A First Presidential Decision

In his reaction to Cap Weinberger’s August 12 memorandum and with the October 19 clarification of his intent, Richard Nixon had seemingly agreed that if Apollo 16 and 17 were canceled, there needed to be compensatory actions in terms of announcing approval of new space efforts, including the space shuttle but also the NERVA nuclear rocket engine program or other NASA activities. This was not yet a specific decision to approve shuttle development, but rather an indication that the president was leaning in that direction.

President Nixon did make a significant step toward such a decision dur­ing a November 24 meeting discussing “sensitive and significant issues in the FY1973 budget.” Attending the Oval Office meeting were Nixon’s top assistant for domestic policy John Ehrlichman, OMB Director George Shultz, and Secretary of Treasury John Connally, a new member of Nixon’s inner circle. In preparing him for the meeting, Domestic Council Deputy Director Ed Harper alerted Ehrlichman that a “complete alterna­tive NASA program [was] being developed by OMB [and] should be ready this week. Extraordinarily important that this decision is carefully staffed out.”4

Ehrlichman came to the meeting with a two-page list of issues for discus­sion. One item asked “Will the budget style be: (a) expansive? (b) austere? (c) neither?” Another question was “What economic (employment) assump­tions will be displayed?” Eighteen program issues were listed; space was third, after general revenue sharing and welfare reform. As the four men got to the space issue, the following discussion occurred:

Nixon: “Space, what’s the problem here?”

Ehrlichman: “Well the problem here is do we go ahead with the next two shots? [Apollo 16 and 17]”

Nixon: “No! If we go, no shots before the election.”

Ehrlichman: “Then what would we do with all those employees?”

Nixon: “For those shots? How many, George?”

Shultz: “17,500 or something like that.”

Nixon: “I don’t like the feeling of space shots between now and the elec­tion.”

Ehrlichman: “But thinking of this thing [the space program] in just pure job terms, it is a hell of a job creator.”

Connally: “The American people are really not impressed by any more space shots.”

Nixon: “NASA is saying you’ll find incredible things about the Moon with these last two shots, and the American people say ‘so what’?”

Shultz: “Could I try another possibility? The last shot is the one in which they have loaded a great amount of scientific stuff from the ones that have been canceled before. That shot is scheduled after the election.”

Nixon: “I only see a minor waste of money. Keep the people on, but don’t make the shots. I just don’t feel the shots are a big deal at this time. . . There is also the risk you could have another Apollo 13 . . . That would be the worst thing we could have. . . We are just not going to do it. There will not be any launches between now and the election. The last shot, fine. Let’s go forward with the last shot.”

Ehrlichman: “The southern California people have a mighty press on for the space shuttle to be located in southern California. It is a highly visible kind of thing, if we were to announce at the State of the Union or sometime that you were going ahead with the shuttle.”

Nixon: “This is not a State of the Union thing. I should do it [announcing shuttle approval] out in California where you are going to put it. Jobs— right, John? Do it in terms of jobs. It ought to be in California.”

Shultz: “NASA has a full thrust [shuttle] program, but there are options that are a little more modest.”

Nixon: “Take the more modest option. We’ll take a look later to see [if that is the right choice.] It’s the symbol that we are going to go forward. We are going to be positive on space. Nobody is going to be against us if we go forward in space, and a few will be for us because we do.”

Ehrlichman: “If you tell the aerospace industry that we are going ahead on the shuttle, that helps right now.”

Shultz: “While the shuttle and Skylab will keep men in space to a degree, the direction of this program ought to shift away from man in space and toward doing most of these things on an unmanned basis.”

Nixon: “I agree. Manned space flight becomes a stunt after a while.”5

Ehrlichman later thought the basic decision to develop a space shuttle had been made at this meeting. His record of the discussion, prepared only on January 4, the day before Nixon was to announce his shuttle decision, said that on November 24 “the President decided to support the space shuttle providing it could be located in California.” After this meeting there was little doubt that some form of space shuttle would be approved by the Nixon administration; the question was whether it would be NASA’s preferred full capability shuttle orbiter design or a smaller alternative as was being sug­gested by OMB.6

There are a number of interesting elements to this November 24 discussion. The space program, including both the ongoing Apollo effort and the space shuttle, was being evaluated by Nixon and his top advisers not only in terms of its substantive value but especially in terms of its employment impacts. In particular, the space shuttle was seen as part of the ongoing White House California Employment Project, aimed at getting the most possible new jobs located in California prior to the 1972 election. Nixon continued to want to avoid the risk of another Apollo 13 accident in the months leading up to that election, believing that such an incident could impact his reelection prospects and the 1972 summit meetings that were part of his attempt to normalize relations with China and the Soviet Union. He judged that the American public was not really interested in more trips to the Moon, which gave him a free hand to defer or cancel the remaining two Apollo missions. Ultimately, Nixon decided to go ahead with the two missions, moving Apollo 16 so that it would not interfere with his China trip and approving Apollo 17 once he recognized that it would take place only after the 1972 election. Perhaps most surprising, it had been an article of policy belief in the White House that Richard Nixon wanted a future NASA program including U. S. astronauts flying in space. Yet in this conversation he had said “manned space flight becomes a stunt after a while.” Even so, he gave the space shuttle a qualified approval as a “symbol,” saying “we are going to be positive on space.” There was little consistency in the Nixon attitude toward human space flight.