INTERNATIONAL S< IENTIFIC COOPERATION, 1959-79 421 



SAFETY AND MONEY LIMITATIONS 



In response to questions by Mosher, NASA emphasized that 

 considerations of safety and limitations of money made it difficult to 

 stage many additional experiments. Winn then raised this question: 



It tor some political reason that we don't have the joint docking, what do we 

 tell the American people we are going to do? 



But Low was confident: 



We don't expect it to happen. * * * It we are on the pad and ready to launch 

 in July of 1975, and then for some reason the Russian portion of the mission is i.m- 

 celled * * I think we would want to discuss this with the Congress and within 

 the Executive Department before we decided to fly. 



Teague was still disturbed: 



It seems to me unbelievable we would plan this flight and not have an alternate 

 plan. 



Dr. Low then suggested: 



The alternate plan first of all is to fly the experiments only. * * * The second 

 alternative is to go back and revisit Skylab. 



Swigert returned to the text of Teague's May 1 letter to Dr. 

 Fletcher: 



If I read the Chairman's letter, would the 18 experiments justify the cost of this 

 flight without the rendezvous, can you answer that yes or no? 



Dr. Low responded : 



I can answer it very clearly. Yes and no. [Laughter.] 



Teague was exasperated that NASA contended they had only 

 $10 million of the $250 million set aside for experiments on ASTP: 



We went along here so damn short of money that we were just crying our eyes 

 out. We couldn't get more. And all of a sudden this proposal comes up. And there sure 

 was some money that came from somewhere to start this project. 



And it just seems to me that $10 million is kind of a drop in the bucket compared 

 to the whole thing. 



TEAGUE PRESSES FOR MORE EXPERIMENTS 



Teague stuck to his guns. In an October 15, 1973 letter to Dr. 

 Fletcher, he reiterated his stand: 



I feel strongly that the American public will not be well served if, because of a 

 restricted experiment budget, the ASTP mission takes place without full utilization 

 of the payload capabilitv available. * * * Within your current budget, the $250 

 million for total program with only $10 million for experiments is certainly small for 

 the experimental portion of the program. I am compelled to believe that within total 

 funding it should be possible to increase the experimental payload to the maximum 

 extent possible. 



