The Budgetary Process

Always a complicated process for a governmental agency, funding presented new mazes of complexity to the Launch Operations Directorate (LOD) during 1962. The normal budgetary process can be simplified as follows: study of needs for the coming fiscal year (this would ordinarily take place almost 12 months before the start of the fiscal year); presentation to the parent agency, which fits the request into its total proposal; submission to the Bureau of the Budget^* for analysis and incorporation into the President’s budget request, which is then tendered to Capitol Hill; hearings before congressional committees; discussion and votes within the committees; voting in both houses of Congress; perhaps a joint committee to resolve differences between House and Senate; an authorization act by Congress setting the limit for each item and the total amount; an appropriation act that establishes the actual amount of money the agency will receive; release of funds by the Bureau of the Budget; and, finally, disbursement of funds by the agency to its constituent subdivisions.

This intricate process was further complicated for LOD in 1962. First, the directorate was in process of evolving into an independent center - LOD became the Launch Operations Center (LOC) halfway through 1962 and halfway through this chapter. Second, it had to fend off a flanking attack from the Air Force to retain jurisdiction over the newly acquired land on Merritt Island [see chapters 5-8 and 5-9]. Third, it had to plan and budget new facilities and equipment for a still undefined space vehicle to meet the Kennedy deadline of a moon landing “within the decade.” And fourth, where it had been dealing in millions of dollars, now it had to request hundreds of millions. While the mobile concept had been accepted, the mode of transport - barge, rail, or crawlerway - had not been determined. In many instances, moreover, LOD had to telescope the work of several years into one, by forecasting the financial implications of a concept from the drawing board to end use.

One should remember, further, that the lunar landing program had not established itself as an unquestioned part of the American scene. It had to be defended continually. “People frequently refer to our program to reach the moon during the 1960s as a national commitment,” Lyndon Johnson wrote. “It was not. There was no commitment on succeeding Congresses to supply funds on a continuing basis. The program had to be justified and money appropriated year after year. This support was not always easy to obtain.”¹

The preparation of project documents for budget submissions to Congress began with a statement of anticipated requirements in three categories: construction of facilities, research and development, and administrative operations. The administrative budget was easier to prepare because it changed less from year to year. The construction budget, for building new facilities or modifying existing ones, was the largest of the three for fiscal 1963 and 1964, when some 90% of the moonport construction was funded. Later, when construction neared completion, the research and development and administrative operations accounts rose sharply. This chapter will deal primarily with the budgets for fiscal years 1963 and 1964, and construction of facilities will therefore be the major topic. The LOD staff did most of the work preparing the documents each year, although NASA Headquarters could be counted on to send broad guidance - and frequent proddings.²

The budgetary cycle began, usually in the spring, with statements of requirements. This was no easy task since the lunar rocket changed repeatedly, progressing within a year’s time from the Saturn C-2 to the C-3, the C-4, and the C-5. No one could foresee all required facilities and ground support equipment during early planning stages, although the facilities were easier to estimate than the support equipment. Such information as was available went to the Budgeting Office, and thence to the Facilities Office. Using the requirements stated by various elements of NASA and contractor firms, the Facilities Office put together the complete project documents.

A project document could cover a single facility or, as in the case of launch complex 39, a group of facilities. NASA policy demanded that each project document contain a complete statement of requirements necessary to begin operations. The document defined the scope of each requirement, including such specific factors as square footage, and justified the requirement and furnished cost estimates. The prescribed format called for five basic paragraphs covering real estate, site preparation, construction, equipment, and design; this was to be supplemented, when appropriate, with siting plans and sketches.³ Under this procedure, the purchase and improvement of land, as well as the design, construction, and complete equipment of the facility located on it, could be dealt with in one budgetary action. The user, in theory at least, had only to walk up to the door of the completed facility, turn the key, walk in, and begin operations - a procedure that gained the label “turnkey concept.”

Normally, the construction of facilities (CoF) budget included only those projects that would cost a quarter of a million dollars or more. Less expensive projects came under either the administrative operations or the research and development budget. The CoF budget funded projects within a given fiscal year - say fiscal 1963 starting 1 July 1962 - rather than over several years, but the Directorate could actually spend the money over a longer period. The NASA Administrator had to approve exceptions to this policy, and did so only when the indeterminate nature of a facility rendered estimates on a fully funded basis impractical.⁴

Numerous launch schedules required different contractors and large numbers of individual structures or items of equipment. Not all of these needed to arrive at the same time, nor in the same fiscal year. Some projects had a long lead time. Air conditioning normally had to precede the installation of delicate computer equipment. The scheduling of events was thus a continuous and detailed task.

Planners had the difficult task of estimating costs of new and unprecedented facilities and ground support equipment. No one had built anything like the vertical assembly building or the launcher-umbilical tower (mobile launcher). The result in many instances had to be simply educated guesswork by LOD personnel, contractor engineers, and members of the Army Corps of Engineers who had worked on earlier, smaller projects.

Originally, the Resources Office, under the direction of C. C. Parker, submitted the budgets. But for the manned lunar projects, the governing influence on substantive matters during almost all phases of the programming and budgetary operations in 1962, as well as later, was Rocco Petrone, then chief of the Heavy Vehicle Systems Office. Since Petrone’s office had to make sure that facilities and ground support equipment would be ready in time to meet the deadlines, he had an almost proprietary interest in the identification, cost, and justification of requirements.

When assembled into one package, the project documents constituted LOD’s fiscal year construction of facilities program. That program was first submitted as a preliminary budget and later, after adjustments, as a final budget. After NASA Headquarters reviewed LOD’s program and incorporated it with those from other installations, the total NASA budget went to the Bureau of the Budget, and then to Congress. During committee hearings, representatives from LOD sometimes testified on the requirements and costs specified in the project documents.

After passage of the authorization act, the Launch Operations Directorate usually submitted an updated series of project documents. These balanced the amounts of money authorized against requirements, taking account of changes that had occurred since the submission of the budget. LOD also revised these documents individually whenever changed requirements made adjustment necessary.

Using the information it received from LOD’s submissions and relating it to the amount of money authorized by Congress, NASA Headquarters prepared a program that indicated the approximate amount of money it planned to release to LOD. Knowing that, LOD then prepared a Program Operating Plan that set forth its financial procedures and indicated how it proposed to use money within prescribed ceilings. After Congress passed an appropriation act, the Bureau of the Budget apportioned money incrementally and released it to NASA periodically according to phases of development or a time scheme. NASA Headquarters then released money to LOD at intervals for each project. As one official put it, Headquarters “spoon-fed” LOD. It rarely released all the funds appropriated for a project for a specific fiscal year during that year. The periodic method allowed the agency to spread the money as needed over several fiscal years. The process also involved the occasional transfer of funds from one budget line item to another and from one appropriation source to another. Congress placed a limitation on such transfers (usually 5%). NASA Headquarters tended to restrict itself further.⁵

Fiscal 1963

The history of the FY 1963 budget estimates for the construction of launch facilities, begun in late 1960 and continuing well past the beginning of the fiscal year itself, reflects the evolving organization, mission, and operational concepts of the Launch Operations Directorate. The initial estimates predated President Kennedy’s announcement of the manned lunar landing program and had their basis in the Saturn C-1 vehicle program. Although these estimates did not include provision for a third Saturn launch complex, LOD suggested that it would need approximately $65 million should the number of launches increase enough to require a third complex. In such case the complex would be a duplicate of LC-37.⁶

In February 1961, NASA Headquarters called for preliminary FY 1963 estimates based on the ten-year plan approved by the Administrator. The LOD portion was to cover only the support services furnished all NASA activities and projects at the Atlantic and Pacific Missile Ranges.⁷ The President’s 25 May 1961 announcement, however, altered the tempo and direction of planning, as did NASA’s subsequent selection of Merritt Island as the site for the manned lunar landing program and the change in plans from the C-2 vehicle to the C-3.⁸

While the Debus-Davis Report of July 1961 [Chapter 4, 53] had concerned itself chiefly with the selection of a launch site for Apollo, it proved to be a key document also in fiscal planning. In a series of meetings during the hectic month of July 1961, LOD personnel submitted detailed budgetary figures on their areas of responsibility to Petrone’s office. This they were able to do, based on their experience with previous programs. Bertram Greenglass consolidated and qualified the final report; in doing so, he foreshadowed the role he would later play as Petrone’s alter ego on program control matters. A 1955 graduate of New York University, Greenglass had begun his association with rocketry at Redstone Arsenal in 1956. His rise from Army Private First Class to a high NASA position by the age of thirty was meteoric.⁹ When Petrone moved up to Apollo program management for launch facilities, Greenglass would serve as his comptroller, handling contract management, manpower, and funding.

The decision, announced in August 1961, to acquire new land for the lunar program mandated a revision of the FY 1963 program for construction of facilities. Intensive planning marked the remaining months of 1961. NASA Headquarters applied pressure on LOD, particularly in the form of frequent telephone calls, to produce FY 1963 project documents for budgetary purposes. The Facilities Office, responsible for engineering and construction, prepared the CoF project documents.

While its own planning continued apace during September and October, LOD held frequent meetings with Air Force representatives of the Atlantic Missile Range. Using the Debus-Davis Report as a guide, this joint group developed a range development plan for the lunar program. The plan contained rough cost estimates for support facilities, but did not include requirements for a new Saturn launch complex.

Following these meetings, LOD staff sections held a series of lengthy meetings of their own during November and December. Using the range development plan as a basis, LOD refined the estimates for support facilities and also developed requirements for the advanced Saturn launch complex. Based on the technical data that emerged from both series of meetings, J. F. Burke and C. J. Hall of the Facilities Office developed and evaluated a series of project documents for the FY 1963 CoF program. Bidgood, Parker, and Petrone approved these documents before passing them on to Debus and Huntsville for approval en route to Washington.¹⁰

On 13 December, LOD gave NASA Headquarters some of the details of its FY 1963 requirements for the advanced Saturn launch complex, based on “the presently known C-3 vehicle,” but capable of handling larger vehicles at increased cost. The estimate for the launch complex reached $167 million, exclusive of land acquisition. The proposed complex consisted of three major operating areas: a vertical assembly and checkout area, an intermediate area, and a launch area. Major requirements included a vertical assembly building, a launch control center to be located within the VAB, a transport system, a stationary ordnance arming tower, and two launch pads.¹¹

Reorienting itself to the Saturn C-5 program, and considering that NASA had not yet chosen between the three mission modes, LOD in early 1962 redefined its CoF program for the next fiscal year and prepared 14 detailed project documents, with cost estimates and justification for each. All of the facilities and ground support equipment described in the project documents were still in the study or design phase; and much of the technical data furnished in the budget, though based on the best information available at the time, later proved unsatisfactory.

These 14 documents, constituting LOD’s total construction of facilities budget for FY 1963, asked for $359,963,000. Eight of these 14 requests, representing 98% of the total, pertained directly to the manned lunar landing program.¹² The largest single item sought $176,550,000 for launch complex 39. LOD stated that it would “provide the necessary capability for launching the Advanced Saturn vehicle.”¹³ Yet the huge outlay for LC-39 represented only about 40% of the total complex cost, and covered only long-lead-time items that had to be started promptly to meet operation dates.

Subcommittee Hearings at the Cape

NASA’s budget went to Congress in February 1962. A month later, the House began hearings. Before the end of March, Congressman Olin E. Teague (D.-Tex.) decided to take his Subcommittee for Manned Space Flight of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics to Florida for on-the-spot hearings on 23 March. Teague wanted to “educate the subcommittee’s members” and to “attempt to justify the money that’s spent here before Congress.”¹⁴ Headquarters and Houston representatives also attended the hearings, along with officers of the Air Force Missile Test Center.

After Debus outlined the Launch Operations Directorate’s organization, mission, and operational concepts, Petrone described the FY 1963 funding requirements, together with total facility requirements for the manned lunar landing program. The initial reaction of the subcommittee was that LOD should spread its budget requests over several fiscal years. Some subcommittee members questioned the basis for LOD’s budget figures. “You’ve got a great big ball of money, and it is very easy for someone to come along and cut it, really cut it,” one unidentified congressman observed.¹⁵

The subcommittee members deliberately asked pointed and critical questions to fortify themselves so that they could justify the budget before the appropriations committee later on. In the day-long conference, the subcommittee stressed saving money, and the Directorate emphasized precise scheduling. “I’m sure the Doctor [Debus] feels that we are friendly,” Chairman Teague justifiably remarked, for he was one of the most influential friends the space program had in Congress. “We don’t want to delay this program one minute. . . . If you can give us your program timing . . . I think we can pave a smooth road to the appropriations committee.” But he added, “If we don’t take any action, I think the appropriations committee will.”¹⁶

The estimated total cost for LC-39, including FY 1963 and later increments, Petrone told the subcommittee, was $432 million. LOD was trying “to evaluate, not sell,” the program. The budget figures were honestly arrived at. “We’ve got to live with them for years to come,” Petrone declared.¹⁷ Program timing was based on schedules that had to be met for the manned lunar landing program and had to be responsive to NASA Headquarters schedules. To the men of LOD, time was critical. To the congressmen, however, the amount of money spent in fiscal 1963 was the critical issue.

Debus explained that the LOD budget was made out against scheduled facility completion dates and launch schedules. These provided a little leeway for some slippage, but on requirements that were pressing, slippage “would hurt very, very much.” They wanted launch complex 39 ready by January 1965, Petrone said, since they hoped to launch the first Saturn C-5 in March or April of that year. As an example of facility scheduling, Petrone said that LOD expected the erection of steel for the VAB to begin in March 1963.¹⁸

The programming of funds tied in so closely to the scheduling of facilities that a slippage in one resulted in a slippage of the other, and the hard fact was that Congress rarely appropriated funds in time for use at the beginning of the fiscal year. In response to a subcommittee question as to when LOD began receiving funds after the fiscal year started, Petrone answered that in the preceding year it had been October. Drawing upon his long experience in construction, Colonel Bidgood added that he had never seen money “hit the market before the first of October.” Contingency authority from the Appropriations Committee helped little in new or increased programs, since such authority permitted expenditures only for normal operating costs at constant rates. LOD had to have funds on hand before awarding construction contracts.

The subcommittee asked for a comparison of relative costs between mobile and fixed facilities. As against the $432 million for a mobile complex with four pads and a launch rats of 36 per year, Petrone said, fixed facilities would require nine pads costing $900 million. Additionally, mobile facilities made possible significant savings in manpower costs both in LC-39 and in the industrial area, even with a launch rate of only 24 per year. The biggest savings came in the reduction in the number of supervisors and other personnel at the higher grade levels. Dollar savings in manpower, the subcommittee observed, were the strongest argument for mobile facilities.

Subcommittee members then mentioned the possible impact of new developments, such as the atomic rocket motor, on the design of LC-39 facilities. Rather than sink a lot of money into this complex, might it not be better to wait and see what the future held in the next five years, and thereby save money in FY 1963? Debus explained that one of the basic decisions made early in the planning stages was to base the design on “the state-of-the-art and its most likely development.” One of the basic presumptions was the use of liquid propellants. LOD had to be ready by 1965 and could not wait on the possibility of new developments. With the existing state-of-the-art, LOD could be ready in 1965. The subcommittee’s view was that no decision should be so binding as to deny LOD flexibility to take advantage of new technology.¹⁹

In response to a question about the Department of Defense’s role in funding the manned lunar landing program support facilities, Debus explained that LOD was limiting its funding to the new Merritt Island area and to LC-34 and LC-37 on the Cape. NASA Headquarters and the Department of Defense would coordinate downrange stations, including ships. LOD was coordinating other support requirements for the Merritt Island area with the officials of the Air Force Missile Test Center. Two of these support items - utility installation in the new area (causeways, roads, water, and power) and launch-phase range instrumentation - although in effect Air Force requirements, were included in LOD’s budget. The range instrumentation that LOD would fund, in agreement with AFMTC, extended to a radius of 105 kilometers. NASA Headquarters would fund data acquisition and tracking requirements beyond that distance. So far as cost-sharing for maintenance and operations of the two areas was concerned, LOD was to handle funding on Merritt Island and the Air Force on the Cape.

When Dugald Black of the Manned Spacecraft Center presented facility requirements for checking out and testing the Apollo spacecraft, members of the subcommittee interrupted his presentation several times with questions regarding quality control and the overlap of functions and facilities. The MSC representatives explained that MSC would develop the spacecraft at Houston, but would check and test it at Merritt Island. Just as the Mercury and Gemini programs had overlapped in some instances, so the Gemini program would overlap Apollo. Facilities to support the Apollo and Gemini spacecraft had to be available simultaneously. The scheduling of the operations and checkout building, for example, was extremely tight. It had to be finished early enough to install and inspect equipment before the spacecraft arrived in October or November 1963.²⁰

The scope and expense of the checking and testing requirements for the spacecraft led one member of the subcommittee to question the program, at least momentarily. Debus reminded him that “this is a research and development facility and is only slightly operational.” This prompted Chairman Teague to observe:

That doesn’t take away the argument that this entire operation is an expensive one. It gets more expensive with the buildings and personnel, and everything swelling in size. Perhaps we are trying to do too much in too much of a hurry. If we are subject to so many changes in so many places so that we are watching every nut and bolt right up to the time we are ready to shoot . . . .²¹

Teague’s cautious remark ended the long, productive day.

Progress in Washington

In response to a March 1962 request from NASA Headquarters, LOD reviewed its entire fiscal 1963 program. In May six projects were identified that required an early release of funds to avoid slippage in construction schedules: modifications to launch complex 34, support facilities in the Cape area, Apollo mission support facilities, launch complex 39, advanced Saturn or Nova support facilities, and utility installations in the Merritt Island area. Two months later NASA Headquarters was to issue allotments from fiscal 1962 construction of facilities funds for the final planning and design of these projects.²²

On 23 May the House voted 343-0 to authorize a NASA budget of $3,671 million for FY 1963 and an additional $71 million for FY 1962. In the Senate, William Proxmire of Wisconsin offered several amendments to the authorization bill. One called for competitive bidding practices to the “maximum practicable extent.”^* The Senate rejected it by a vote of 23 to 72. He then called for the establishment of a Space Manpower Commission to assess the impact of the lunar landing program on the nation’s supply of scientific personnel. The Senate defeated this, 12 to 83. In the end, by voice vote, the Senate authorized a NASA budget of $3,750 million. After the differences between the two houses were resolved, Congress passed the NASA Authorization Act; it totaled $3,744 million. The Launch Operations Center was allowed $328,333,000 for construction of facilities in fiscal year 1963, including $173,550,000 for launch complex 39. The total was $3,000,000 less than the center had requested.²³

Because the congressional authorization was less than the amount sought by NASA, and because of newly generated requirements, the Office of Manned Space Flight proposed that NASA request a supplemental FY 1963 grant of $70 million for construction of facilities. The supplemental, D. Brainerd Holmes, head of the Office of Manned Space Flight, felt, was the only possible way to hold to existing schedules. To support this proposal, the Launch Operations Center - now an independent field installation with its own budgeting agency - prepared another series of project documents and forwarded them on 8 September 1962 as its FY 1963 CoF Resubmission and Supplemental.²⁴ These documents reflected new or revised requirements that had come to light since the February budget submittal. In October Associate Administrator Seamans decided not to submit the request.

The Fiscal 1964 Program

Preparation of the FY 1964 budget, like that for FY 1963, had begun before the Launch Operations Directorate became an independent installation. During March 1962, NASA Headquarters called for the FY 1964 preliminary budget and in August began issuing guidelines for detailed estimates. In November 1962, two months after forwarding its FY 1963 supplemental request, LOC submitted its CoF project documents for the FY 1964 budget, salvaging some of the requirements stated in the FY 1963 supplemental. The Office of Manned Space Flight programs included 20 individual project documents, some for new requirements. The FY 1964 submittal was based on the 15 October flight schedules.³⁴

As in FY 1963, most of the money LOC requested for its FY 1964 CoF programs ($333,130,600) was for the manned lunar landing program. LC-39 alone accounted for $225,967,000, or about two-thirds of the total request, with other Apollo requirements, such as support facilities, LC-34, and LC-37, making up a substantial portion of the remainder. Combined with the previous fiscal year CoF request, the FY 1964 program brought the total request for LC-39 to $339,517,000.

The months of intensive study of the lunar program requirements enabled LOC to state its requirements in considerable detail and, for the first time in an LC-39 project document, to include a description of the mobile concept. Of the eight major facilities for LC-39, FY 1963 construction funds had provided for the basic VAB structure (including an area set aside for the launch control center). In FY 1964 funding, LOC requested funds for outfitting the VAB (including the launch control center), two additional launch pads with associated facilities on complex 39, extension of the crawlerway to the additional pads, three additional launch umbilical towers (less steel for one funded in FY 1963), propellant services, and the mobile arming tower, as well as minor modifications and additions at launch complexes 34 and 37.³⁵

Many projected buildings in the Merritt Island industrial area, such as the headquarters building, budgeted for $9,309,000, were simpler to design than the facilities of LC-39. There were exceptions: the central instrumentation facility, which consisted of two buildings - a large structure in the industrial area and an auxiliary structure located about a mile north to avoid radio interference from equipment operating in the primary structure. LOC asked $31,508,000 for these facilities. Almost three-fourths of this would go for equipment, principally for telemetry and tracking.³⁶

Another complex of major importance, the technical and support facilities needed by the Manned Space Center for preflight operations with the Apollo spacecraft, presented two big questions: funding and siting. The Manned Spacecraft Center of Houston wanted to include the complex in its budget, but LOC demurred. Originally planned for the Cape area, the two centers agreed on 28 August 1962 to site the facilities in the Merritt Island industrial area. This complex, initially called “Apollo Mission Support Facilities,” consisted primarily of six structures: one for operations and checkout, the others for various support systems.³⁷

LOC had requested $22,510,000 for them in FY 1963. Plans at that time restricted them to the Apollo spacecraft. During August and September 1962, changes in the Apollo and Gemini schedules and in the choice of spacecraft fuels led to a reevaluation of the need for separate Gemini spacecraft facilities. This resulted in the combining of some Apollo and Gemini requirements.³⁸ On 15 October 1962 the Manned Spacecraft Center submitted to LOC an estimate of $23,273,983 for these buildings. LOC forwarded the proposal to Headquarters on the same day.³⁹

With the submission of its FY 1964 budget on 1 November 1962, the Launch Operations Center had accomplished the basic budgetary tasks for the construction that would be required by the manned lunar landing program.⁴⁰

"What Is It Going to Cost?"

The Manned Space Flight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics held hearings on the FY 1964 program for the construction of launch facilities in May 1963. Only representatives of NASA Headquarters were present to defend LOC’s program. In his formal questioning for the subcommittee, Lt. Col. Harold A. Gould, a technical consultant to the House committee, focused on costs.

"A total of $444 million had already been made available for LC-39 and support facilities,” Gould observed. With 40% of LC-39 programmed for fiscal 1963 and 50% of it being programmed for fiscal 1964, Gould asked, “What is the total cost of this complex going to be?"

William E. Lilly, Director of Program Review and Resources Management of NASA ’s Office of Manned Space Flight, estimated that the total complex would run “very close to a half billion dollars.” He then furnished an “exact figure” of $481,576,000. Congressman Emilio Q. Daddario, the subcommittee’s acting chairman and long-time watchdog of LOC’s budget, disregarded Lilly’s “exact figure” and converted the “close to a half billion dollars” statement to “over $500 million,” a phrase he used repeatedly in pressing his questions. In 1962, Daddario reminded Lilly, his subcommittee had received an initial estimate closer to $400 million. In January 1963 while at Cape Canaveral, the subcommittee had heard an estimate of $432 million. “Now you give us an estimate of over $500 million,” Daddario stated. He wanted to know why the current figure was “over $100 million beyond that originally estimated."⁴¹

Aided by Capt. John K. Holcomb, NASA’s Assistant Director for Launch Operations, Lilly marshalled several answers, including the adoption of the crawler transfer system in lieu of the rail system, an increase in the size of the launch pad and the number of pads required, and NASA’s turnkey procurement policy. Daddario saw most of these explanations as being more valid for FY 1963 than for FY 1964 estimates, and brushed them all aside. Lilly offered the further explanation that, in order to be able to present a firm estimate as soon as possible, NASA had stressed the need for advance design funds. Daddario showed little regard for what he called Lilly’s “cloudy logic,” pointing out the estimate had gone from $432 million to “over $500 million” within a matter of months.

"I can’t really give you a definitive answer,” Lilly confessed, “of why the difference between $400 million, $432 million, and $500 million.” It helped matters little for Lilly to add: “Our estimate, of course, is always based on the best information that is available. I could not say that the $500 million will be the final figure.” Holcomb added that as a result of having actual designs and firm design criteria, “now we know pretty much what we are planning to do.” But Daddario would not be assuaged and asked whether every starting estimate given to the subcommittee was going to be 25% out of line.

Daddario said that he and other members of the subcommittee expected some changes from original estimates but were less concerned about the amount than the percentage of increase and the embarrassment of having to report this to the full House. Congressman Edward J. Patten suggested that a 12% increase would not be too far out of line, but when costs increased 20-30% “this committee finds itself then in an embarrassing position of explaining this increase to the other members of Congress. I doubt that they will take the explanation you have given us as being a proper one."

As a final thrust, Lilly said that he had some doubts that the $432 million figure given to the subcommittee at Cape Canaveral in January 1963 was the “officially approved estimate” of the Office of Manned Space Flight. Daddario parried by asking why, if a higher figure had been available in January, it “was not given to us at that time."⁴²

Only slightly less tenacious was Florida Congressman Edward J. Gurney’s questioning regarding the pace of committing and obligating FY 1963 funds.^* NASA representatives told the subcommittee that as of 31 March 1963, NASA had committed only $38 million and obligated only $18.9 million for LC-39, out of the FY 1963 budget of $163.5 million. Gurney wanted to know why $217 million was needed for FY 1964 when “you haven’t even been able to scratch the surface on last year yet,” even though the fiscal year was nearly over.

The basic delay in obligations, Lilly explained, was the time required for design. Once the design was completed, the “big money” would go out for construction. “I think you will find that the money will move much faster from this point on,” Lilly assured Gurney. NASA would obligate the remainder of FY 1963 funds for LC-39 by August 1963. NASA had laid out its plans for the obligation of funds month by month, and by the end of FY 1964 only $10 million of the combined FY 1963 and 1964 funds would remain unobligated.⁴³

Testimony regarding LC-39 next centered on the number of pads and their cost. Colonel Gould asked Lilly to explain why the FY 1963 figures for LC-39 varied from those shown in the FY 1964 budget. Lilly answered that the revised figures were the result of a more comprehensive analysis of operational requirements and that NASA had adjusted figures for equipment, instrumentation, and support systems after completing engineering studies.⁴⁴

Other information given to the subcommittee on the FY 1964 program indicated that NASA was still thinking of on-pad time in terms of “possibly one week"; that each mobile launcher (which Holcomb aptly described as “partly launch pad and partly umbilical") would cost about $12 million, compared with $1 million for the less complicated umbilical towers used on complexes 34 and 37; that five launchers were required in order to service four bays in the VAB and to provide time for refurbishing after each launch; that the cost for the design and engineering of LC-39 would be roughly $37.6 million; that about 35% of the items in the FY 1964 increment of facilities were under design as of May 1963; that the operational target date for bay 1 and pad 1 in LC-39 was 1 December 1965; that facility construction lead times for FY 1964 were 25 months; and that the estimated cost of the crawler roadway was $982,000 per kilometer, with almost 13 kilometers of roadway required from the VAB to three pads. At the subcommittee’s request, Holcomb explained the implications of an operational capability date of 1 December 1965. It meant, Holcomb said, that the construction of the first bay and its initial outfitting had to be completed by the end of May. Between May and December, an extensive checkout of the complete facility was to be made. “When we say that we have an operational capability beginning in December, we mean at that point we are able to bring in the first flight article, put it on the [mobile launcher] in the building, and check it out for our first launch in early 1966."⁴⁵

The House hearings made clear that many problems regarding launch facilities for the Apollo program still confronted NASA. Most of the projects for which LOC requested FY 1964 funding, as well as the projects for which LOC had obtained FY 1963 funds, had undergone such drastic revision, when individually updated beginning in late 1962, that a discussion of them in terms of fiscal year budgets became academic. Through reprogramming actions, NASA postponed some of the construction requirements originally proposed for FY 1963; others, proposed for subsequent years, were paid for with FY 1963 funds. As a result, the year in which construction was budgeted often bore little relationship to the year of actual construction. With the passage of time, the budget documents diminished in importance as a barometer of actual construction. Instead, such documents as program operating plans and the periodic reports of the Corps of Engineers became the real indicators of construction.

Extensive criticism of NASA marked the congressional discussion of the FY 1964 budget for the first time since the agency’s creation in 1958. Most barbs flew at the moon program, as congressmen argued that the Soviets seemed to have lost interest in a moon race, or that certain contractors were moving too slowly. Many Republicans thought the moon program detracted from more important military objectives in space. A Senate GOP policy committee stated on 10 May: “To allow the Soviet Union to dominate the atmosphere 100 miles above the earth’s surface, while we seek to put a man on the moon could be . . . a fatal error.” General Eisenhower had, as President, denied the existence of a “space race.” Now he stated on 12 June 1963 that “anybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts.” At a hearing of the Senate Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee on 10 June, Dr. Phillip Abelson of the Carnegie Institution repeated the contention of many scientists that manned space exploration had limited scientific value. He thought its alleged importance utterly unrealistic. The rush to get to the moon, Abelson insisted, took scientific resources that the nation might use more wisely on other important objectives, and thus lessened our national security.⁴⁶

In spite of this attack on the lunar program and several attempts to reduce the budget by amendment, the Senate by a voice vote and the House by a vote of 248 to 125 authorized $5.35 billion for NASA on 28 August 1963. During fiscal 1964, NASA was actually to spend $4.17 billion - a billion and a third less than either Agriculture or Health, Education, and Welfare. The NASA expenditure represented only slightly over 4% of the total national budget expenditures.⁴⁷

Between authorization and appropriation, President Kennedy spoke before the United Nations General Assembly and suggested a joint U.S.-Soviet voyage to the moon. In spite of his assurances to Representative Albert Thomas of Texas, the chairman of the subcommittee considering NASA’s budget, that to be able to deal from a position of strength the U.S. should continue the space program, not all members of Congress agreed. Senator Fulbright proposed a 10% cut for NASA in view of the needs of education and welfare - but lost. Senator Proxmire sought to strike out a $90 million addition made in committee, and this time won by the margin of 40-39.

As finally approved by both chambers on 10 December 1963, less than three weeks after President Kennedy’s assassination, the bill appropriated $5.1 billion to NASA for fiscal 1964 and barred use of funds for joint lunar expeditions with any other country without congressional approval. President Johnson signed the bill on 19 December with reservations about the joint venture proviso. He thought it unnecessary and asserted it would impair our flexibility.

The manned lunar landing program had gotten through its most difficult Washington summer.