420 HISTORY OF TH1 COMMITTE1 ON SCIENCI AND TECHNOLOGY 



from the conclusions of \ ASA that they fully expected the Soviet 

 I nil >n to go ahead with the mission, a conclusion which Teague even- 

 tually reached himself 



STABILIZING FACTORS 



Bv 1973. NASA no longer had Chairman Miller on whom they 

 could depend for instant support. They now had to cope with a new 

 chairman who was basically sympathetic, but who also wanted an- 

 swers to questions which Congress and the people were asking before 

 he would pledge his support. There were further stabilizing factors: 

 Fuqua, as the new chairman of the Manned Space Flight Subcommittee 

 was equally determined to get on with the program and at the same 

 time get all the questions resolved; former Apollo 13 astronaut 

 Jack Swigert, the new executive director of the committee, proved 

 very effective in advising Chairman Teague on personalized details 

 concerning manned space flight as well as resolving the basic doubts 

 which Teague himself had. 



On September 12, 1973, Fuqua asked Dale Myers, NASA's Associ- 

 ate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, to supply answers to 

 about 20 questions concerning what now began to be called "ASTP" 

 (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project). His letter to Myers stated: 



After discussing the ASTP program with Chairman Teague, we feel it is important 

 to review not only the current status of the program, but also more particularly the 

 experimental program which is planned for the flight. In a previous letter to Dr. 

 Fletcher, Chairman Teague has expressed his concern that the experiments carried 

 should he able to justify this mission on its own in the event a rendezvous and docking 

 is not possible for any reason. In that regard, I would hope that you would be prepared 

 to review in depth how this might be accomplished. 



An executive session of the Manned Space Flight Subcommittee was 

 scheduled for October 2, and for the briefing NASA sent Dr. George M. 

 Low, Program Director (Navy captain) Chester Lee, plus astronaut 

 Gene Cernan, recently named as ASTP Assistant Project Technical 

 Director. 



During the briefing, Wydler and Gunter both raised questions 

 about the extent of cooperation with the Russians: 



Mr. Wydler Mr. Chairman, if I could just ask you to try to get some perspective 

 on this problem you are having of getting the Soviet Union to cooperate. If you 

 were to s.iv full cooperation would be a hundred percent, what percentage of 

 cooperation do you feel that you are getting? 



Captain Lee. That is pretty hard to quantify. 



Mr. Wydler. 99 percent? 50 percent? Some kind of a general 



Captain Lee. In the 90's. 



