Richard Nixon and the Space Shuttle

Although the Nixon decisions to treat the space program as just one of many government activities and to defer human space exploration for the indefi­nite future have had lasting impacts, the space shuttle program stands as Richard Nixon’s most recognized space legacy. Thus any assessment of that legacy must give particular weight to the shuttle’s influence on the evolution of the American space program.

Once NASA decided in 1970 to focus on developing the space shuttle as its major post-Apollo effort, there were many designs considered and a num­ber of alternatives to going ahead with a shuttle suggested. During 1971, there was a somewhat confused sorting out of these various possibilities, but as the debate over developing a shuttle reached its final stage, there was little doubt that the White House would approve some version of a shuttle rather than pursue an alternative course. Other options, such as deferring a shuttle decision and carrying out an interim program of human space flight using surplus Apollo hardware or developing an unpowered space glider or a new crew-carrying capsule, had fallen by the wayside. The key decision to be made was thus what kind of shuttle, to carry out what missions, and with what rationale, would be approved.

The options for choice were clearly understood as the decision process reached its climax. As George Low observed in December 1971, “the basic issue on the space shuttle concerns whether or not the shuttle should capture a majority of the payloads that will be flown in the 1980’s” and “whether the shuttle should be small or large and whether it should provide for routine operations or one or two flights per year.” These two alternative approaches were embodied in two competing shuttle designs, called here the “NASA shuttle” and the “OMB shuttle.” The NASA shuttle—the design ultimately selected—was the end product of more than two years of study by NASA and its aerospace contractors; that study effort had been guided by a com­bination of national security and NASA’s own requirements and the OMB pressure to make the shuttle “cost effective.” The NASA shuttle was a full capability vehicle incorporating advanced propulsion, thermal protection, and electronic systems technologies. It would have a 15 x 60 foot payload bay, be able to carry a 65,000 pound payload to a 100 nautical mile orbit due east from the Kennedy Space Center, launch or return a 40,000 pound payload from a polar orbit, and be capable of 1100 nautical miles of cross­range maneuvering. With these capabilities, the NASA shuttle would be able to carry out all planned and potential U. S. civilian, national security, and commercial missions. NASA claimed that it could be launched on a routine basis and at significantly lower cost than any alternative launch system and that it would provide valuable new capabilities for space operations. Such a shuttle, NASA claimed, could be developed for a budget of between $5 and $6 billion.

The staffs of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Science and Technology (OST) were deeply skeptical of the validity of these claims and indeed of the need for a system with the capa­bilities NASA was promising. Although many in the two staff offices were indeed skeptical of the value of human space flight itself, they recognized that no American president, and in particular not Richard Nixon, with his emotional view of NASA’s astronauts, would choose to end the U. S. human space flight program. They therefore resonated to the advice given by Alexander Flax, chair of the ad hoc panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee set up to examine the NASA shuttle, that “serious consideration must be given to less costly programs which, while they provide considerably less advancement in space capability than the [NASA] shuttle, still continue to maintain options for continuing manned spaceflight activity, enlarge space operational capabilities, and allow for further progress in space tech­nology.” This perspective led to OMB recommending to President Nixon in early December 1971 that he direct “OMB and OST to work with NASA on the reorientation of the space program,” with a central feature of that reorientation a “smaller, reduced cost” shuttle design. Nixon approved this recommendation on December 3, 1971, and a few days later OMB presented NASA with its concept for a less ambitious shuttle, with a 10 x 30 foot pay­load bay and 30,000 pound payload lifting capability, to be developed at a budget of no more than $4 billion.

The question of which of these two alternatives to approve was debated through most of December 1971. Even as the final choice to approve the NASA full capability shuttle was being made over the New Year’s weekend, Don Rice, assistant director of OMB, and science adviser Ed David were still arguing strongly against that step. While Rice focused his opposition on the excessive cost of the NASA shuttle, David took a broader view, arguing that “the large space program implicit in the large shuttle decision is not consis­tent with the best interests of the nation.” The opposition of Rice and David was well-founded and subsequently validated, but they were overruled by their White House bosses and ultimately by President Nixon. Nixon and his associates gave less weight to cost and technical issues than to other politi­cal and policy considerations as they decided to approve NASA’s preferred shuttle design.