CHAPTER VIII 



Decision on the Space Shuttle 



As the 1970's dawned, it was the worst of times for the space 

 program. 



The high drama of the first landing on the Moon was over. The 

 players and stagehands stood around waiting for more curtain calls, 

 but the audience drifted away. Five more successful Apollo flights to 

 the Moon brought back valuable data far beyond the original expec- 

 tations of the scientific community. But to many voters and taxpayers 

 they were anticlimactic. The Nation sweated out the safe return of 

 the Apollo 13 astronauts after an oxygen tank ruptured and aborted 

 their mission, yet the brief and emotional concentration on the acci- 

 dent in space did not rally broad-based national support for expansion 

 of the space program. 



The bloody carnage in Vietnam, the plight of the cities, the revolt 

 on the campuses, the monetary woes of budget deficits and inflation, 

 plus a widespread determination to reorder priorities pushed the 

 manned space effort lower in national support. 



SHOULD WE LAND ON MARS? 



Ignoring the storm signals, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew tried 

 to copy what President Kennedy had accomplished in 1961. In a 

 nationwide television interview at Cape Kennedy just before the 

 launch of Apollo 11 to the Moon, Agnew called for "a manned 

 flight to Mars by the end of this century." Unlike the enthusiastic 

 response to the Moon goal by the Committee on Science and Astro- 

 nautics in 1961, the idea of a Mars mission was greeted by a cold 

 shoulder in Congress. 



Chairman Miller, in an address to the House on August 11, 1969, 

 bluntly stated: "I do not at this time wish to commit ourselves to a 

 specific time period for setting sail for Mars." Teague, as Chairman 

 of the Manned Space Flight Subcommittee, also shied away from 

 supporting a manned flight to Mars. When Vice President Agnew, as 

 Chairman of a Presidentially appointed Space Task Group charged 



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