26 



In 1969, major additions were made to the Deep Space Network 

 tracking and data facilities in Australia and Spain. In the early 

 1970s, NASA's attention turned to development of the Skylab space 

 station which was launched in 1973 and hosted three crews between 

 1973 and 1974. In 1972, President Nixon approved the space shuttle 

 program, and the first shuttle flight was made in 1981. Currently, 

 NASA is designing a permanent space station to begin operations in 

 the early 1990s in accordance with President Reagan's 1984 State of 

 the Union address in which he directed NASA to develop a permanent 

 manned presence in space within a decade. 



During 1977-1981, NASA constructed the National Transonic 

 Facility in Langley, Virginia and modified the 40x80 Foot Subsonic 

 Wind Tunnel at Ames, California. These latter facilities directly 

 support NASA's aeronautical research program and are discussed in 

 chapter VIII. 



Most of NASA's budget is not for science per se; rather, it is 

 for science infrastructure, as the term is used here, and for appli- 

 cations. Table 7 indicates that space science has accounted for 

 about 10 to 20 percent of the total NASA budget since 1960. Because 

 space big science is only part of total space science, these figures 

 represent the upper limits of NASA's budgets which were devoted to 

 big science^ during this period. 



B. l^ASA BIG SCIENCE 



The NASA big science program encompasses three major areas: 

 physics and astronomy, planetary probes, and Earth science. These 

 three categories include programs begun since 1959, both operational 

 and defunct, ongoing operations as well as launches, and programs 

 which are under development. 



The programs not considered to be "big science" for the pur- 

 pose of this report, which does not in any way detract from their 

 importance to the overall NASA program, include space applications 

 projects (including weather, communications, and land and ocean re- 

 mote sensing) and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and space 

 shuttle missions. Although very important scientific work was done 

 on many of these missions, they are outside the scope of the big 

 science perspective of this report. Also many programs which cur- 

 rently are in the planning stages, such as the International Solar 

 Terrestrial Physics Program (ISTP), are not included because they 

 may not have specific launch dates or because only "planning" fund- 

 ing, and not "development" funding, has been provided. Since these 

 programs may be terminated for any reason without ever having demon- 

 strated a big science purpose, they are not included here. Finally, 

 some missions, such as the Solar Mesosphere Explorer, did not meet 

 the minimum $25 million criterion. 



The United States has actively engaged in international coopera- 

 tion in space since the earliest days of NASA. Section 205 of the 

 National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 provides for the conduct 

 of international cooperative programs and, since then, NASA estimates 



