246 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



OTHER PROJECTS IN SPACE SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS 



In addition to the programs discussed above, the Karth subcom- 

 mittee dealt with a myriad of subject-matter issues during the 1960's. 

 The subcommittee generally supported, but rigorously examined and 

 exercised careful oversight over the following programs: 



Observatories — astronomical, solar and geophysical. 



Launch vehjcle procurement (Scout, Delta, Atlas-Agena, Thor-Agena, and Atlas- 

 Centaur). 



Explorers — small satellites for Earth, solar and interplanetary scientific ex- 

 periments. 



Sounding rockets and balloons — for vertical soundings of the atmosphere and 

 ionosphere. 



Geodetic satellites — launching and procurement of data from GEOS class satel- 

 lites for geophysics and oceanography. 



Biosatellites — spacecraft with recoverable capsules, to investigate biological 

 effects of weightlessness and cosmic radiation on small animals and primates, as well 

 as plants; also ground-based research in bioscience, and search for extraterrestrial 

 life. 



SOLIDS VERSUS LIQUIDS 



Throughout the decade of the 1960's, a majority of the committee 

 repeatedly insisted that NASA was not devoting enough effort or 

 resources toward developing a solid rocket motor. Aerospace con- 

 tractors like Thiokol and Aerojet General pressed their claims on 

 behalf of solids. The committee was not critical of NASA's major 

 decision to go for the use of liquids, but emphasized that NASA was 

 overlooking a good bet by not pushing research and development of 

 solid propellants as a parallel, but modestly funded, course of action. 

 The advocates of a modest level of support for solid boosters generally 

 had a majority on the committee, but they ran into a stone wall of 

 opposition in the top management of NASA. The all-out liquid pro- 

 pellant advocates on the committee did not argue as vociferously; they 

 simply didn't have to. They knew that time and NASA were on their 

 side. 



The battle over use of solids was a classic illustration of how 

 NASA used the tactics of divide and conquer to frustrate the will of a 

 majority of the House committee. There were two important keys to 

 the manner in which liquids won the long battle and remained supreme 

 in the Apollo program; first, the Senate Committee on Aeronautical 

 and Space Sciences was never as enthusiastic in their support for solids 

 as was the House committee; second, Dr. Wernher von Braun, the 

 premier rocket genius of the space program, was also the No. 1 cheer- 

 leader for liquid propellants. After all, the V-2's on which von Braun 

 had worked so successfully at Peenemunde were fueled by liquid oxygen 

 and alcohol. And the first rocket which was fired in 1926 by Dr. 



