A New Cast of Characters

As the curtain rose on the second act of the drama of post-Apollo deci­sion making, there were a number of changes in its cast of characters, both at the White House and at NASA. The White House framework for mak­ing space policy decisions was changed by creating two new structures—the Domestic Council and the Office of Management and Budget—to over­see the development of policy and budget options for presidential decision. This meant that the heads of those new organizations would inescapably be involved in space-related deliberations. Science adviser Lee DuBridge left; he was replaced by a young engineer from the private sector, Edward E. David, Jr. Tom Whitehead, who as Peter Flanigan’s assistant had been influential in shaping President Nixon’s early space decisions, moved to a new posi­tion within the Executive Office of the President, but still stayed occasion­ally involved in NASA-related issues. There was a proposal to eliminate the National Aeronautics and Space Council and its staff; while this proposal was not acted on, the council staff were not able during 1970-1971 to become significant actors in the policymaking process, although the council’s execu­tive secretary, Bill Anders, became personally involved.

At NASA, Dale Myers, a senior executive from North American Rockwell, where he had been working on the Apollo spacecraft and then space shuttle studies, succeeded George Mueller as associate administrator for manned space flight on January 9, 1970. In that position Myers was in charge not only of the ongoing Apollo and Skylab efforts but also of studies of the space station and space shuttle. Wernher von Braun moved to the agency’s Washington headquarters from his position as director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In Washington, he would lead the agency’s planning effort; Tom Paine’s hope was that he also could be a “super salesman” for NASA’s ambitious post-Apollo aspirations. Then, after making one last attempt to gain support for such an undertaking, NASA Administrator Paine in August 1970 abruptly resigned to return to private industry. NASA was left with an acting administrator, George Low, as it fought in fall 1970 for approval of its proposals for future programs, par­ticularly the space shuttle. In that struggle, NASA found itself dealing with

a number of individuals new to the post-Apollo decision making process and skeptical of the value to the president and the country of a major commit­ment to developing a new capability for human space flight.