296 



HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



Florida Future Farmers of America was a farmer by both trade and 

 training, and it would have been natural for him to be assigned to 

 the House Committee on Agriculture, but another Floridian, Repre- 

 sentative D. B. " Billv" Matthews, already occupied a siot on that com- 

 mittee. Up to 1963, Florida had never had a member on the Science 

 and Astronautics Committee, and in that year both parties corrected 

 the oversight by assigning Republican Edward J. Gurney and Democrat 

 Fuqua to the Science Committee. 



Fuqua's district includes the University of Florida, Florida State 

 University and Florida A. & M. University, as well as five community 

 colleges. The I960 census had resulted in the creation of his district — 

 which at first included 13 counties sprawled across the middle of 

 Florida's panhandle. Another redisricting in 1966 spelled danger for 

 Fuqua, pitting him against the popular veteran Congressman Mat- 

 thews. The two Democratic incumbents fought it out and Fuqua sur- 

 vived the biggest political challenge of his career. 



On the Science Committee, Fuqua rose through the ranks and in 

 1971 was named the first chairman of the new Subcommittee on In- 

 ternational Cooperation in Science and Space. In January , 1972, he moved 

 up to take over the chairmanship of the important Subcommittee on 

 NASA Oversight of which Teague himself had been the first chairman . 



As Chairman of the Manned Space Flight Subcommittee, Fuqua 

 presided over the big development decisions relating to NASA's 

 Space Shuttle, the final phases of the manned orbiting Skylab, and 

 the successful Apollo-Soyuz link-up in space between American 

 astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts. The Manned Space Flight Sub- 

 committee merged with and was renamed the Subcommittee on Space 

 Science and Applications after the reorganization and expansion of 

 the full committee's jurisdiction in 1975- Fuqua then chaired in the 

 following years not only the further development of the Shuttle, 

 but also all other activities of the National Aeronautics and Space 

 Administration with the exception of aeronautics. 



OVERSIGHT ON THE SHUTTLE PROGRAM 



In its oversight activities, the committee closelv followed NASA's 

 procedures throughout the Shuttle program, with emphasis on safety, 

 scheduling, costs, manpower, facilities, and reliability. As initially 

 planned, the Shuttle was to cost $515 billion in 1971, at which time the 

 first manned orbital flight was scheduled for 1978. At the committee 

 review on October 18, 1979, NASA indicated that the cost would 

 probably amount to 20 percent over the estimate in 1971 dollars, while 

 the launching of the first manned orbital flight was scheduled by the 

 middle of 1980. 



