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Reconstituting the US space programme
Reconstituting the US space programme
1Letter from Daniel Fink to James Fletcher, 14 August 1986. 2Information and quotations related to the Apollo decision are taken from John M. Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1970. 3Vernon Van Dyke, Pride and Power: The Rationale of the Space Program, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 1964, p 137.
86
There has been much attention paid recently to the concern which was expressed articulately by NASA's Advisory Council, 'as to whether N A S A can any longer meet the mandate for national preeminence established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act'. = The issue really needs to be taken back to an even more fundamental question. What is the meaning of the term 'national preeminence' with respect to the space arena in the remainder of this century? Is achieving such preeminence still appropriate as the overriding mandate for the US civilian space programme? One should note, by the way, that the 1958 Space Act does not contain a mandate for national preeminence in space; its demand is for 'preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology' (emphasis added). Being a, not the, leader is rather different from the dictionary meaning of preeminent as 'eminent above or before others; superior; surpassing'. The call for US preeminence in space can be dated not to 1958 but, rather, to President John Kennedy's decision in 1961 that the USA should take 'a clearly leading role in space achievement'. The centrepiece of that decision, of course, was the commitment to send Americans to the Moon before 1970. 2 The memorandum recommending that the President approve an accelerated US space programme aimed at across-the-board preeminence and focused on a manned lunar landing programme was prepared by James Webb and Robert McNamara. It was explicit in its rationale: 'It is man, not merely machines, in space that captures the imagination of the world. All large-scale projects require the mobilization of resources on a national scale. They require the development and successful application of the most advanced technologies. Dramatic achievements in space, therefore, symbolize the technological power and organizing capability of a nation.' Webb and McNamara stressed space preeminence as a symbol of national p o w e r - as a way of showing the rest of the world what the USA could accomplish, if it focused its political will and national capabilities on a particular objective. But playing a 'clearly leading role' in space was also important to national morale. Vernon Van Dyke as long ago as 1964 argued that national pride - 'a need for national achievement and national morale' based on 'gratification stemming from actual or confidently anticipated achievement' - was the basic motivation behind Kennedy's commitment to Apollo. 3 It must be remembered that Apollo was a response to Soviet achievements in space. Nikita Khrushchev and his associates challenged the power and pride of the USA by the way they trumpeted Soviet space successes. The USA accepted that challenge in 1961, and made space achievement a symbolic test of national will and capabilities. By making such a broad national purpose the central theme of US space activities,
SPACE POLICY May 1987
Editorial
4Letter from James Fletcher to Daniel Fink, 26 August 1986.
SPACE POLICY May 1987
Kennedy gave N A S A a mission and a role in US domestic and foreign policy which transcended specific programmes and projects. Twenty-five years later, space achievement still has a strongly symbolic character; to most Americans and their leaders the most important reasons for having a significant space programme are as a source of national pride and as a measure of national capabilities for all to see. This is what the US civilian space programme is about; it is a national security activity in the broadest possible sense of the term. Specific undertakings will have their own justifications, of course, but scientific, technological and economic objectives are of secondary importance when compared to the basic political goal of civilian space activity. Thus some form of preeminence remains the essential objective of a reconstituted US space policy. A number of groups, including the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the National Commission on Space, have suggested that the only way the USA can restore its preeminence in space is to increase NASA's budget by a significant amount. In his response to the NASA Advisory Council, NASA Administrator James Fletcher noted that he had not returned to NASA 'to preside over its decline to second class status in the hierarchy of spacefaring nations.'4 Are things really that bad? Is the only way to restore leadership and vitality to US space efforts to adopt in space what seems to be a standard response to other national problems - throw money at them? Maybe even more basic a question is whether, in the era of large budget deficits and a multiplicity of worthy claimants for public funds, the space programme can expect to achieve the higher priority implied by a significant budget increase. It is not all that difficult to reconstitute a high quality US space effort, given a major infusion of new monies. The harder question is what kind of programme to put together if funding remains at or near current levels. I suggest that the approximately $9 billion now allocated to NASA's space budget, with adjustments for inflation and with modest real growth in the next few years, is all that is likely to be available for civilian space activities in the foreseeable future. Nine billion dollars is a lot of money, particularly if one notes that the US national security budget for space, which should support at least some of a shared technology base for both civil and military applications, is another $15 billion or more. At those budget levels, is it anything except rhetoric to suggest that the US space programme is in danger of falling into 'second class status'? Europe spends over $2 billion on space, when national and the European Space Agency budgets are combined. Japan spends approximately $0.8 billion. Surely the USA ought to be able, with a $9 billion annual budget, to carry out a civilian space programme which is superior to theirs in crucial respects. Certainly the USSR spends somewhat more than the USA in space; that spending is based on a stronger and deeper national commitment to space leadership than has been evident in the USA over the past two decades. But the political payoffs from the US space programme are no longer based on across-the-board competition with the USSR. What does seem required - and it is going to be difficult, given the way the Soviets are currently going about their space effort - is identifying specific, highly visible, politically significant areas of space activity in
87
Editorial
This editorial is a revision of an essay originally prepared for The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, USA.
which the U S A can once again assume a preeminent position, To put together a US space p r o g r a m m e which best serves the country's interests without major budget increases implies hard choices, however. Some p r o g r a m m e s advocated by influential constituencies within the space community will have to be cancelled, or not begun. Institutional capabilities will have to be adjusted to a more narrowly focused effort. There will be losers as well as winners, if the upcoming period of reconstitution is to lead to a civilian space p r o g r a m m e which is truly oriented to national purposes, rather than to more parochial interests. N A S A and its associated scientific and industrial constituencies have really never adjusted to the end of the lunar landing p r o g r a m m e . They view the Apollo era - with its rapid budget buildup and a national mobilization to achieve a clearly defined, high priority objective - as the norm to be anticipated, and everything since then is seen as some form of aberration. They do not accept the reality - that Apollo was the exception, and that the state of affairs since 1972, in which the space p r o g r a m m e does not have highest national priority, is likely to be the rule. If the correct guiding objective is kept in mind - an emphasis on space achievements which symbolize national competence and support national pride and morale - and if the current portfolio of N A S A projects and the institutional base for carrying them out is assessed in terms of contributions to that objective, it is entirely possible to design a civilian space p r o g r a m m e which achieves 'enough' US preeminence. The civilian space p r o g r a m m e has to include a renewed technology base, assured access to space for all purposes, appropriate use of the Space Shuttle, a significant role for humans in space, and a perceived future for space exploration and exciting space science. I think a Space Station with clearly specified functions and broad international involvement is also part of this design. When John Kennedy asked the Congress and the nation to agree that preeminence in space was an appropriate national goal, he also cautioned that there was 'no sense in agreeing, or desiring, that the United States take an affirmative position on outer space unless we are prepared to . . . bear the burdens to make it successful'. That admonition remains valid today. But it is possible to achieve such an affirmative position with more effective resource use and with a better quality space policy than we have had recently. In reconstituting its civilian space p r o g r a m m e , the U S A is deciding, again in Kennedy's words, that 'we go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share'.
John M. Logsdon George Washington University Washington, DC, USA
88
SPACE POLICY May 1987
1Letter from Daniel Fink to James Fletcher, 14 August 1986. 2Information and quotations related to the Apollo decision are taken from John M. Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1970. 3Vernon Van Dyke, Pride and Power: The Rationale of the Space Program, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 1964, p 137.
86
There has been much attention paid recently to the concern which was expressed articulately by NASA's Advisory Council, 'as to whether N A S A can any longer meet the mandate for national preeminence established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act'. = The issue really needs to be taken back to an even more fundamental question. What is the meaning of the term 'national preeminence' with respect to the space arena in the remainder of this century? Is achieving such preeminence still appropriate as the overriding mandate for the US civilian space programme? One should note, by the way, that the 1958 Space Act does not contain a mandate for national preeminence in space; its demand is for 'preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology' (emphasis added). Being a, not the, leader is rather different from the dictionary meaning of preeminent as 'eminent above or before others; superior; surpassing'. The call for US preeminence in space can be dated not to 1958 but, rather, to President John Kennedy's decision in 1961 that the USA should take 'a clearly leading role in space achievement'. The centrepiece of that decision, of course, was the commitment to send Americans to the Moon before 1970. 2 The memorandum recommending that the President approve an accelerated US space programme aimed at across-the-board preeminence and focused on a manned lunar landing programme was prepared by James Webb and Robert McNamara. It was explicit in its rationale: 'It is man, not merely machines, in space that captures the imagination of the world. All large-scale projects require the mobilization of resources on a national scale. They require the development and successful application of the most advanced technologies. Dramatic achievements in space, therefore, symbolize the technological power and organizing capability of a nation.' Webb and McNamara stressed space preeminence as a symbol of national p o w e r - as a way of showing the rest of the world what the USA could accomplish, if it focused its political will and national capabilities on a particular objective. But playing a 'clearly leading role' in space was also important to national morale. Vernon Van Dyke as long ago as 1964 argued that national pride - 'a need for national achievement and national morale' based on 'gratification stemming from actual or confidently anticipated achievement' - was the basic motivation behind Kennedy's commitment to Apollo. 3 It must be remembered that Apollo was a response to Soviet achievements in space. Nikita Khrushchev and his associates challenged the power and pride of the USA by the way they trumpeted Soviet space successes. The USA accepted that challenge in 1961, and made space achievement a symbolic test of national will and capabilities. By making such a broad national purpose the central theme of US space activities,
SPACE POLICY May 1987
Editorial
4Letter from James Fletcher to Daniel Fink, 26 August 1986.
SPACE POLICY May 1987
Kennedy gave N A S A a mission and a role in US domestic and foreign policy which transcended specific programmes and projects. Twenty-five years later, space achievement still has a strongly symbolic character; to most Americans and their leaders the most important reasons for having a significant space programme are as a source of national pride and as a measure of national capabilities for all to see. This is what the US civilian space programme is about; it is a national security activity in the broadest possible sense of the term. Specific undertakings will have their own justifications, of course, but scientific, technological and economic objectives are of secondary importance when compared to the basic political goal of civilian space activity. Thus some form of preeminence remains the essential objective of a reconstituted US space policy. A number of groups, including the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the National Commission on Space, have suggested that the only way the USA can restore its preeminence in space is to increase NASA's budget by a significant amount. In his response to the NASA Advisory Council, NASA Administrator James Fletcher noted that he had not returned to NASA 'to preside over its decline to second class status in the hierarchy of spacefaring nations.'4 Are things really that bad? Is the only way to restore leadership and vitality to US space efforts to adopt in space what seems to be a standard response to other national problems - throw money at them? Maybe even more basic a question is whether, in the era of large budget deficits and a multiplicity of worthy claimants for public funds, the space programme can expect to achieve the higher priority implied by a significant budget increase. It is not all that difficult to reconstitute a high quality US space effort, given a major infusion of new monies. The harder question is what kind of programme to put together if funding remains at or near current levels. I suggest that the approximately $9 billion now allocated to NASA's space budget, with adjustments for inflation and with modest real growth in the next few years, is all that is likely to be available for civilian space activities in the foreseeable future. Nine billion dollars is a lot of money, particularly if one notes that the US national security budget for space, which should support at least some of a shared technology base for both civil and military applications, is another $15 billion or more. At those budget levels, is it anything except rhetoric to suggest that the US space programme is in danger of falling into 'second class status'? Europe spends over $2 billion on space, when national and the European Space Agency budgets are combined. Japan spends approximately $0.8 billion. Surely the USA ought to be able, with a $9 billion annual budget, to carry out a civilian space programme which is superior to theirs in crucial respects. Certainly the USSR spends somewhat more than the USA in space; that spending is based on a stronger and deeper national commitment to space leadership than has been evident in the USA over the past two decades. But the political payoffs from the US space programme are no longer based on across-the-board competition with the USSR. What does seem required - and it is going to be difficult, given the way the Soviets are currently going about their space effort - is identifying specific, highly visible, politically significant areas of space activity in
87
Editorial
This editorial is a revision of an essay originally prepared for The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, USA.
which the U S A can once again assume a preeminent position, To put together a US space p r o g r a m m e which best serves the country's interests without major budget increases implies hard choices, however. Some p r o g r a m m e s advocated by influential constituencies within the space community will have to be cancelled, or not begun. Institutional capabilities will have to be adjusted to a more narrowly focused effort. There will be losers as well as winners, if the upcoming period of reconstitution is to lead to a civilian space p r o g r a m m e which is truly oriented to national purposes, rather than to more parochial interests. N A S A and its associated scientific and industrial constituencies have really never adjusted to the end of the lunar landing p r o g r a m m e . They view the Apollo era - with its rapid budget buildup and a national mobilization to achieve a clearly defined, high priority objective - as the norm to be anticipated, and everything since then is seen as some form of aberration. They do not accept the reality - that Apollo was the exception, and that the state of affairs since 1972, in which the space p r o g r a m m e does not have highest national priority, is likely to be the rule. If the correct guiding objective is kept in mind - an emphasis on space achievements which symbolize national competence and support national pride and morale - and if the current portfolio of N A S A projects and the institutional base for carrying them out is assessed in terms of contributions to that objective, it is entirely possible to design a civilian space p r o g r a m m e which achieves 'enough' US preeminence. The civilian space p r o g r a m m e has to include a renewed technology base, assured access to space for all purposes, appropriate use of the Space Shuttle, a significant role for humans in space, and a perceived future for space exploration and exciting space science. I think a Space Station with clearly specified functions and broad international involvement is also part of this design. When John Kennedy asked the Congress and the nation to agree that preeminence in space was an appropriate national goal, he also cautioned that there was 'no sense in agreeing, or desiring, that the United States take an affirmative position on outer space unless we are prepared to . . . bear the burdens to make it successful'. That admonition remains valid today. But it is possible to achieve such an affirmative position with more effective resource use and with a better quality space policy than we have had recently. In reconstituting its civilian space p r o g r a m m e , the U S A is deciding, again in Kennedy's words, that 'we go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share'.
John M. Logsdon George Washington University Washington, DC, USA
88
SPACE POLICY May 1987