]qg HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



Marshall Space Flight Center. Down at Huntsville, the von Braun 

 team had been concentrating its single-minded effort toward Project 

 Apollo and the development of Saturn. It was evident that insufficient 

 technical and managerial talent was being devoted to Centaur, as 

 proven by the Karth subcommittee investigation. Accordingly, once 

 the Karth subcommittee had made its recommendations, the manage- 

 ment and supervision of the Centaur program were transferred from 

 Huntsville and placed under the Lewis Research Center. 



The Karth subcommittee hearings and report on Centaur were 

 tough in their criticisms. Yet the effect was good. As Karth reported 

 to his colleagues in executive session: "I had people from NASA come 

 up to me after the hearings had been concluded and say 'We think this 

 is one of the best things that has ever happened.' 



In addition to the Centaur investigation, the Karth subcommittee 

 also held hearings on and issued a useful report on Project Anna, a 

 geodetic satellite operated by the Department of Defense. Dr. Fred L. 

 Whipple had recommended to the committee's Panel on Science and 

 Technology that it did not make sense to classify Project Anna. Acting 

 with remarkable and more than coincidental speed, the Department of 

 Defense suddenly declassified Project Anna after the hearings were 

 announced but just before they got under way. This was perhaps the 

 greatest example in legislative history of anticipatory oversight. 



The Karth subcommittee also exerted its influence over policy in 

 the annual authorization hearings. In 1962, the subcommittee author- 

 ized funds for the instrumented lunar programs Ranger and Surveyor, 

 but cut out $10,400,000 requested for an advanced, unmanned lunar 

 exploration program termed Prospector. The committee reasoned that 

 Ranger and Surveyor could gain all the necessary knowledge required 

 for manned lunar landings and by the time Prospector was scheduled 

 men would already be on the Moon and there was little that Prospector 

 could do that men couldn't do themselves. The committee judgment 

 was confirmed by subsequent events. 



Karth's training as a labor negotiator, his exposure to engineering 

 at the University of Nebraska, and his determination to get the facts 

 rather than accept the fluff all made him an excellent subcommittee 

 chairman. He had an imagery of expression which frequently spiced 

 up a protracted hearing as, for example, he characterized the super- 

 vision of the Centaur as "Just like that prehistoric animal named 

 brontosaurus who grew faster than his brain, and somebody nibbled 

 off his tail and his defenses were down and despite his size he was 

 gentle as a mouse." 



Karth also had a manner of cajoling certain witnesses, and care- 

 fully measuring their reactions so he could psychoanalyze where his 



