Gardner Report Submitted

The report of the committee headed by Trevor Gardner that had been intended to map an ambitious future for the Air Force in space was finally submitted on March 20; with its bullish recommendations, the report unin­tentionally reinforced Robert McNamara’s concern about the need to limit Air Force ambitions. The report’s conclusions were alarmist; the United States, the report claimed, could not overtake the Soviet Union in space for at least another three to five years; there were “no accelerated and imaginative programs” to close that gap. Thus there was “an impending military space threat,” which “endangers our national security and international prestige.” The report was critical of the separation between the civilian and military space programs, arguing that there should be one integrated national space program. The report called for a “dramatically invigorated space program” and called upon the DOD to create, and then make available to NASA, a series of “building blocks” of a firm technological foundation for whatever the nation wanted to do in space. It urged the Air Force to “develop the fundamental capability to place and sustain man in orbit,” since “the time when man in orbit can be completely, effectively, and efficiently replaced by mechanisms [robotic systems] is beyond today’s vision.” The report declared that “it is essential that the Air Force play a major support role in manned exploration of the moon and planets,” even though “direct contributions to national security cannot be identified.” The report devoted significant atten­tion to future human spaceflight efforts, and recommended both that the United States send people to the Moon and develop large space stations in the 1967-1970 period. It suggested that since there was a “military need for a variety of launch vehicles based on the F-1 engine,” development respon­sibility for that engine should be transferred back to the Air Force from NASA, and then the Air Force should “initiate urgent development of a first stage launch vehicle using the F-1 engine.”29 Given the agreements already described and the events of the next two months, the Gardner report had limited impact on both Air Force space activities and national space policy.