Abstract
The decision with the most lasting impact on the U.S. space program made during the presidency of Ronald Reagan was likely his commitment to developing a space station. A permanently occupied human outpost in Earth orbit had been a central element in planning for space development since even before government programs began in the late 1950s, and had been proposed in 1969, and rejected by the Nixon administration, as the major space initiative to follow Project Apollo. As they assumed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) leadership in 1981, Beggs and Mark made getting presidential approval for the space station their top priority in terms of new programs. After failing to get early approval, NASA in 1982 began to build its case for the space station. SIG (Space) undertook an interagency review of the station, aiming at a presidential decision in late 1983. The National Security Council’s Rye, who had become convinced that the station was the right next step, was a central figure in managing that review.
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Notes
- 1.
There are already in being two detailed accounts of the space station decision, one by a participant in the choice and one by a well-respected scholar. Those accounts are by Hans Mark, The Space Station: A Personal Journey (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987) and Howard McCurdy, The Space Station Decision: Incremental Politics and Technological Choice (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990). The following chapters draw heavily on those two books, but supplement the narrative with documents and interviews not available to either author. Both Dr. Mark and Professor McCurdy have been very generous in providing me with material from their personal files, and for that they have my gratitude.
- 2.
Wernher von Braun, “Crossing the Last Frontier,” Collier’s, March 22, 1952, www.rmastri.it/spacestuff/wernher-von-braun/colliers-articles-on-the-conquest-of-space-1952-1954/.
- 3.
This account of post-Apollo planning is drawn from John M. Logsdon, After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American Space Program (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Taft’s comment is on 216.
- 4.
The Carter space policy statement can be found in John M. Logsdon et al., eds., Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume I, Organizing for Exploration, NASA SP-4407, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1995), 576–578.
- 5.
Ed Meese interview with Chris Wallace, Today, March 22, 1982. I am grateful to Howard McCurdy for sharing his copy of the Today show transcript with me.
- 6.
Letter from James Beggs to Edwin Meese III, May 21, 1982, NHRC.
- 7.
Memorandum from Fred Khedouri to Craig Fuller, “NASA Marketing Effort,” June 24, 1982, with attached Wall Street Journal article, Folder 12772, NHRC.
- 8.
Mark, The Space Station, 248; Memorandum from Edwin Harper to Aram Bakshian (chief Reagan speechwriter), undated, with attached speech draft, Box 83, Papers of Danny Boggs, RRL; Ronald Reagan: “Remarks at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on Completion of the Fourth Mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia,” July 4, 1982. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42704.
- 9.
Telegram from Richard Darman and Craig Fuller to Ed Meese, Jim Baker, David Stockman, Ed Harper, July 2, 1982, Box 83, Papers of Danny Boggs, RRL.
- 10.
See McCurdy, The Space Station Decision, 49–51, for a discussion of the origins of the Space Station Task Force and Chaps. 9 and 10 for a description of its organization and early work.
- 11.
Interview of Terence T. Finn by NASA Historian Sylvia Fries, June 12, 1986, NHRC.
- 12.
Unless otherwise noted, this account is based on Chap. 13 of McCurdy’s The Space Station Decision.
- 13.
“Manned Space Station,” undated but September 1982, File 12905, NHRC.
- 14.
Memorandum from Daniel Herman to Members of the Space Station Working Group, “SIG (Space) Space Station Working Group Meeting,” January 21, 1982 (actually 1983), File 12905, NHRC; memorandum from Daniel Herman to Members of Space Station Working Group Members, “Record of SIG (Space) Space Station Working Group Meeting, January 28, 1983,” January 31, 1982 (actually 1983), NSSD 13-82 File, Executive Secretariat, National Security Council, RRL.
- 15.
Minutes, Senior Interagency Group for Space, March 28, 1983, CIA-RDP85M00364R001101630035-5. CREST.
- 16.
Memorandum from William Clark to Edwin Meese, III, “Administration Policy on Space,” March 1, 1983, NSSD 13-82 File, Executive Secretariat, National Security Council, RRL; memorandum from Gilbert Rye to William Clark, “Manned Space Station,” March 17, 1983. This document was provided to the author by Valerie Neal of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
- 17.
McCurdy, The Space Station Decision, 163, 165; Mark, The Space Station, 147.
- 18.
Memorandum from Gil Rye to William Clark, “SIG (Space) Working Group on the Space Station,” February 9, 1983, NSSD 13-82 File, Executive Secretariat, National Security Council, RRL. Letter from Gil Rye to James Beggs, March 14, 1983, in McCurdy, The Space Station Decision, 138. Mark, The Space Station, 165.
- 19.
National Security Study Directive Number 5-83, “Space Station,” April 11, 1983, Box 5, Papers of Edwin Meese, RRL. Letter from Gil Rye to Hans Mark, October 25, 1984, commenting on a draft of Mark’s space station book. Quoted with permission from Gil Rye.
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Logsdon, J.M. (2019). The Next Logical Step. 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_7
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