282 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON S( II \< E AND TECHNOLOGY 



equally upscr, and the two fired off a 3-page telegram to Dr. Fletcher 

 which really sizzled: 



npletely disagree with your view that public interest is waning in our 

 national space program. 41 million people in the United States in the last year have 

 1 at the lunar rock samples that have been returned from the Moon. Another 

 2 million have visited the facilities oi t Ik National Aeronautics and Space Adminis- 

 tration across the I states. 14 million people alone viewed lunar samples ar 

 Expo '70 m Osaka, Japan : * * The largest number of visitors in 1970 were at two 

 of the NASA Centers most closely associated with manned space flight. Well over 

 one million people visited the Manned Spacecraft (enter in Houston, Texas At 

 the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, approximately 1,200,000 visitors toured the 

 Center because of their interest in our national space program. I can personally attest 

 to the fact that the \pollo 14 launch attracted more visitors to the Cape Kennedy 

 area than ever before. * * * 



I hope this will help you recognize that there is great support on the part of the 

 people of the United States in the manned space flight program and the NASA pro- 

 gram in total. It seems to me that the most important job of the new Administration 

 of NASA is to harness (his grass roots support and to encourage a similar enthusiasm 

 within the executive and legislative branches tor our national space program. I 

 regret that you come to a very positive agency with negative statements. 



As Dr. Fletcher correctly notes today, the real waning of interest 

 took place several years prior to 1971 with the escalation of the war 

 in Vietnam and after the first landing on the Moon. The telegram itself 

 stirred Dr. Fletcher to pay a personal visit to Teague. There Teague 

 reiterated what he had told Dr. Mueller (see page 166), underlining 

 the fact that the committee and Teague personally would back him 

 up as long as he fought for the program. 



The impulsive telegram did not constitute Teague's finest hour. 

 Despite the examples he cited, any objective observer pretty well had 

 to conclude that interest in and support for the space program had 

 certainly declined since the glory days of the 1960's when Congress 

 and the Nation were solidly and enthusiastically behind the Apollo 

 program. As a matter of fact, Teague's own Subcommittee on Over- 

 sight, in a December 10, 1970 report less than three months prior to 

 the chiding of Dr. Fletcher included this sentence in its Foreword: 



And despite truly remarkable successes, public enthusiasm for the NASA pro- 

 gram seems to have waned. 



One iA Teague's best friends in the House, Representative Boh 

 Casey oi Houston, lex., who was on the Science and .Astronautics 

 Committee from 1961 to 1965 before moving to the Appropriations 

 Committee, brought no argument or response from 'league when he 

 made this statement during House debate on June 3, 1971: 



Mr. Chairman, 1 want to state that in these days, when the interest ol the 

 public is waning in the space program, and when many people teel that we have 



