64 HISTORY OF THF COMMITTEE ON S( IEN< I AND TECHNOLOGY 



If there were one persistent note which the committee repeatedly 

 sounded in 1959 and 1960, it was the need for a greater sense of urgency. 

 Officialh .NASA drew back from an early and firm commitment. When 

 Richard E. Horner, Associate Administrator of NASA, appeared before 

 the Science and Astronautics Committee on January 28, I960, his 

 official view of the manned Moon flight timetable was very modest: 



It appears to he clear, from a careful analysis of launch vehicle requirements 

 is we now understand them, and recognizing the need for information yet to be 

 developed, that a manned landing on the Moon will tall in the time period beyond 

 1970. 



This timetable was not good enough for the Science and Astro- 

 nautics Committee. On December 30 and 31, 1959, two of the most 

 articulate committee supporters of the manned space flight program, 

 Representatives Olin E. Teague ol Texas and Emilio Q. Daddario of 

 Connecticut and staff visited several space industries, including Chance 

 Vought Corp. On that occasion and subsequently, Vought Astro- 

 nautics, a division of Chance Vought, made a presentation to the 

 committee and staff which they contended "could place a manned 

 expedition upon the Moon in 8 years, by 1968, if the effort were 

 begun immediately." 



KEITH GLENNAN 



Dr. T. Keith Glennan, the first NASA Administrator, was the 

 sparkplug in pushing the first manned flight program — Project Mer- 

 cury— and toward that end he had the fullest support of President 

 Eisenhower. "It would be no exaggeration to say that the immediate 

 focus of the U.S. space program is upon this project," Glennan told 

 Congress early in I960. But Glennan had a strikingly unemotional 

 attitude toward the lunar program which contrasted sharplv with his 

 successor, James E. Webb, and repeatedly caused clashes with the Com- 

 mittee on Science and Astronautics. Although the committee respected 

 Glennan 's professional knowledge and general administrative abilities, 

 they felt impelled to prod, push, and occasionally berate Glennan for 

 his somewhat casual attitude toward the speed of the space program. 



A clue as to Glennan's inner feelings is contained in a private 

 memoir he wrote for his family, quoted by Presidential Science Adviser 

 James R. Killian, Jr., which confesses: 



I had taken no more than casual interest in the efforts of this Nation to develop 

 a space program following the successful orbiting of Sputnik I by the Russians on 

 October 4, 1957. 



Killian himself was somewhat blunter in his own attitude: "I 

 would be less than candid about the role I played if I did not make 

 clear my lack of enthusiasm for some of our man-in-space projects and 

 for the manned lunar program." Like a good soldier, Glennan was 



