SPACE SCIENC I . APPLICATIONS, AND ADVANCED RESEARCH, 1963-69 231 



Six buildings, representing a $30 million investment, were in the 

 final phases of construction at ERC. Equipment worth over $20 mil- 

 lion was available for distribution within NASA or disposition. Over 

 800 personnel were suddenly threatened with job losses. In March 

 1970, the ERC was transferred to the Department of Transportation 

 and renamed the "Transportation Systems Center," with NASA getting 

 credit for the unexpended funds in their budget. 



RANGER 



Project Ranger, developed by Dr. William H. Pickering's Jet 

 Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, was 

 designed to crash land on the Moon in the early 1960's to obtain close- 

 up, high resolution television pictures of the Moon's surface during 

 final approach. 



Between 1961 and 1964, there w : ere six failures of the Ranger to 

 perform its mission. After the sixth failure on Feburary 2, 1964, NASA 

 established a special review board headed by Earl D. Hilburn, 

 NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Industry Affairs, to 

 report on the reasons for the failure and to make recommendations. 

 In a letter to Chairman Miller on March 31, 1964, Webb reported that 

 the Hilburn review board had found that the most likely cause of the 

 failure was "an unscheduled turn-on of the television equipment for 

 67 seconds" when the booster engine was jettisoned just two minutes 

 after launch. Webb also told Miller that the Hilburn report was clas- 

 sified for military security reasons and because it was an "internal 

 investigatory document" and "since it does not represent NASA's 

 complete judgment and final implementing plans." 



Chairman Miller asked the Oversight Subcommittee to conduct an 

 investigation of the Ranger failures. Since the Karth subcommittee had 

 had responsibility for funding Project Ranger, Miller named Karth as 

 acting chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee to conduct the 

 hearings. Teague specifically recommended this move. 



The membership of the Oversight Subcommittee which con- 

 ducted the investigation of Ranger included the following members: 



Democrats Republicans 



Joseph E. Karth, Minnesota, ActingChair- James G. Fulton, Pennsylvania 



man R. Walter Riehlman, New York 



Ken Hechler, West Virginia Richard L. Roudebush, Indiana 



Emilio Q. Daddario, Connecticut Alphonzo Bell, California 



Bob Casey, Texas Edward J. Gurney, Florida 



Joe D. Waggonner, Jr., Louisiana 

 Edward J. Patten, New Jersey 

 Don Fuqua, Florida 



