DECISION ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE 



COMMITTEE REACTION TO THE SPACE SHUTTLE 



271 



Powerful support for the Space Shuttle came from Chairman Miller, 

 Manned Space Flight Subcommittee Chairman Teague, Ranking 

 Republican Member Fulton, as well as articulate senior members such 

 as Waggonner, Fuqua, and Roudebush. The opposition was led by 

 Karth, the third-ranked member of the committee, who was supported 

 by Hechler, the fourth-ranked member, as well as Mosher and Pelly, 

 who ranked second and fifth on the Republican side. 



Chairman Miller may have unwittingly added some fuel to the 

 flames of opposition within his own committee by the fashion he 

 structured the 1970 committee hearings on the NASA authorization. 

 In a move which harked back to the days when Chairman Overton 

 Brooks centralized power in the full committee at the expense of the 

 subcommittees, Chairman Miller dispatched a memorandum on 

 February 11, 1970, announcing his intention of holding all NASA 

 authorization hearings in 1970 within the full committee. This con- 

 trasted sharply with the practice in other years when the subcommit- 

 tees had an opportunity to probe more deeply into NASA's projected 

 program through more detailed public hearings. 



Chairman Miller made one compromise toward subcommittee 

 delegation in his memorandum: 



It is my intention, this year, to take all testimony before the full committee, 

 and thereafter have the subcommittees mark up the bill and make recommendations 

 to the full committee. 



When he opened the public hearings on February 17, 1970, Chair- 

 man Miller made another pointed observation which was received by 

 some committee members in a quiet spirit of resistance: 



I hope we will be able to accomplish this matter in two weeks. I will ask that 

 your question^ be short and to the point because a number of the questions which arc 

 posed to the witnesses can be answered by reading the backup books which have been 

 sent to your offices. As I indicated in my memorandum, when we have conducted 

 these hearings, the bill will be sent to the subcommittees for markup. I will ask the 

 subcommittees to report back to the full committee within three days with their 

 recommendations. 



Subsequently, a bruising battle occurred within the committee 

 on whether to support the Space Shuttle, which rapidly developed 

 as the centerpiece of NASA's program for the 1970's. Added to this 

 fight was a projection of the furor arising throughout the Nation over 

 the issue of whether manned space flight deserved so large a slice of the 

 national budget pie. Even though the budget presented for NASA in 



