NASA Reaction

The NASA leadership was angered by the idea that OMB, rather than NASA, should define the technical characteristics of the shuttle; that anger intensi­fied when NASA discovered that some of the OMB requirements originated from a NASA shuttle study contractor feeding information to OMB on a confidential basis. Senior NASA official Willis Shapley characterized Rice’s seeking advice from an aerospace firm as “dirty pool in the budget wars.” He added “the one thing that really grated people wrong was that they [OMB] began getting engineering and technical information. . . and con­fronting our technical people with technical judgments.” Low reported that Rice “claimed that the basis for the cost estimates he had were from a con­tractor whose name he could not divulge.” Low called Rice and asked him “specifically to let me know who the contractor was so that we could verify his numbers or see where we, NASA, were going wrong. He refused to do so.” Even in internal OMB correspondence related to the shuttle decision, the source of Rice’s information was referred to only as “your contractor source.” However, Low concluded, “based on the information we have and the questions Rice has asked, it is quite clear that he obtained his information from North American Rockwell.”[11] Low reported that NASA Administrator Fletcher “objected to OMB designing the shuttle strongly”; Fletcher agreed, saying that in his dealings with Rice “the only thing I did resent was his try­ing to design shuttles of his own.”22

Fletcher and Low felt that they had little choice but to begin evaluating a shuttle meeting OMB guidelines. On December 13, Low told Dale Myers that “the Office of Management and Budget has set forth certain concepts and assumptions concerning the Space Shuttle program” and that he and

Fletcher had “made a commitment to provide our assessment of the OMB assumptions and guidelines by December 31, 1971.” He added that the eval­uation of the OMB shuttle should compare it to the configurations NASA still was considering and should assume the use of the new shuttle engine and a reusable pressure-fed booster or, as an alternate, solid rocket motors. Low noted that “the initial development cost is of primary concern. . . Is it possible to start out with one of the smaller (or lighter) payload versions, and then grow to a full capability orbiter later on?”23 There was no emphasis on minimizing the costs of operating the shuttle once it was in service.

Fletcher met with Flanigan on December 14 to protest the OMB direc­tive. When Fletcher asked whether the OMB shuttle characteristics and the $4 billion development cost limit in fact were based on a presidential deci­sion, Flanigan, who had not been at the December 3 meeting, said that he did not think so and that it was more likely that Shultz or Weinberger had thrown out the $4 billion figure and Nixon had said “it’s worth a try.” Flanigan also said that he would check whether there was a presidential decision document that included the shuttle characteristics specified in the OMB guidelines. He did check, and on December 17 told Fletcher that his (Flanigan’s) “understanding of the request put to you regarding a smaller shuttle was correct. None of the figures in the paper given to you [by OMB] are set in concrete.” Rather, he said, “they should be viewed as a new way to approach the problem, against which an initial estimate will have to be made in a couple of weeks.” Flanigan added “there is no written directive from the President on this subject.” In his December 14 meeting with Fletcher and later conversations, Flanigan advised against taking the NASA-OMB disagreement to the president for decision; he knew that Nixon tried to avoid refereeing such confrontations.24