The OMB Shuttle

On December 10, NASA received its FY1973 budget allowance from OMB, with the important exception that the budgets for the space shuttle and pos­sible interim Earth-orbital missions were not specified; NASA was told that those budgets figures would be provided later. NASA was satisfied with the OMB allowances for the rest of its program, and told OMB Deputy Director Weinberger that it did not plan to ask for any reconsideration of the OMB – proposed budget levels.17

The positive feeling did not last long. Low recorded that “on Saturday, December 11, Fletcher and I met with Rice, David, and Flanigan and were told by Rice in that meeting that the President had decided to go ahead with the shuttle provided it was a smaller orbiter with a 10 x 30’ payload bay, carrying a 30,000 pound payload.” The rationale offered for arriving at this position was that “the shuttle would primarily be used for manned space flight missions and that this kind of shuttle was a major step beyond [Apollo] command and service modules.” Considerable, rather heated, discussion fol­lowed; finally, Fletcher “indicated he could not accept this kind of edict and that he wanted to see the President.”18

At this meeting, Rice gave Fletcher and Low a two-page document out­lining the characteristics of the smaller shuttle that OMB was claiming that President Nixon had approved. This claim was not quite valid; Nixon had indeed approved the OMB proposal to work with NASA to develop a smaller, less expensive shuttle design, but in neither the OMB December 2 decision memo nor the discussion at the December 3 budget meeting had the president approved specific shuttle design characteristics. Ehrlichman, who was present at the meeting, suggested that “there was some explanation to him [Nixon] of what the differences were. They were not in great detail, I am sure, because those things just never were, not at that level.” Rather, what OMB presented to NASA was its own preferred shuttle performance characteristics, which had been prepared with significant input from external sources. Presenting specific shuttle requirements as a presidential decision was an example of the tendency noted by Cap Weinberger of “the OMB staff acting on their own” with respect to the shuttle in a way that “may or may not have represented the policy of the appointed heads” of OMB, much less that of the president.19

The conservative philosophy behind the OMB-preferred shuttle was that it should “replace the current CSM [command and service module] capabil­ity for manned flight with increments of capability only to the extent they are both cost-effective and within overall fiscal feasibility.” OMB argued that “a small, versatile system is more likely to be used and exploited and less likely to encounter development delays and cost overruns.” With respect to orbiter size, OMB suggested that NASA should:

• “Exploit ability to dock payloads in orbit for near earth and synchronous missions (one flight carries payload and second payload carries tug).”

• “Rely on the ingenuity of payload designers to fit payloads into smaller compartments than currently projected.”

• OMB argued that a “bay size of 10’ x 30’ with 30,000 # [pound] payload due East would add sufficient capability beyond manned flight to capture most payloads.”

With respect to the “fiscal constraints” affecting shuttle development, OMB set demanding targets:

• “$4B maximum for DDT&E [design, development, test, and evaluation] including development vehicles”;

• “Other investment costs (facilities and additional vehicles) should be held to a maximum of $.5 B”;

• “Recurring costs per flight of $5 M”;

• “Peak NASA budget level $3.2 B in FY73$ [Fiscal Year 1973 dollars].”

As the December 11 meeting broke up with OMB and NASA at logger­heads, NASA agreed “to do further analysis of the 10’ x 30’ payload so that we would have some good facts at hand and then we will have to decide whether the small shuttle makes any sense at all or whether we will have to fight for a larger one.”20