CHAPTER 17

LEADERSHIP AND CHANGING TIMES

Of all the responsibilities placed on the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration, perhaps the most obvious yet the most difficult to define was that of leadership. Glennan’s leadership, embracing an enthusiasm for space research and exploration tempered by a willingness to build slowly and solidly, was ideal for getting the nation’s space program under way. Space science managers were able to put together a wide-ranging program of earth and planetary sciences, solar physics and astronomy, and some space life sciences. Of equal importance, they were able to establish with the scientific community the kind of relationship that would draw researchers of high quality into the program.

NASA’s ADMINISTRATORS

Like Glennan before him, the second administrator, James E. Webb, strongly supported a balanced program of science, technology, application, and exploration. His policies assured each of the areas a place in the overall program. On the space science side relations with the scientific community continued to follow the patterns established during Glennan’s tenure. The principal changes were those brought about by the expansion of the program that took place under Webb, in which Gemini and Apollo were undertaken, the university program was increased, and the pace of the space science program was stepped up.

All in all, the course of leadership during Glennan’s time and in the first years of Webb’s tenure was relatively smooth. Reasonably well thought-out projects were relatively easy to sell. With rapidly increasing budgets it was not too difficult to maintain a respectable balance among the various areas, even though different interests might quarrel with the relative emphases NASA gave to the different parts of the program.

The problems facing the agency were those having to do with getting on with the program.¹ Manned spaceflight people had to decide on the mission mode for Apollo: whether to use direct ascent, which Abe Silverstein favored; or to go first into a near-earth parking orbit and then on to the moon, which the President’s Science Advisory Committee strongly urged; or to go into a lunar parking orbit from which to land on the moon, which the agency finally chose. Applications managers had to work out relations with industrial users of space technology and with other government agencies like the U.S. Weather Bureau and the Department of Defense. Decisions were to be made on the kinds of weather and communications satellites to develop and who would operate them. On the space science side, it was necessary to determine what balance to maintain between observatory-class spacecraft, which Abe Silverstein favored, and the smaller, cheaper ones that the scientific community preferred. Experiments and experimenters had to be selected for the missions to be flown. How much ground-based work should be funded as preparation for later flight experiments had to be decided. Much management time was devoted to resolving conflicts between the manned flight and space science programs-for which purpose George Mueller, associate administrator for manned spaceflight, and the author, associate administrator for space science and applications, finally agreed on the creation of a special manned space science division. It was headed by Willis Foster, one of the scientists who had come to NASA from the Office of Defense Research and Engineering in the Pentagon. Contrary to one of the cardinal principles of organization and management, Foster was to have two bosses-Mueller and the author-an arrangement that was intended to give his division equal access to both the Office of Manned Space Flight and the Office of Space Science and Applications.² Foster’s was an extremely difficult role to play, for the manned spaceflight office tended to view science as something that might support the achievement of the Apollo missions, whereas the space science managers wanted the agency to view manned spaceflight as a technique that could serve pure science and other primary objectives of the agency.

Yet, difficult though they were, these problems, including those of Foster’s division, were relatively straightforward. In a climate of positive support to the space program, they were part of the price to pay for accomplishing established goals. But in the late 1960s, demands on leadership changed severely in character. Under the best of circumstances the Apollo 204 fire on 27 January 1967 would have been difficult to live down.³ But coming at a time when the country was becoming more concerned about a variety of problems other than whether the United States was or was not ahead of the Soviets in space, the impact of the accident upon the agency was immeasurably increased. A great deal of Administrator Webb’s time was taken up in recouping for NASA the respect it had been building up in the Mercury, Gemini, and other programs, and in regaining the confidence of the Congress. That in Apollo the United States was on trial, as it were, before the whole world had much to do with the program’s continuing to receive support. But in the aftermath of the congressional hearings and internal NASA reviews, Webb began to sense a slackening of support for, the space program.

After peaking in 1966, NASA’s annual expenditures began to decline sharply as spending on the building of the Apollo hardware passed its peak. Normally one might have expected at this stage to begin a small amount of advanced work on some new project to replace Apollo after it had been completed. And after the considerable effort put into selling Apollo as a project to develop a national capability to explore and investigate space, it was natural for NASA managers to think of putting the Apollo and Saturn equipment to use. NASA planners began to talk of an Apollo Extension System.⁴ But when the idea of extending the Apollo project did not go over too well, a new concept was introduced: the Apollo Applications Program.⁵ The name was meant to emphasize “applying" the Saturn and Apollo capability to other research, thereby capitalizing on the very large investments the country had made to bring that capability into being.

During the muddy period of planning for an Apollo Applications Program that was not going to sell, Webb often stated to his colleagues in NASA that he did not sense on the Hill or in the administration the support that would be needed to undertake another large space project. When NASA managers wanted to come to grips with the problem, to decide on some desirable project like a space station or a manned base on the moon and then work to sell the idea, Webb preferred to hold back and listen to what the country might want to tell the agency. It was his wish to get a national debate started on what the future of the space program ought to be, with the hope that out of such a debate NASA might derive a new mandate for its future beyond Apollo. But no such debate ensued. In a country preoccupied with Vietnam and other issues, the space program no longer commanded much attention. If any leadership was to be provided, NASA would have to do it, since that vague “they" out there were not going to.

In this climate the administrator became increasingly concerned about the timing of the decision to send astronauts off on their first flight to the moon. Added to the Apollo fire, a disaster out in space in which astronauts were killed in full view of the world might well destroy not only the Apollo project, but NASA itself. In the summer of 1968, as the Manned Spacecraft Center people were coming down the final stretch in their preparations for a circumlunar flight, Webb was in Vienna attending the international symposium on space applications sponsored by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (p. 300). Thomas O. Paine, who had been appointed deputy administrator when Robert Seamans decided to leave the agency,⁶ was at home in Washington minding the shop, and it fell to him to guide the agency toward the first manned lunar flight. When Webb resigned in October,⁷ the final go-ahead came from Paine as acting administrator. While mindful of the hazards, still it was clear to Paine that the flight had to be attempted some time, and if the Apollo team was ready it should be now. When Apollo 8 came through with flying colors, the decision was fully justified and NASA recaptured for the time being the admiring attention of the world.⁸

Webb’s resignation had anticipated the change in administrations that would bring a searching reappraisal of the space program. Although prepared to reap political harvest from each Apollo success, incoming President Richard Nixon was committed to an all-out attack on inflation that would call for some painful belt tightening. To those who chose to read the signals, it was clear that the Republican administration was not about to let the space budget climb again to its mid-1960 levels. The big question in the minds of space planners was how low Nixon would let the budget drop.

As an early step in assessing the space program, on 3 December 1968 President-elect Nixon asked for recommendations from a group of outside consultants under the chairmanship of Nobel Laureate Charles Townes, who was chairman of both the Space Science Board and NASA’s Space Technology Advisory Committee. Nixon received the report of the task force on 8 January 1969, but did not at the time choose to release the document.⁹ The report recommended continuation of a $6-billion-per-year space effort, with one-third of the funding for the Department of Defense and two-thirds for NASA. The task force disapproved of any commitment to a large, orbiting, manned space station, but supported the development of a space shuttle. The scientists urged a strong program of unmanned planetary probes. Of major importance would be a reorientation of the NASA organization away from the manned-unmanned dichotomy that had existed throughout the 1960s. The report strongly recommended that, in any mission, NASA plan to use whatever mode-manned or unmanned-would be most effective in achieving the objectives sought. To this end NASA should stop flying men just to fly them, and should focus on a search for the most appropriate role for human beings in the system.

With the recommendations of the outside scientists in hand, the president then called for a governmental study of future possibilities for the space program. On 13 February Nixon sent a note to the vice president, the secretary of defense, the acting administrator of NASA, and the president’s science adviser, asking them to meet as a task group and to provide “in the near future definitive recommendation on the direction which the U.S. space program should take in the post-Apollo period.”¹⁰ The president said that he would like to receive a coordinated proposal by 1 September 1969.

At the president’s request, Vice President Spiro Agnew acted as chairman. The secretary of defense appointed Robert C. Seamans, secretary of the Air Force and formerly deputy administrator of NASA, to represent the Department of Defense on the Space Task Group. Invited observers were U. Alexis Johnson, under secretary of state for political affairs; Glenn T. Seaborg, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission; and Robert P. Mayo, director of the Bureau of the Budget. The group immediately arranged for their respective staffs to conduct the necessary background studies. The science adviser, Lee DuBridge, with personnel from the Office of Science and Technology, served as coordinator of the staff studies.

Both Paine, whom the president appointed in March to the post of NASA administrator, and the vice president favored an expanded space program, Agnew speaking out a number of times for sending men to the planets. Paine felt the country could well afford many times what it was spending on space and pressed for a program that would include large manned space stations, lunar bases, and the development and use of a reusable space transportation system to replace the older, expendable boosters used during the 1960s. In these views Paine came into conflict with those of the Townes committee, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, and Secretary Seamans. In spite of his former NASA connection, Seamans was strongly opposed to an expansion of the space program in times that called for fiscal conservatism. He would not support a large space station, and the shuttle could have his endorsement only if it could be shown that it would indeed generate the economies claimed for it.¹¹ The President’s Science Advisory Committee called for a program of lower costs that would focus on using space capabilities for benefiting the nation and the world. The committee placed great emphasis on expanding the use of unmanned, as opposed to manned, techniques in space research and application. It also recommended studying, “with a view to early development, a reusable space transportation system with an early goal of replacing all existing launch vehicles larger than Scout with a system permitting satellite recovery and orbital assembly and ultimately radical reduction in unit cost of space transportation.”¹²

During this period Thomas Paine worked continuously to revive national interest in a bold and imaginative space program. He described the large space station in near-earth orbit as “the next logical step" in the development of space. A lunar base would continue man’s exploration of his corner of the universe, provide the means for doing much valuable science, and capitalize on the extensive investments already made in Apollo. A reusable space transportation system, consisting of a shuttle and various auxiliary stages for orbital and deep-space operations, would tie all the endeavors together and make space stations, lunar bases, and other advanced space missions economically attractive. Seeking additional support, Paine traveled to Europe pressing for international cooperation in the development and use of a space shuttle system.¹³

As contributions to the staff studies for the Space Task Group, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, the Department of Defense, and NASA prepared reports of their own.¹⁴ Within NASA the study staff drew on planning material from the agency’s Planning Steering Group (p. 378). When the output from that activity, reflecting a judgment by the planners that only a modest program had any chance of selling, proved to be too conservative for Paine, the administrator asked the author to include among the NASA options a program that would rise to $8 billion a year by the mid-1970s.¹⁵ While this option was conveyed to the president in the Space Task Group’s report, it received no serious consideration from the administration. Indeed, NASA’s lowest option, which would rise to above $5 billion a year by 1976, was more than the White House planners were ready to bargain for.¹⁶ All in all the Space Task Group’s report did not show the conservatism the White House desired and was not adopted as the president’s blueprint for the future in space.

NASA accordingly continued to seek some sort of guidelines from the president under which to plan for the future. After a period of negotiation the sought-after guidelines appeared in the form of a statement from President Nixon on 7 March 1970 (app. J).¹⁷ Pointing to the many critical problems on our own planet that needed attention and resources, he nevertheless stated that the space program should not be allowed to stagnate. The nation’s approach to space should continue to be bold, but balanced, and the country should not try to do everything at once. The general purposes of the space program should be exploration, the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and practical applications to benefit life on earth. In support of these general purposes he set forth six specific objectives: lunar exploration, planetary exploration including eventually sending men to Mars, reduction in the cost of space operations, extension of man’s capability to live and work in space, expansion of practical applications of space technology, and encouragement of greater international cooperation in space.

By now the administration’s conservatism as far as space was concerned was patent. It was to be seen in the qualifying language of the presidents space message. Yet Administrator Paine chose to focus on the president’s call to be bold, rather than on his admonition to proceed at a measured pace. Paine likened the space program to the great voyages sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator, and encouraged his people to swashbuckle, as he put it (although years later Paine would question the appropriateness of that term).¹⁸ The responsibilities of leadership, he felt, required him to get approval for as large a space program as the traffic would bear, and to this end he pressed for a wide variety of new starts with budgets that would quickly mount up in the years ahead to levels exceeding those of the Apollo era. To raise NASA planning out of the conservatism to which it had been depressed by the political climate, in June 1970 Paine assembled NASA center directors, program directors from headquarters, and other key persons for a five-day meeting at Wallops Island, Virginia, to consider NASA’s future. Arthur Clarke, whose book The Exploration of Space had been in the 1950s a kind of blueprint for the future, was invited to be the keynote speaker in the hopes of starting the discussion on a sufficiently imaginative level.¹⁹

But NASA talking to itself this way had little effect, certainly none in raising budgets that continued their downward plunge. It was not in the cards to escalate the space program at that time. NASA was outvoted at every turn. The administration was absolutely dedicated to cost cutting. Industry was dubious about the value of increased expenditures in space and communicated its doubts to the White House. The Department of Defense, potentially NASA’s strongest ally, was having budget troubles of its own and would not encourage a large competitive drain on national resources. The scientific community, not about to endorse another large, manned spaceflight project, preferred to phase out manned spaceflight-save only a possible shuttle program-in favor of more automated missions. There was much sympathy for Van Allen’s call for a severely reduced space budget, $2 billion or less annually, devoted primarily to applications and science. Although Van Allen and Thomas Gold (the latter noted for his role in propounding the theory of continuous creation of matter) were opposed to the shuttle,²⁰ other scientists would support a shuttle if it was really to be developed and used as a tool to improve space operations and reduce their costs.²¹

There is a difference of opinion as to whether Paine’s attempts to force the space budget far above the levels the administration wanted to see kept it from falling lower than it did, or were counterproductive. At any rate, after Paine resigned in September 1970,²² Acting Administrator George Low made a conscious and visible effort to accommodate to the administration’s desires to keep spending down. The new administrator, James C. Fletcher, not only continued Low’s policy, but moved toward a constant level budget, which made the process of getting White House approval much easier. One of the great difficulties NASA had been experiencing in introducing new projects was the shape of the funding curve in the years ahead. While the initial funding for a new project might fit into the current year’s budget, increasing costs in future years often called for the total budget to rise again. If the budget rise was not approved, then projects recently started would have to be canceled-a painfully difficult thing to do. By eliminating this future bow wave in the funding curve, Administrator Fletcher was in a much stronger position than Paine had been to ask for assurances that NASA would be able to follow through on new projects that the agency started.

This was important in selling the Space Shuttle. In the cost-conscious climate of the Republican administration, the Space Shuttle became the only salable manned spaceflight project. After the Skylab flights in 1973 and the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, it would not be possible to gain support for more of the very expensive missions, any of which would drive the NASA budget skyward again. In contrast, the Space Shuttle costs as finally approved would fit into a budget profile for the 1970s which, when computed in 1971 dollars, would allow only a slight rise in the first half of the decade.

MANNED SPACE SCIENCE

Leadership at the top provided the template, as it were, for the leadership exercised by NASA managers lower down. As stated earlier the straightforward, though frantically busy, years of Glennan’s tenure and Webb’s first years as administrator afforded an ideal climate for program people to establish their working relations both inside and outside the agency. As for space science, at times NASA was pulling and the scientific community reluctantly following, as with observatory spacecraft, the manned spaceflight program, and later Viking. At other times NASA was being pushed by an impatient clientele, as was illustrated by the scientists’ desire for more sounding rockets, for individually assigned Explorer-class satellites, more Pioneer-class probes to Venus and other planets, and the utter dissatisfaction with NASA’s organizational arrangements in the life sciences.

For space science one of the most difficult problems of leadership, both inside and outside NASA, concerned the manned spaceflight program. Underlying the prevailing discontent in the scientific community regarding this program was a rather general conviction that virtually everything that men could do in the investigation of space, including the moon and planets, automated spacecraft could also do and at much lower cost. This conviction was reinforced by the Apollo program’s being primarily engineering in character. Indeed, until after the success of Apollo 11, science was the least of Apollo engineers’ concerns. Further, the manned project appeared to devour huge sums, only small fractions of which could have greatly enhanced the unmanned space science program. It has been seen how such concerns colored the proceedings of the space science summer study in Iowa City in the summer of 1962 and led to Philip Abelson’s campaign against the manned spaceflight program (p. 209).

The science program managers in NASA rallied in support of the agency’s manned spaceflight projects, but they had their difficulties internally. As the nation’s top priority space project, Apollo enjoyed a commanding position when it came to funds and requests for support from other parts of NASA. With regard to the latter, Ranger and Lunar Orbiter pictures of the moon and Surveyor data on properties of the lunar surface were, to Apollo people, a source of engineering information that had come too late to be used in the original design of lunar spacecraft and were none too soon for planning the Apollo missions.²³ Apollo’s need for lunar data tended to constrain the planning of unmanned investigations of the moon. Apollo engineers sought from the unmanned program specific discrete items of information, such as the bearing strength of the lunar soil and the distribution of craters and rubble on the surface. But space scientists insisted the desired information could be had from an investigation of the moon that would provide an understanding of the basic processes that had gone into the creation of the moon and its surface features. Moreover, such an understanding would make it possible to answer specific questions not now foreseen that might come up later; concentrating too narrowly on unrelated individual measurements could be self-defeating in the long run. The engineers were not convinced and this insistence of the scientists on a thorough scientific investigation appeared like an unwillingness to be helpful, or worse, a self-centered desire to have it one’s own way. Moreover, the Apollo people pointed out, the manned missions would make possible all that the unmanned spacecraft could do and more, and the scientists ought to wait for Apollo to provide the means for making the definitive studies they desired.

The troubles between the space scientists and the manned spaceflight engineers were enhanced by a decision of the associate administrator, Robert Seamans, that the Office of Space Science and Applications would assume responsibility for all space science in the NASA program, including that done on manned missions, but that the monies for manned space science projects would be put in the manned spaceflight budget, where they would be less likely to be cut in the congressional review process.²⁴ The Office of Space Science and Applications understood that this was simply a budgeting device and that after NASA’s appropriations had been secured the manned space science monies needed for advanced research and the design and prototype work on manned space science experiments would be transferred to space science. But George Mueller did not do this. Instead he undertook to review and pass on the intended space science work before releasing money from his budget. In this way Mueller exercised the control over the manned space science program that had supposedly been assigned to the Office of Space Science and Applications. It is, in fact, a cardinal principle of management that the one who has the money has the control.²⁵ Thus Seamans had given the space science managers a responsibility for which they didn’t have the necessary clout.

The author met periodically with Mueller in an effort to develop a satisfactory working relationship. The manned space science division under Willis Foster was one of the devices agreed on to bring the two offices closer together (p. 284). But, while Mueller appeared to the scientists to be fairly lavish in allocating funds to the engineering aspects of the manned spaceflight program, he suddenly became very cost conscious when it came to supporting science. In this climate the scientists were unable to discharge properly the responsibility that Seamans had assigned to them, and they quite naturally tended to direct their attention to the unmanned space science program. Noting this, manned spaceflight personnel accused the space scientists of neglect. Ignoring that their office was withholding the monies that had been slated for support of manned space science, they asked why the Office of Space Science and Applications wouldn’t put some of its own funds into the important area of manned space science. To the science managers who were already having enough difficulties meeting the needs and demands of the scientific community, this question appeared infuriatingly obtuse.

As for the scientific community, to cut back on the unmanned program to fund a manned space science program would have generated a major crisis. Supporting an adequate unmanned program could keep the periodic attacks of the scientists on the manned program within bounds. Those scientists who did participate in the manned flights found the exercise much more difficult than working in automated spacecraft. Schedules were tighter and oriented toward engineering and operational requirements, rather than toward science. Documentation and test requirements were an order of magnitude greater than those for unmanned missions, where the life of an astronaut was not in the balance.

The frustrations felt by the scientists were illustrated by those expressed by Eugene Shoemaker, a geologist from the U.S. Geological Survey who early went to work with the Manned Spacecraft Center in preparing for the Apollo missions to the moon. Shoemaker’s participation in the NASA program was in keeping with an arrangement between NASA and the Geological Survey that Thomas Nolan, director of the Survey, and the author had agreed on. Nolan committed the support of USGS scientists, while NASA (the author) agreed to use this support and not to build up within the agency another little Geological Survey. The agreement was informal, arrived at over lunch at NASA Headquarters, and never went to the Administrator’s Office for his blessing. In spite of the informality, however, the agreement had a major effect on the shape of the geology portion of the space science program.

Under the aegis of this agreement-perhaps without ever being aware of its existence-Gene Shoemaker worked long and hard with the Manned Spacecraft Center and the astronauts to plan a lunar exploration program, to develop cameras and instruments for photography and measurements of the moon, and to help train the astronauts in the geological sciences and in the techniques of field work. Shoemaker was instrumental in arousing and maintaining the interest of the earth sciences community in lunar science. He and his colleagues contributed much to the success of the Apollo astronauts in their geological exploration of the moon.

It was a shock, then, to manned spaceflight personnel members when, after the resounding success of Apollo 11, their colleague and former mentor began to blast them for alleged shortcomings in Apollo. Shoemaker contended that in the name of engineering and safety requirements serious scientific shortcomings had been designed and built into the Apollo hardware-unnecessarily. Shoemaker contended that this was due primarily to utter insensitivity to the needs and interests of science and that if properly designed, Apollo would have been able, without danger or compromise to operational requirements, to contribute far more to science than it was going to. Shoemaker was particularly incensed over the canceling of several planned Apollo missions. In a talk before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in December 1969, he likened the first Apollo landing to the first exploratory trip of John Wesley Powell down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. Both were courageous and fruitful ventures. But Powell’s first trip was followed by years of intensive study of the geology of the Grand Canyon, which provided the real scientific return and practical benefit of those explorations, whereas Apollo was going to be cut off too soon after the initial landing to capitalize properly on the tremendous investments already made.²⁶

Shoemaker seized every opportunity to take up the issue and to castigate NASA. NASA people felt the affront deeply. Shoemaker had come into the space program an unknown, just beginning his scientific career. Sizable sums of money had been devoted to support his research, and NASA had in effect financed much of his career. Why couldn’t Shoemaker criticize in private and praise in public? And, anyway, what good was all the criticism going to do? NASA lacked the funds to continue Apollo landings much longer. Moreover, voices on the Hill were- asking why the agency didn’t just stop all further lunar missions, since each new flight exposed NASA and the country to a possible catastrophe and the loss of much of the good that had already been achieved-a possibility that was not lost upon those conducting the missions.

Little could be done in the way of backtracking and redoing the Apollo hardware, but some steps could be taken with regard to how the existing hardware was used. Yielding to strong pressure from the scientific community, supported by scientists within NASA, the Johnson Space Center^* inaugurated a new era in relations with the scientific community. Lines of communication between the experimenters and astronauts and engineers were strengthened, during both preparation and flight periods. The experimenters’ feeling of effectiveness increased steadily with each new Apollo mission until with Apollo 17,which carried geologist Harrison Schmitt, the scientists were positively ecstatic.

Teams assembled from the outside scientific community by the Johnson Space Center, to help plan for the lunar exploration and to advise on the allocation and analysis of lunar samples, did yeoman service, and their advice was heeded. Their efforts received considerable praise from the scientific community, although naturally there were always those who were dissatisfied with some of the recommendations made for allocating lunar samples. With the advice of these groups NASA supported the outfitting of laboratories and the preparatory work necessary to get ready to analyze samples when they should become available, thus building up a team of hundreds of scientists around the country to take part in this unique project. The result was a revitalization of lunar science, and more importantly, a development of new and improved instruments and techniques for geochemical, geophysical, and mineralogical analysis. Following the return of the first lunar samples, it was not long before more than 700 researchers around the world were thoroughly involved in their analysis and study. The Johnson Center sponsored annual meetings in Houston to make reports and discuss results. Attended by hundreds of scientists from various fields and many countries, these attracted considerable attention from the press.

This success gave rise to another of the debates in which NASA so often found itself embroiled. After the first rush of analysis and study of the lunar samples was over, the time arrived for more work on integrating disparate results into a connected and understandable whole, in particular to attempt to discern what the new information meant with regard to the origin and development of the moon, the solar system, and the earth. At this stage there was no longer need for so many hundreds of investigators, and it made eminent sense for NASA to plan to fund only a part of those previously supported by the agency. Such steps were unequivocally recommended by NASA’s advisers, who accordingly shared in playing the role of the villain in the reductions that followed.

FINDING THE WAY OUT

The very success that James Webb had had in selling Saturn and Apollo as projects to develop a powerful national capability to operate in and use space as the country might decide in the national interest set the stage for the dismal lack of success in the first attempts to plan for a follow-on to Apollo. For it had not been. foreseen that Apollo and Saturn hardware would have to be regarded as “first generation,” highly experimental, and much too costly to maintain as the basis of a continuing national space capability. Naturally the manned spaceflight people wanted to stay in business, and Webb’s reluctance to let go of his original dream fostered planning to continue to use Apollo hardware. Paine’s desire to swashbuckle reinforced the efforts to keep the Saturn and Apollo manufacturing lines open. That scientists openly opposed any continuation of the Apollo kind of operation was ascribed to their usual idiosyncrasies. That the scientists kept insisting they could not come up with any real requirements for science in a space station was overlooked, and planning went ahead. First Mueller proposed a “wet workshop,” in which the spent S-IVB stage of Saturn would be dried out in orbit and outfitted there for use as a temporary space station. Later that was replaced with the “dry workshop,” in which the Saturn stage would be outfitted on the ground and then launched into orbit for the same purposes. In a vague way the workshop was thought of as a transition to a more permanent program of using Saturn and Apollo hardware for the continuing exploration and investigation of space.

Not until NASA finally recognized that Saturn and Apollo had to go, could a way to the future be plotted. Then the Skylab workshop could emerge as a limited project that, with the Apollo-Soyuz mission, would wind up the Apollo era. Once the decision had been taken to close out Apollo and to concentrate on reducing the costs of operating in space, the Space Shuttle could fall into place as the keystone of the future.

During NASA’s first 10 years-when the agency had led with a reasonable and acceptable, yet aggressive, program-NASA had enjoyed a strong followership. But in the late 1960s when NASA had attempted, in a totally unsuitable climate, to continue to use the costly Apollo hardware, that followership was almost lost. In a country at the moment only peripherally interested in space, James Webb had found it impossible to generate a national debate that might furnish some guidance for the agency. Thomas O. Paine’s efforts in 1969 and 1970 to gain approval for a very large, very expensive program including space stations, lunar bases, and shuttles had gained neither administration nor grass roots support. But the fourth administrator, James C. Fletcher, found the country willing to support an imaginative program as long as costs could be kept down. In a program dedicated to economy and usefulness, Fletcher was able to include the development of a Space Shuttle which would put manned spaceflight to use in serving the agency’s scientific and applications objectives. NASA then recaptured the leadership that for a brief time had faltered.

Thus, with a program dedicated to service and economy, NASA emerged from the confusion and uncertainties of the late 1960s with a renewed commitment to a strong U.S. presence in space. Starting with an uncertain lease on life, with each passing year the Shuttle strengthened its position in NASA’s future. In the light of the Shuttle’s advancing development, the 1970s became a period of transition from the pioneering era of the 1950s and 1960s to the 1980s, when many expected space operations to become routine.