Making the Case to the White House

NASA’s primary link to President Nixon and other senior White House decision makers was through Peter Flanigan and his assistant Jonathan Rose. George Low drafted a “best case” essay on the shuttle for Rose and Flanigan to use within the White House; it was edited by Willis Shapley and sent to Rose by James Fletcher on November 22. The essay made five points:

1. The U. S. cannot forego manned space flight.

2. The space shuttle is the only meaningful new manned space program that can be accomplished on a modest budget.

3. The space shuttle is a necessary next step for the practical use of space.

4. The cost and complexity of today’s shuttle is one-half of what it was six months ago.

5. Starting the shuttle now will have a significant positive effect on aerospace employment. Not starting would be a serious blow to both the morale and health of the Aerospace Industry.

The paper observed that “man has learned to fly in space, and man will continue to fly in space. This is fact. And, given this fact, the United States cannot forego its responsibility—to itself and to the free world—to have a part in manned space flight. . . For the U. S. not to be in space, while others do have men in space, is unthinkable, and a position which America cannot accept.” It suggested that the shuttle “can provide transportation to and from space each week,” and that “space operations would indeed become routine.” The link to an eventual space station and other long-term space activities was made explicit: “In the 1980’s and beyond, the low cost to orbit [that] the shuttle gives us is essential for all the dramatic and practi­cal future programs we can conceive. One example is a space station.” The paper argued that “the shuttle helps our international position—both our competitive position with the Soviet Union and our prospects of coopera­tion with them and other nations. . . With the shuttle, the United States will have a clear space superiority over the rest of the world.” It claimed that the shuttle could be developed for an investment of $4.5-$5 billion, with an operating cost of “around $10 million or less per flight.” It noted that the shuttle orbiter “has been dramatically reduced in size—from a length of 206 feet down to 110 feet,” but “the payload carrying capability has not been reduced.” In terms of employment effects, “an accelerated start on the shuttle would lead to a direct employment of 8,000 by the end of 1972, and 24,000 by the end of 1973.”46

With this paper, NASA stated its arguments for shuttle approval in what its leaders hoped would be a convincing fashion. Unlike the somewhat nega­tive arguments in support of the space shuttle that George Low had put forward in October 1970—that shuttle development could be justified “as a versatile and economical system for placing unmanned civil and military satellites in orbit, entirely apart from its role in conducting or supporting manned missions” and that “with the shuttle the U. S. can have a continuing program of manned space flight. . . without a commitment to a major new manned mission goal”—NASA in November 1971 made a much more posi­tive case for the shuttle as a human space flight system serving important national interests.47 Key to this case were not only the claim that the space shuttle would make space operations routine and less expensive but also the proposition that the shuttle would advance intangible values such as U. S. space leadership and international cooperation and that it was thus essential for the United States to continue a vigorous program of human space flight based on the shuttle and its new capabilities.

As NASA put forward this case for approving the shuttle, Rice and his OMB staff in parallel were preparing a decision memorandum for Richard Nixon that took a very different tack, suggesting that the president should approve a much smaller and less frequently used shuttle than the system that NASA had in mind. That memorandum questioned the economic argument for shuttle development and assigned only limited value to potential benefits such as space leadership and new capabilities for space operations. The fol­lowing few weeks would determine which point of view would prevail.