drifting and lobbying for bigger things—without being forced to focus realistically on what it ought to be doing . . . We have cut the NASA budget, but they manage. . . to get a "compromise" of a few hundred million on their shuttle and space station plans. Is the President really going to ignore a billion or so of sunk costs when he gets hit for the really big money in a year or two? . . . There needs to be a sense of direction, both publicly and within NASA. The President’s statement on the seventies in space laid the groundwork, but no one is following up.

Whitehead suggested that "we really ought to decide if we mean to muddle through on space policy for the rest of the President’s term in office" and pointed out the need to answer a crucial question: "What do we expect of a space program?"2 How that question was answered (or not) will be the central focus of the second act of this drama.