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HISTORY OF THE COMMITT1 I <)\ S( II NCF AND TECHNOLOGY 



The fight over these two issues is detailed in the next chapter. Among 

 other items of opposition, the six members also attacked both lack of 

 committee staff and lack of a minority staff. Their additional views 

 pointed out that NASA had the fourth largest budget of any Govern- 

 ment agency, "yet the Science and Astronautics Committee, with the 

 task of overseeing the operations of NASA, has but 10 professional staff 

 members, the smallest staff in Congress. * * * This situation con- 

 stitutes a weakness in the system of checks and balances. Here is an 

 instance where the legislative branch, because of inadequate staff, is 

 unable to keep watch on a huge executive agency." 



In pleading for specific staff assigned to minority, the six members 

 noted that "It is absolutely vital that all staff members are reasonably 

 available to all the minority members of the committee. The present 

 staff is overburdened with the result that it is difficult for them to be of 

 assistance to minority Members." Representative James G. Fulton 

 (Republican of Pennsylvania) joined in the plea for a special staff 

 assigned to the minority, a reform which was resisted for many years 

 by the committee majority. 



As the leadoff speaker to open the critical debate on the NASA 

 authorization bill, on August 1, 1963, Teague brought models of the 

 Saturn boosters and spacecraft onto the House floor. He refuted the 

 arguments that we were just going to the Moon to collect some rocks 

 and lunar soil. He pointed out: 



I do not favor the program because it is a glamorous technological exercise, or 

 simply because it would flatter our vanity to beat the Russians at the space game. There 

 would be no excuse whatsoever for such a frivolous expenditure of the taxpayers' 

 money. 



No, Mr. Speaker, I am heartily and completely in favor of this program because it 

 is an essential part — but only one part — of our entire space program. 



Because the idea of putting human beings on the Moon is so glamorous, too 

 many people think of it as an entire program in itself. That is wrong. Our goal is to be 

 first in every area of space research, development, and exploration. Our goal is to be the 

 leader in space, just as we always have on land, in the air, and on and under the sea.* * * 



There is a further reason why Moon exploration is so important to us. In making 

 the prodigious effort to put a man on the Moon, we are going to have to move for- 

 ward dramatically in many important fields: science, engineering, industrial develop- 

 ment, design, mathematics, biology — the whole spectrum of scientific and tech- 

 nological accomplishment. 



Teague also stressed the military aspects of space, and the danger of 

 yielding the mastery of space to the Soviet Union. He then reviewed the 

 practical achievements and benefits which already constituted a spinoff 

 from space spending in the areas of medicine, new fabrics, new metals 

 and alloys, and the whole field of miniaturization as well as the devel- 

 opment of computer technology. Commencing in I960, the Science 



