nil [SION ON I Ml SPACE Sill i i l I 



289 



increasing the cost per pound, and u almost in a sense destroys the sales pitch that 

 we originally conceived for the craft. 



Not long after the decision was announced on the new configura- 

 tion of the Shuttle, Fuqua recalled: 



We had just finished defending one configuration on the Floor and then suddenly 

 they announced they were going to change it. Tiger Teague got the top brass from 

 \ \s\ over here and raked them over the coals. We all wanted to know how long 

 they had known they were going to change and how much of this kind of thing was 

 going on behind the committee's back. They explained the reasons behind the changes, 

 and everybody calmed down. 



After that, though events moved pretty fast, they did try to keep us reasonably 

 well informed. 



For Teague, the decision was still the kind of small solution he 

 wondered was really sound. At the public hearing on February 17, 

 1972, Teague pondered aloud whether 4 or 5 years hence "we will not 

 look back and be sorry we did not have a more aggressive program". 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1972 



Science Committee members who were disenchanted with Presi- 

 dent Nixon's "small solution" position on the Space Shuttle were 

 horrified with the outright opposition by the initial 1972 Democratic 

 National ticket — Senators George S. McGovern and Thomas F. 

 Eagleton — as well as Mrs. Jean Westwood, the Chairman of the Demo- 

 cratic National Committee. Two weeks after President Nixon's decision 

 was announced on January 5, Senator McGovern told a Florida cam- 

 paign audience that if he were President he "wouldn't manufacture a 

 foolish project like the Space Shuttle to provide jobs" and that the 

 Shuttle was "an enormous waste of money". He labelled it "Nixon's 

 boondoggle" and even attacked it in speeches to aerospace workers. 

 Senator Eagleton, before his withdrawal from the Democratic ticket, 

 indicated that the Shuttle "will deprive important social programs of 

 much-needed revenue". 



When NASA awarded a $2.6 billion Shuttle contract to the North 

 American Rockwell Corporation, Democratic Chairman Westwood 

 charged it was— 



the latest, and perhaps most blatant, example of President Nixon's calculated use of 

 the American taxpayers' dollars for his own reelection purposes. 



Teague publicly took exception to Mrs. Westwood's statement, 

 and dismissed her as "uninformed on the space program," which was 

 for Teague an understatement. Fuqua said he— 



deeply regretted that McGovern and Eagleton have taken such strong stands because, 

 at least from Sen. McGovern's statements during the Florida primary, it was quite 



