Abstract
As Reagan took office, the first flight of the space shuttle was approaching. That April 1981 flight was hailed as an indication of a resurgence in American greatness. During 1981, the Reagan administration, after a brief debate, endorsed the already-existing policy that the space shuttle as it became operational would launch all U.S. government payloads and would seek commercial and foreign users of its capabilities. Other NASA activities, particularly robotic exploration of the solar system, had their budgets reduced and even threatened with termination.
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Notes
- 1.
Letter from Terrance Finn to Rep. David Stockman, October 15, 1980, Folder 2222, NHRC; Aerospace Daily, January 22, 1981, 100; “Paying for the Future,” The Washington Star, February 2, 1981.
- 2.
David Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 81ff, 105.
- 3.
AWST, February 9, 1981, 9; Craig Covault, “NASA Assesses Planning with Preliminary Budget,” AWST, February 16, 1981, 19–21; Bruce Smith, “NASA Funding Cuts Could Lead to Science Data Cuts,” AWST, February 16, 1981, 22.
- 4.
“Planet Exploration Dwindles in ‘Hit List’ on NASA Budget,” WP, February 5, 1981, A7; “Spacelab, Solar-Polar Curtailed,” AWST, February 23, 1981, 18–19.
- 5.
Ronald Reagan: “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery,” February 18, 1981. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=43425.
- 6.
“NASA Budget Reduced to $6.1 Billion,” AWST, March 16, 1981, 24; Stockman, The Triumph of Politics, 151.
- 7.
What follows is drawn from Joan Johnson-Freese, “Canceling the US Solar-Polar Spacecraft: Implications for International Cooperation in Space,” Space Policy, February 1987, 24–37.
- 8.
John M. Logsdon, “U.S.-European Cooperation in Space Science: A 25-Year Perspective,” Science, January 6, 1984.
- 9.
Most of this discussion is extracted from John M. Logsdon, “Missing Halley’s Comet: The Politics of Big Science,” Isis, Volume 80, No. 2, June 1989, 254–280.
- 10.
Carl Sagan to members of The Planetary Society, August 1, 1981, NHRC.
- 11.
Letters from George A. Keyworth to James Beggs, August 5, 1981 and James Beggs to George Keyworth, August 17, 1981, NHRC. Thomas O’Toole, “U.S. May Send Robot Spacecraft for Sample of Halley’s Comet,” WP, August 15, 1981, A3.
- 12.
Letter from James Beggs to George Keyworth, September 16, 1981, NHRC.
- 13.
Letter from Andrew Stofan to Bruce Murray, September 30, 1981, NHRC.
- 14.
For a more detailed account of this disagreement, see the author’s essay with the same title in Roger D. Launius, ed., Exploring the Solar System: The History and Science of Planetary Exploration (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 45–76.
- 15.
Letter from James Beggs to David Stockman transmitting NASA’s FY 1983 budget recommendations, September 15, 1981, NHRC.
- 16.
Letter from James Beggs to David Stockman, September 29, 1981, NHRC.
- 17.
AWST, June 24, 1981, 56; interview with James Beggs, February 2, 1989.
- 18.
These figures are drawn from the material prepared by NASA to appeal the OMB allocations and transmitted to the White House by a letter from NASA Comptroller C. Thomas Newman to Craig Fuller, December 5, 1981, NHRC.
- 19.
Letter from James Beggs to David Stockman, November 30, 1981, NHRC.
- 20.
Philip J. Hilts, “Science Board to Advise Presidential Proposal,” WP, December 2, 1981; George Keyworth, paper prepared for Budget Review Board, “Selected White House Views. Department: NASA. Issue: Planetary Exploration,” December 8, 1981, NHRC; interviews with Jay Keyworth, April 4, 1989, and January 25, 2017.
- 21.
Science News, October 24, 1981, p. 260.
- 22.
Letter from David Morrison and Carl Sagan to Edwin Meese, October 14, 1981, NHRC.
- 23.
Interview with Lou Friedman, May 17, 1988.
- 24.
Letter from Mrs. William W. Scranton to Marvin Goldberger, December 6, 1981, NHRC; letter from Robert Finch to George Bush, December 4, 1981 and memorandum from Craig Fuller to Ed Meese, December 8, 1981, both in Box 6, Outer Space Files, RRL.
- 25.
Letter from A.O. Beckman to Edwin Meese, October 5, 1981; draft of letter from A.O. Beckman to Edwin Meese, December 10, 1981, prepared by JPL and provided to Beckman by Bruce Murray, NHRC.
- 26.
The results of Goldberger’s trip are summarized in a letter from Bruce Murray to Arnold Beckman, December 10, 1981, NHRC.
- 27.
Letter from Howard Baker to the President, December 9, 1981, NHRC; Stockman, The Triumph of Politics, 13.
- 28.
Budget Review Board Decisions, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, December 11, 1981, NHRC. The date on this document places the date of the Budget Review Board meeting in question. Originally scheduled for December 9, most evidence suggests it was postponed until December 15. This means either that the date on this document is incorrect or that, after Baker’s intervention with the president, the Budget Review Board met on the NASA appeal on December 11.
- 29.
Interview with Craig Fuller, December 14, 2016; memorandum from Danny Boggs to Ed Gray, “Presidential Participation in First Flight of Columbia,” February 24, 1981, Box 82, Papers of Danny Boggs; Memorandum from Richard Allen to James Baker, “Space Shuttle Launch,” March 2, 1981, Box 7, Papers of Michael Baroody, both in RRL.
- 30.
Memorandum from Richard Allen to James Baker, “Planning for the First Shuttle Launch,” March 16, 1981; memorandum from Patricia Rogers to Gregory Newell, “Meeting with NASA Officials,” March 10, 1981, both in Box 1, Outer Space Files, RRL.
- 31.
Howell Raines, “Reagan Sees Launching on TV at White House,” NYT, April 13, 1981, A11; Douglas Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 13; “Text of Message from President to Astronauts,” NYT, April 15, 1981, A21.
- 32.
Ronald Reagan: “Remarks at a White House Luncheon Honoring the Astronauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia,” May 19, 1981. Online by Peters and Woolley, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=43837.
- 33.
Jacob Weisberg, Ronald Reagan (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2016), 116; Richard Reeves, President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), xvi.
- 34.
Memorandum from Ben Huberman and Michael Berta to Richard Allen, “Space Policy Issues,” February 10, 1981, Box 30, Subject Files, Executive Secretariat, National Security Council, RRL.
- 35.
Memorandum from Richard Allen to Various Addressees, “The Shuttle and Space Policy,” April 6, 1981, Box 37, Papers of Martin Anderson, RRL.
- 36.
Hans Mark, “Daily Diary,” June 10, 1981. I am grateful to Dr. Mark for sharing this and several other excerpts from his diary.
- 37.
Memorandum From Verne Orr to Allen Lenz, “Space Shuttle Policy,” July 28, 1981, RAC 14, Papers of George Keyworth, RRL; memorandum from Richard Allen to Addressees, “National Security Planning Group (NSPG) Meeting on Monday, August 3, 2:00–3:00 p.m.”; memorandum from Richard Allen to the President, “National Security Council Meeting of August 3, 1981, on the Space Shuttle,” Meeting Files 11–20, Executive Secretariat, National Security Council, RRL. The suggestion that James Beggs was at the meeting is in Hans Mark, The Space Station: A Personal Journey (Durham, NS: Duke University Press, 1987), 131.
- 38.
Interview of Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge by Rebecca Wright, May 29, 2009, NASA Headquarters Oral History Project, https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Administrators/AldridgeEC/AldridgeEC_5-29-09.htm.
- 39.
National Security Decision Directive 8, “Space Transportation System,” November 13, 1981, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/archives/reference/scanned-nsdds/nsdd8.pdf.
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Logsdon, J.M. (2019). First Decisions. In: Ronald Reagan and the Space Frontier. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98962-4_3
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