CHAPTER 22

REVIEW AND ASSESSMENT

Viewing events in retrospect one cannot but be impressed with the seeming inexorability of human progress toward spaceflight, particularly in the 20th century. There is a temptation to claim that once Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Berth, Von Braun, and their followers took aim at outer space, the large rocket and spaceflight were inevitable. Certainly by the time Sputnik 1 went into orbit, a substantial groundwork had been laid by a large number of pioneers working assiduously through many decades.

But the character of the space program that emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s was not so predictable. Many, if not most, of the early workers were primarily interested in interplanetary travel and high-altitude research, but for the most part had to rely on the military for support. In providing support the services naturally were considering the potential military uses of space, and indeed the first major rocket to go into operation was a weapon, the V-2. Because of the importance of atmospheric and ionospheric data for applications of radio and radar, and in the design, construction, and operation of various military systems, the services supported a considerable amount of high-altitude rocket research during the 1940s and 1950s. In the normal course of events one could thus visualize a U.S. space program, including space science, as evolving over the years, emerging quietly as a part of military research and development. Under such circumstances the ability of space scientists to devote their research primarily to the most important scientific problems would have been hampered by the requirement to contribute in a demonstrable way to more immediate military needs. In addition as the experiences of the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel during the 1940s and 1950s showed, there would have been the constant threat of being pulled under the cloak of military secrecy-a restriction fundamentally incompatible with the scientific process.

Such limitations on the U.S. space program were avoided when the administration and Congress, reacting to the Sputnik challenge, decided that in the best interests of the country most of the space program should be conducted openly under civilian auspices. Moreover the vagueness and grand sweep of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 gave the NASA administrator a great deal of flexibility in specifying the content of the NASA program. As one consequence, under NASA management the space science program became very much a creature of the nation’s interested scientists.

When the Soviet Union surprised the world by launching the first artificial satellite into orbit, the shocked reaction of the United States tended to distort the country’s perception of what was happening. The weight of Sputnik 2 and 3 showed how advanced the USSR was in rocket payload capability, and it was easy to focus on this factor while underestimating the importance of the work that the United States had already done in the field. Looking back, it is now clear that America, while lagging in rocket propulsion, was more than competitive in communications, tracking, and telemetry, in guidance and control, and in sounding rocket research. Taking all factors into consideration the imbalance was not so great as had been imagined. Proceeding from its substantial state of readiness the United States built an enviable record of success in space over the next dozen years, culminating with the Apollo missions to the moon.

Space science contributed its share to the overall success. Indeed, for most of the 1960s applications and science missions provided most of the return on the nation’s investment in space, and it was not until the Apollo lunar flights that the manned spaceflight program began to generate the prodigious quantities of data that continued to flow from it during the first half of the 1970s.

One can use several criteria in assessing the success or failure of the space science program. The simplest is whether the program achieved what its planners set out to do. By this criterion the space science program must be adjudged successful. In every area-earth and planetary sciences, solar physics, stellar astronomy and cosmology, and to a smaller extent biology-substantial progress was made, bringing a number of important discoveries. Successful unmanned scientific spacecraft missions were legion, including thousands of sounding rockets; dozens of Explorer satellites; solar, geophysical, and astronomical observatories; Pioneer space probes; Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, and Surveyor spacecraft to the moon; and Mariners to Mars and Venus. Sharing in some of these successes were many other countries, taking part in a quite extensive international cooperative program.

A more substantive criterion of success is whether what was achieved was worthwhile. This is more difficult to judge, but that hundreds of first- rate scientists chose to devote their personal careers, or a substantial part of them, to space science is evidence of the program’s success. The numbers of scientists working in the field and the voices of scientists raised in strong support of important projects and equally strong protest against proposed cuts had to be important considerations to the administration and Congress in deciding the extent of support to accord to space science.

Success in the space science program was not bought without some failures. Indeed, for the first two years failures seemed at times to eclipse successes, although before the end of the 1960s the success rate had risen well into the 90 percent range. Both failures and successes had their lessons to convey, and there was much to be learned by participants in the space science program, not only of a scientific nature but also concerning organization and management, and the perplexities of human relations.

ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

A great many of NASA’s working hours were taken up in problems of management. Patient attention to detail was required to make the agency’s complex projects succeed. The space team did a good job, evoking worldwide praise for NASA. But it must be remembered that the team was more than a single agency, consisting as it did of thousands of engineers, technicians, laborers, scientists, and administrators from government, industry, universities, the military, and even other countries. Furthermore, accomplishments were much more labored than one might suppose from a distance. The picture of a well-oiled machine purring along without a clank or a clatter is inappropriate. The space program endured the same kinds of personnel problems, development snags, labor disputes, schedules missed cost overruns, failures and temporary setbacks, and management mistakes that were the experience of the military and industry in the large weapon projects that might be pointed to as the closest analog to what NASA was trying to accomplish.

That NASA had to struggle through the same difficulties that beset other large-scale programs in no way diminished the luster of space achievements. On the contrary, to meet and overcome such difficulties was the nature of the task. NASA was eclectic in its approach, borrowing management ideas from various sources, especially the military. The agency was willing to experiment, to pioneer in the use of new management techniques in government-industry relations, incentive contracting, project planning, technical and cost reporting, management reviews, and quality assessment and control. By remaining flexible, reorganizing several times in the course of a decade, it was possible to accommodate changing needs of the program.

The management style of the agency reflected those of the several administrators who stood at the NASA helm through the 1960s. The first administrator, T. Keith Glean, came to NASA with a controlled enthusiasm for space that served to prevent any explosive growth through over-reaction to Sputnik. Glenn’s measured pace elicited a steady pressure from numerous quarters to move faster, particularly to get on to the planets, which in the minds of many scientists were taking on new importance with the possibility of investigating them at close range. In retrospect the situation seems to have been ideal, with a positive leadership setting forth on a substantive program, and a strong followership ready to go along and even to move faster and farther given the opportunity to do so. In this climate Glean was able to set the agency upon the course that it followed for many years afterward.

In February 1961, James E. Webb became the second administrator of NASA. The approval by President Kennedy and the Congress of the Apollo project gave Webb the opportunity to step up the pace of the space program. All aspects of space science were expanded. A primary concern of Webb, which characterized his style of management, was to maintain the independence of action of the agency. While working to build up the program, he was also careful to avoid becoming the captive of any group in industry, the administration, or the Congress.

Under Webb’s vigorous leadership the agency’s followership grew steadily and, by keeping a balanced program even under high-level pressure, to concentrate more on the Apollo mission at the expense of other parts of the program, the administrator maintained a broad base of support. Then tragedy struck, a fire in the Apollo capsule killing three astronauts-three of the nation’s heroes. Had it not been for the race with the Soviet Union and the severe blow to U.S. prestige in the world that a failure to follow through on the Apollo commitment would have entailed, the lunar venture might well have ended at that point. As it was it took many agonizing months and Webb’s considerable administrative and political skill to redress the situation, to pick up the pieces and move on again toward the lunar landing still years away. But from that point on support for the agency was permanently weakened, more tentative, more questioning. So, when the muddy planning for an Apollo Applications program to follow the manned lunar missions looked to outsiders more like an attempt on NASA’s part merely to keep the Saturn and Apollo teams in business rather than to serve any genuine need, the necessary support could not be developed. While resistance was general, it was especially strong among the scientists, who protested that as far as science was concerned, the prodigious sums being asked for Apollo Applications could better be spent on any of a large number of important, unmanned scientific investigations.

In this climate NASA leadership faltered. Finding in his contacts with the administration, the legislators, and industry no strong support for large new initiatives in space, Webb shied away from making any specific proposals. He chose rather to encourage the nation to debate what the country’s future in space should be, hoping that the agency could get some guidance from such a debate. But the country did not move to fill the leadership vacuum left by NASA, and no great debate took place. It was left squarely up to NASA to recapture the leadership it had temporarily relinquished.

In contrast to his predecessor the third administrator, Thomas O. Paine, was eager to strike out on bold new paths, optimistic that he could generate the necessary support. Paine made the courageous decision to proceed with the Apollo 8 flight in December 1968, at a time when there were growing concerns and doubts about the ability of Apollo to accomplish its objectives and much fear that a serious failure in an early lunar mission might lead to a strong reaction against continuing the project. The outstanding success of Apollo 8 completely altered the mental climate for a while and set Apollo firmly on its final course to success. But, later, when Paine campaigned unrelentingly in the Nixon administration for a large-scale space program costing $8 billion or more a year, including shuttles, space stations, and manned spaceflight to the planets, he found himself completely out of tune with the conservative, budget-conscious mood of the time. In the face of distressing societal problems that impinged on the daily life and the pocketbook of the average citizen, the country was not in a mood to "swash buckle,” as Paine had put it. Much of NASA’s followership again shied away.

The fourth administrator, James C. Fletcher, who took over on 27 April 1971, recaptured the NASA followership with a policy of moderation and cost consciousness. An effort was made to project an image of applying space knowledge and capabilities to problems of concern to the man on the ground, and to do it economically. The Space Shuttle was sold largely on the basis that it would make it possible to use space more effectively and at far less cost than with conventional launch vehicles and space hardware. Fletcher’s style was more like that of Glean; his willingness to proceed at a measured pace, as Glean had sought to do, made his approach acceptable. The image of conservatism and public responsibility that he projected made it possible for Fletcher to discuss publicly future exciting adventures that had appealed to Paine, like sending men to the planets or building space outposts in orbit or on the moon.

Under each of its administrators NASA had, of course, to engage in the usual activities of management. These included-in the jargon of the government manager-planning, programming, budgeting, and execution. Space science managers could no more escape these necessities than could any others, but differences of approach were worthy of note.

It is customary for a large-scale operation to maintain a series of plans for the activity-short term, intermediate, and long range. In theory the short-term plans are those largely in effect or being carried out, the intermediate plans those that are to be used in formulating the next budget proposals, while the long-range plans serve as a guide into the more distant future. Properly worked out plans should include not only the objectives to achieve, but also suitable estimates of specific projects, their feasibility and promising approaches, funding, manpower, and facility requirements, schedules, an appraisal of the availability of suitable contractors, and some thought about organizational and management setups. Shorter-term plans would, of course, furnish such detail in greater depth than would long-range plans, which for the quite distant future might become rather general in treatment.

When NASA began operations, Administrator Glean required the agency to maintain both short-term and long-range plans. As did the other offices, the space science division contributed to those plans. The second administrator, James E. Webb, however, while requiring adequate planning on the part of the agency, did not favor publishing specific plans. His concern was that the issuance of specific plans for the more distant future would call forth attacks from NASA’s opponents when neither the agency nor its supporters were prepared to engage in a suitable defense of the plans. Webb preferred to publish specific plans as he requested the next year’s budget, at which point the agency wits prepared to put forth a strong defense of its proposals. Webb’s approach placed upon the different offices in the agency the responsibility to maintain an adequate planning activity while refraining from publishing specific long-range plans.

While there was something to gain in not revealing NASA’s intentions too early, there were also disadvantages. Potential participants in the program needed to know what was in prospect, so that they might plan and make proposals to NASA. In space science, especially, managers felt the need to inform individual scientists of the opportunities that lay ahead so that they might plan and work on experiments that often took years of advance preparation. Similarly there was a need to keep industry informed of the kinds of spacecraft and instrumentation contractors might be called on to provide. To meet the need for advance information on likely future space science projects while at the same time not committing themselves to specific future plans, space science managers devised what they called a space science prospectus.

The prospectus differed from an actual plan in that for each area or discipline the prospectus listed a variety of possible choices for future programs and projects. The choices were studied and analyzed in sufficient depth to ensure that they were feasible and to afford a suitable estimate of funding, manpower, and other requirements. In theory, the prospectus provided NASA people, industry, and outside scientists useful information about what NASA had in mind for the future without drawing the fire of critics that a firm plan might occasion. The prospectus did prove to be a useful planning device, and in the last two years of Webb’s administration the author and some of his colleagues worked on such a prospectus for the whole agency. For a variety of reasons this effort did not succeed, the most important of which probably was that Thomas Paine, who became administrator after Webb left, strongly favored specific plans and was willing to battle for it bold, long-range program for the agency.

In the jargon of government workers, programming is the process of putting together individual elements of it plan into a properly integrated program for an office or the agency to undertake. Then budgeting is figuring out the funds and other resources according to time required to carry out the proposed program. For space science managers, one aspect of planning and programming differed from the approach of other offices in NASA. That was the conscious effort to make the space program the creature of the nation’s scientific community.

To achieve this end it was necessary to bring large numbers of outside scientists into the planning in some way that made their input effective, while NASA still made the required decisions. There was a narrow path to tread here, for the scientists would gladly have wielded the authority while leaving to NASA the responsibility for the actions taken. NASA managers took the approach of including the thinking of a series of advisory committees in their planning and programming. It was not an easy process to sustain, since advisers could never hope to be as fully informed of all the issues as NASA employees working full-time on the job. Moreover, at times other than scientific issues forced decisions that were unpalatable. In making such decisions NASA managers could not always get the help they needed from the scientific community, since scientists were reluctant to set priorities between different disciplines. Hence, when budget restrictions required a choice between projects in differing disciplines the onus landed on NASA people. Not until the end of the 1960s did outside scientists finally face up squarely to the problem of giving NASA specific advice on setting priorities among various disciplines, as well as within a specific one.

Nevertheless, except for this one lack, the scientific community supplied NASA with much advice on space science programs and projects, to the extent that the NASA space science program could genuinely be described as a program of the scientists. Supporting this program NASA was able to obtain sizable budgets, particularly during the first half of the 1960s. At the peak of support for NASA in the middle of the decade, space science was enjoying the lion’s share of a science and applications budget that approached $1 billion a year and, although funding declined sharply toward the end of the decade, space science continued to command resources in the neighborhood of 1500 million annually.

As for execution, the space science program relied on NASA centers, industry, and the universities. For most of the 1960s the Office of Space Science and Applications was assigned the responsibility for the Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Wallops Station. Most of the internal support for space science was obtained from these centers, but every other NASA center also provided support to the science program. In general, relations between NASA Headquarters and the centers were effective, but at times, particularly in the early years, there were severe strains. Illustrating these were difficulties with the Goddard Space Flight Center and with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The problems were similar, arising from conflict between the center’s desire for autonomy and headquarters’ responsibility to represent the agency to the administration and the Congress. But the circumstances were different in that Goddard was a Civil Service center while JPL was a contractor to NASA. In both cases accommodation on both sides was required to overcome the difficulties. With Goddard, headquarters had to take care to keep to its own job of program management, leaving the center free to handle the management of projects assigned to it. As for JPL, the laboratory had to recognize its responsibility as a NASA contractor to follow NASA direction, while NASA had to leave JPL sufficient leeway to exercise its own judgment with regard to basic research.

While the space science and manned spaceflight programs supported each other-the former furnishing advance information on the moon for the design of hardware and planning of mission operations, the latter eventually providing the most powerful method of investigating the moon-nevertheless there were serious strains for a variety of reasons. Many scientists were unconvinced of the worth of the manned spaceflight program in general or of the lunar landing project in particular. To these persons it seemed clear that a much greater return in scientific data could be had, sooner, in an unmanned program of far smaller cost. Leading members of the scientific establishment stated unequivocally that the real substance of the space program lay in science and applications. Accordingly it rankled that top priority and huge funds were accorded the Apollo project, whose principal missions were the better part of a decade away, while valuable scientific projects that one knew how to do and that would yield important data quickly had to wait for later funding. The distress increased when Apollo needs threatened ongoing projects, as happened from time to time.

A subtle complication arose when the agency urged scientists to put experiments in Gemini and Apollo flights, but then did not accord the experiments the kind of support or level of priority the investigators felt they deserved. One can appreciate the views of the Apollo managers, since they were attempting to achieve something never done before, something very difficult, very hazardous, and also important to the country’s image in the world. Nevertheless there were many who felt that the Apollo engineers indulged in overkill, thereby precluding a great deal of valuable science that might otherwise have been done. Eugene Shoemaker, a geologist from the U.S. Geological Survey, provided an extreme example in this respect, For many years Shoemaker worked intimately on the Apollo project, helping to train astronauts and to prepare for scientific investigations during the Apollo landings on the moon. Yet after the first successful landing he left in disgust to spend more than a year excoriating NASA for shortsightedness with regard to Apollo science.

The strains between space scientists and the Apollo people were exacerbated by the fact that Apollo was principally an engineering project. Engineers and scientists differ fundamentally in their outlook and approach to their jobs. To engineers, trained in highly disciplined teamwork, the independence and individualism of the successful scientist looks like anarchy. To overcome these basic differences requires conscious and continuing attention from management. In the Office of Space Science and Applications an organizational device was used for many years to try to alleviate this problem. Instead of gathering the scientists into a single research group and the engineers into a separate service group, which is a traditional arrangement, engineers and scientists were intimately mixed in a number of smaller units. As head of the office, the author, himself a scientist, chose an engineer as his deputy. In the division for geophysics and astronomy, initially a scientist was in charge, with an engineer as deputy. Later when the scientist was promoted, the engineer became the head and chose a scientist as deputy. Scientists and engineers were paired at all levels throughout the organization. The arrangement sometimes evoked the criticism that it generated a collection of little "baronies" in the office, yet the organization appeared to promote its intended objective. Engineers and scientists came to appreciate each other’s problems and to share enthusiasm for each other’s triumphs. Several times in the course of the decade space science management considered the possibility of returning to the more traditional arrangement, only to reaffirm the original choice.

The effort to solve the problems that the Office of Space Science and Applications and the Office of Manned Space Flight had in working together by setting up a special Manned Space Science Division was less successful. For one thing, the problems were more severe. Manned Space Flight had the priority, and even was assigned, the funds for the manned space science for which the Office of Space Science and Applications was given the responsibility. Thus two fundamental management errors stood in the way. The Manned Space Science Division had two bosses to try to satisfy, which is universally recognized as unsatisfactory. Second, the Office of Manned Space Flight had the money for (hence in practice control of) manned space science. As a consequence the Office of Space Science and Applications long felt frustrated in putting together the kind of manned space science program the scientific community desired. Not until the initial lunar landing had taken place and the primary remaining motive for any further Apollo missions was science-to explore and investigate the moon-did these problems begin to resolve themselves. At that point lunar scientists, in a tremendous surge of interest, working for the most part directly with the Johnson Space Center, generated the kind of science program they had long sought.

In the course of the space science program NASA managers relearned a number of management lessons others had learned before, such as not assigning two bosses to the same group and not assigning the money for one program to the control of another office. It ought almost to be axiomatic that objectives should be clear and reasonable, yet with the Centaur program NASA put itself through a period of considerable strain by trying to make the as-yet- undeveloped rocket stage satisfy at least four different sets of requirements. Only when the development was directed toward a single set of requirements, those of the Surveyor lunar spacecraft, did Centaur move smoothly toward its first successful flights. Once developed, Centaur was uprated to satisfy additional requirements.

Again, it should be clear that attempting too big a step in a new development is unwise. While the intended objectives may ultimately be achieved, the cost of overreaching can be too great. This point was illustrated by the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory in which snags were encountered in developing the guidance and control system that took inordinate amounts of time and money to solve. Moreover, the seven-year-long development time for the observatory adversely affected experimenters who had to mark time with their experimental programs while the spacecraft was being developed. In this connection it should be noted that a number of scientists had advised NASA to fly a less complicated observatory first.

To avoid such harmful over extension and costly overruns, NASA management introduced the device of phased project planning. While its use was rather fuzzy in NASA, nevertheless the policy of requiring a careful review and assessment of the size and appropriateness of steps to be taken in NASA projects was beneficial.

INDIVIDUAL AND INSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS

Thousands of individuals and institutions were required to carry out the space program. NASA’s relations with these took on many forms, some of them simple and uncomplicated, some very complex. All were important management concerns.

Basic to maintaining the necessary political support for the program were the often delicate and subtle relations with the administration and the Congress, neither of which has been dealt with in any depth in this book. As for space science, on the legislative side the program had both the strong support and continuing criticism of the Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications of the House Committee on Science and Astronauts, with more general support and somewhat less penetrating criticism from the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. Within the administration, primary attention came from the president’s science adviser and the President’s Science Advisory Committee, especially from the Space Science and Technology Panel of PSAC. Although a number of the PSAC members had devoted considerable time and effort helping to establish NASA with a strong scientific flavor, they did not choose to devote their own personal careers to space research. The science panel did, however, keep a watchful eye on the agency, especially for the first few years. Although the Science Advisory Committee and its panel had no direct authority over NASA, their position in the White House gave considerable weight to their views, and at times they served as effective safety valves for the scientific community when space scientists felt that their needs were not receiving the proper attention. The letter to Kistiakowsky from Lloyd Berkner, chairman of the Space Science Board, in November 1959 expressing concern that NASA might neglect ground-based scientific research related to space in favor of only flight experiments, and also might not publish scientific results in the open literature, illustrates the point. As a second example, astronomers sought similar help from the space science panel when they were dissatisfied with how work on an orbiting astronomical satellite was progressing. In both cases the science adviser and the panel used their good offices with NASA to help clear the air. More substantive was one science adviser’s assistance in breaking the deadlock over classification that threatened to damage a long-planned program of international cooperation in geodesy.

After the first few years the science panel was more or less quiescent until widespread dissatisfaction over NASA’s planning of the Apollo Applications program stirred the panel to renewed activity. Its concern and recommendations did much to help steer the thinking on Apollo Applications out of its preoccupation with merely keeping Saturn and Apollo alive toward the more acceptable Skylab program.

Also not treated in depth in this narrative were NASA’s vital relationships with other government agencies. A particularly intimate partnership with the Department of Defense and the military services was essential. Indeed, mutual assistance between the two agencies was required in the NASA Act. But in other areas not specifically addressed in the NASA legislation, NASA also needed to work closely with sister government agencies. The use of satellites for monitoring the weather, of major importance to the Weather Bureau of the Department of Commerce, was one example. Others were the use of satellites for making a worldwide geological survey and for monitoring changing land use patterns, both of concern to the Department of the Interior. It soon became apparent that satellites could be of assistance in surveying and monitoring agricultural crops, forests, and grazing lands, bringing NASA and the Department of Agriculture together. In similar fashion the potential contributions of satellites to communications, air and marine navigation, and air traffic control invited still other associations between NASA and the rest of the government establishment. Associations with private activities were legion, its industry designed, built, and operated most of the hardware that made space science, space applications, and space exploration possible.

NASA’s relationship with the National Academy of Sciences, through the Space Science Board especially, was inherited from the International Geophysical Year along with the IGY sounding rocket and satellite programs that gave the agency its headstart in science. As the nation’s most prestigious scientific body, the academy’s advice carried extra weight and its support to the space program special significance. While there were rough spots in the association, on the whole the relationship was intimate and productive, and through the years Space Science Board recommendations, including those from a long list of special summer studies, weighed heavily in NASA’s planning and programming.

But NASA soon learned that the scientific community was not monolithic, and that often important groups of researchers took exception to specific recommendations of the academy. Thus, while still placing high value on advice from the Space Science Board, NASA managers came to feel the need for a closer association with a broad segment of the scientific community. To this end the agency made use of a series of advisory groups, which throughout the 1960s proved to be a powerful means of involving outside scientists intimately in the planning and conduct of the space science program. At times more than 200 of the leading workers in space science were on NASA committees and working groups. Also, by periodically replacing A portion of these advisers with new recruits, NASA was able to keep infusing new thinking into the system.

The first advisory groups were subcommittees of the Space Sciences (later the Space Science and Applications) Steering Committee, which consisted of key managers of the NASA program. These subcommittees were highly specialized, furnishing advice in essentially a single discipline, such as particles and fields. They advised on program content, on the selection of experiments and experimenters for flight missions, and on what laboratory work to support to ensure a proper groundwork for future space missions. The disciplinary subcommittees were very effective, but in time scientists began to complain that there was a need for less specialized advisory bodies and a broader participation of the community. The Astronomy Missions Board and the Lunar and Planetary Missions Board were established to meet this criticism, while retaining the subcommittees of the Steering Committee. When the missions boards came to feel that even they did not always have enough perspective on the NASA planning and programming, the Space Program Advisory Council, with subsidiary committees to the council, and subsidiary panels to the committees, was brought into being.

Since plans and programs began to take shape in the division and lower levels of the organization, that suggested advisory groups would be most effective if they worked directly with the divisions-and this was done. At the same time advisory groups traditionally feel that they ought to make their views known directly to top management. Accordingly, while advisory groups were established to work with the divisions, they were also asked to report findings and recommendations directly to associate administrator and administrator levels.

This multipronged connection with NASA management worked well with the missions boards, but not so well with the Space Program Advisory Council. In the advisory council organization there was too much layering, and the divisions lost touch with the council, feeling little kinship with the council’s committees and panels. To the divisions the council appeared too much as a special group for the administrator, so that the divisions began to set up advisory groups of their own with which they could work with the necessary intimacy. Even for those who had close contact with the council, the ponderous, multitiered structure was burdensome, requiring more labor to make the mechanism work than ought to be true with a properly functioning advisory arrangement.

After several years of operation it appeared, to the author at least, that the advisory structure should be streamlined, particularly to reestablish its usefulness to the division levels as well as to the administrator.

To work effectively with the scientific community NASA management considered it essential to have scientists both in headquarters and in the centers, center scientists also being experimenters in the program. Under the circumstances outside scientists found themselves both allies to NASA, helping to plan the space science program and writing and speaking in its defense, and competitors to the agency as they vied with scientists in the centers for space science dollars and for rides for their experiments on the satellites and space probes. To avoid such a situation, representatives of the Space Science Board had originally urged NASA to stick to engineering and operations, leaving the science entirely to the universities and other outside research groups. To a number of persons in NASA that proposition appeared too simplistic, and it did not seem that engineers bent primarily on producing and operating space hardware could always be counted on to work effectively with the scientists without some internal scientific guidance. As a consequence the agency proceeded to build up a small collection of scientists in the centers and in headquarters. To avoid severe conflict of interest for center scientists, headquarters was given the task of selecting experiments and experimenters to be supported in the space science program. In theory, at least, the center experimenters would have to compete on equal terms with the outside scientists for support.

Experience suggests that the NASA decision in this matter was the right one. The difficulty between scientists and engineers in the manned spaceflight program during the period of hardware development and test flights showed the importance of having a scientist’s ear within the organization, to which outside scientists could turn. Struggles with Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers made the same point. On a more positive note, scientists within NASA working full-time on the task of furthering space science began to conceive and bring into being highly useful spacecraft-like the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform and the Radio Astronomy Explorer. These were also a boon to the outside scientists, who put their experiments aboard such spacecraft but could not have afforded the time to conceive or create them.

In making the outside scientific community such an important part of the space science program, NASA managers had to recognize certain fundamental facts. For one thing, continuity of support to a researcher was essential. Most investigations in the science program were long term. Most experimenters had in mind an important problem or group of problems to solve-concerning the upper atmosphere, or interplanetary space, or the sun, for example-and this would usually require many years and many sets of measurements. It became incumbent on NASA to provide continuing support to these investigators and their groups in order that they might carry their work to a proper conclusion. Since many of the experimenters were in universities, it was necessary to accommodate funding to the university’s special situation. A sudden withdrawal of NASA dollars from a university research group funded only by NASA could be catastrophic, particularly for students working toward a degree. The step-funding approach devised by NASA’s university office was a highly acceptable way of funding research in the universities, allowing as it did at least two full years to phase down a research program that NASA could no longer support.

Continuity of support to investigators also called for NASA to follow through on productive projects. When the agency had created an especially effective tool-like Ranger or Surveyor-scientists assumed that NASA would make that tool available long enough for a reasonably complete series of investigations. This is, in fact, where NASA had some of its most serious confrontations with scientists. In the scientists’ view Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, and Surveyor were all terminated much too soon, when the investigators still had in mind a long list of important problems on which to use them.

The amortization of an expensive development over a long period of continued use makes good economic sense. The follow-through on the scientific investigations for which the equipment was produced in the first place makes good scientific sense. That was the very reasoning that NASA later applied to the justification of the Space Shuttle.

Related to continuity of support was the scientists preference for smaller spacecraft and projects, a preference that continued in evidence throughout the 1960s. With small spacecraft of relatively short lead-times, experimenters could more easily follow up on new discoveries than they could with large, complicated spacecraft which took many years of preparation and which to it large extent froze an investigation into a specific line for it considerable time. Moreover, large projects-like Apollo and Viking-were very expensive and in times of tight budgets threatened, sometimes actually precluded, smaller projects. Yet some investigations required the more complex, more expensive spacecraft-like planetary landers; and astronomical observatories. When budgets permitted both, the scientific community usually wits glad to have the more versatile spacecraft, as long as support wits also provided for the smaller projects. When both could not be supported, it is safe to say that most space scientists would opt for a varied program of smaller, cheaper projects.

On the whole NASA dealt most effectively with outside scientists in their own universities. There the researchers continued their teaching, producing new talent and drawing many of their students into the space science program. From time to time the agency considered setting up special institutes to draw investigators more closely into the program. But there were difficulties with institutes. An institute was an additional source of overhead and could easily tie up one-half to several million dollars a year. Moreover institutes could create undesirable competition with the universities for top-notch scientists, who might better be left in the educational system to teach the next generation. But there were also advantages, and NASA did set up two institutes. The first, the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Institute for Space Studies in New York City, was a genuine success primarily because of its director, Robert Jastrow. By quickly establishing close working arrangements with nearby universities like Columbia and Princeton, Jastrow drew outstanding doctoral candidates into the institute’s program. In this move he simultaneously removed the element of competition with the universities, replacing it with a mutually profitable partnership. The Lunar Science Institute in Houston was a more difficult proposition. Although regarded as a boon by foreign scientists working with the Apollo program and although useful as an interface between the scientific community and the Johnson Space Center, it is likely that its benefits might have been achieved more cheaply some other way.

Finally, NASA’s ties did not stop at the nation’s borders. The extensive program of international cooperation in space science brought with it numerous relationships with foreign academics of science, research institutions, and individual scientists. The effectiveness of the international science program may be attributed to a few guiding principles established at the start. These were: to engage only in programs of genuine substance and of start. mutual interest, to share (not necessarily equally) in the conduct of the program without an exchange of funds, and to publish the results in the open literature. In a program in which a nation was paying its own way, the cooperating country would take a deeper interest and could take greater pride than in one for which the United States paid all the costs. Cooperation with the Soviet Union was always difficult. Only in the 1970s when the USSR felt it could deal with the United States on more or less equal terms and that it had something substantive to gain-as in the Apollo-Soyuz mission-did the difficulties abate somewhat. In the mid-1970s it remained to see how much more cooperation with the Soviet Union would be possible in the approaching era of space shuttles and orbiting space stations.

THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS AND SPACE SCIENCE

The evolution of the space science program furnished a good example of the scientific process in operation. Out of advancing technology came rockets and spacecraft which, even before they were developed, were envisioned as powerful scientific tools. As soon as large enough rockets were available, they were put to work in high-altitude research. When the space program was formally established, researchers working on problems of the atmosphere and space naturally gravitated to the new tools. The phrase space science came to mean scientific research made possible or significantly aided by rockets and spacecraft.

The rapid growth of research stemmed from the remarkable range of scientific disciplines to which rockets, satellites, and space probes could contribute. Although many space science results would have practical importance in such areas as meteorology, geodesy, aircraft and spacecraft design, communications, navigation, and earth-resource surveys, still the field was largely pure science, pursued primarily to advance man’s knowledge and understanding of his universe. It is pertinent, then, to ask how space science affected science, particularly the disciplines to which it could best contribute.

Particularly noteworthy was the progress made in the earth and planetary sciences. Here the impact of space science was profound, generating a fruitful partnership among astronomers, physicists, and earth scientists. No longer was the geophysicist confined to a study of only one body of the solar system. No longer was the study of the planets solely a venture of the astronomers. The dearth of new data that had led planetary studies into the doldrums and even disrepute among astronomers, gave way to a sudden flood of new information that reawakened the astronomer’s interest. Geophysical, geochemical, and geologic data on the moon and planets that poured in from astronauts and instrumented spacecraft-Explorers, Mariners, Pioneers, Rangers, Surveyors, and Lunar Orbiters-afforded earth scientists the opportunity to begin the serious development of a science of comparative planetology.

Equally exciting was progress in space astronomy, where rockets and satellites made possible the observation of the sun and the cosmos in wavelengths not observable at the ground. Inasmuch as current theories of the origin, evolution, and demise of celestial objects indicated that most of the information on these objects would be manifested in the hitherto hidden wavelengths, rockets and satellites were in a position to make a tremendous contribution to astronomy, particularly in a period when there were many fundamental questions to answer in connection with phenomena such as radio and Seyfert galaxies, galactic nuclei, quasars, pulsars, neutron stars, and black holes in space. The expectations were borne out in the ultraviolet and x-ray measurements of the sun, and in the discovery and investigation of hundreds of x-ray sources in the sky. The solar observations produced a number of surprises, particularly the x-ray pictures showing considerable structure in the solar corona. As for celestial x-ray sources, they introduced a new field of high-energy astronomy which no one doubted would be intimately involved in answering important questions about fundamental processes in the universe.

As for the life sciences, the most significant results came from the manned spaceflight program, from biomedical studies that have not been dealt with in this book. With increasing productivity, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab all contributed to an understanding of the effects of prolonged exposure to the space environment, particularly weightlessness, on human physiology and performance. In contrast, during the 1960s exobiology remained earthbound. No indigenous life was found on the moon, nor was any chemical evolution toward the formation of life found. Even in the mid-1970s, after two Viking landers failed to detect any evidence of life on Mars, the question of life on the Red Planet remained open.

Surveying what was accomplished in space science in its first decade and a half, it is clear that the rocket and spacecraft were revolutionary tools, making possible researches that could not have been carried out without them. Great quantities of valuable data flowed from space-borne instrumentation, and innumerable discoveries were made, greatly extending and enriching scientific paradigms in earth and planetary sciences and in astronomy. In the broadest terms, however, the paradigms of space science in the mid-1970s were compatible with those of the 1950s, in that no change in fundamental physical concepts and laws had been forced by the discoveries. From this point of view, then, the first decade and a half of space science was normal science.

But a more restrictive view is perhaps more appropriate. Within individual disciplines many scientists regarded space science as revolutionary. A case in point was the abandonment of what had previously been accepted as the basic hypothesis of geodesy, and the rise in importance of spherical harmonic techniques in the study of the earth’s gravitational field. There were other minirevolutions. One was from the discovery of the earth’s magnetosphere, not suspected beforehand, and the emergence of a new discipline of magnetospheric physics. Knowledge of the extensive evolution of the lunar surface after its formation produced a revolutionary change in the lunar paradigm. Perhaps, too, the discovery and characterization of celestial x-ray sources, which had been missed in previous astrophysical theory, presaged a revolutionary change in astrophysical paradigms.

FUTURE COURSE

Vannevar Bush characterized science as the "endless frontier.” Science showed space to be another endless frontier. The allure of these two in combination imparted a natural impetus to space science in its early years. Benefiting from the powerful political forces of the Cold War and the concern generated in the United States by the Soviet launching of Sputnik in October 1957, scientists in the United States were given resources by the nation sufficient to tackle an impressive array of problems not previously tractable. By the time of the Apollo missions the number of space scientists around the world had risen into the thousands.

But so vast a subject as science in space and the science of space could hardly be more than touched upon in one or two decades. While magnetospheric physicists might speak of their results in the investigation of Earth’s magnetosphere as comprehensive, not one would think of the subject as closed. There still remained in the early 1970s the problem of understanding the processes and complex interrelationships. Also there were the magnetospheres of the sun and Jupiter, and perhaps of other planets, to investigate, the study of which would inevitably turn attention to the magnetospheres of stars and planets beyond the solar system.

While comparative planetology had quickly revolutionized the earth sciences, expanding their scope from Earth to the solar system, here again the new discipline had hardly reached its adolescence as unmanned spacecraft of the 1970s began their probing of the major planets and their satellites. Other decades would have to pass before comparative planetology could be said to have matured.

Although the failure to find life on Mars in the first Viking missions was disappointing, it seemed clear that interest in exobiology would continue. For one thing, many scientists believed that the processes leading to the formation of life are inexorable, and that there must be innumerable examples of extraterrestrial life to be discovered if only one knew how to find them. This belief would lead to various schemes to communicate by electromagnetic means with living beings beyond the solar system. Within the solar system, even if only Earth had living beings, still the chemical evolution of the other planets and satellites would be important in studying evolutionary steps toward life.

With the discovery of x-ray sources, space science made a unique contribution to the newly emerging field of high-energy astronomy. While some might label the evolution of x-ray astronomy in the 1960s as revolutionary, others would feel that the most significant contributions of space astronomy still lay ahead.

Thus, space science in the 1970s retained a considerable momentum, with the prospect of challenging and important problems to work on for the foreseeable future. For a few years the diminishing urgency of the space program appeared to pose a threat to space science. But, with the decision to proceed with the development of the Space Shuttle, a renewed commitment to space science seemed ensured. It would not be an easy road, and all the signs indicated that in the future the need for specific space projects would be carefully weighed by both administration and Congress. But few doubted that the program, including space science, would continue at some pace. Indeed, there seemed little doubt that at some time men would land on the planets, as they had once landed on the moon.