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Battle for the space shuttle (3)
the final battle for the space shuttle !

"As we discussed, I met with Nixon science advisor Edward David, ostensibly to talk about the possibility of a $3.2 billion constant budget throughout the 70’s.

David President Science Advisory Committee - PSAC - currently features a dedicated shuttle committee, led by Alexander Flax.

Ed’s feeling is that that Flax Committee (with Fubini leading the pack) is going to come in with some interesting options which I would judge to be consistent with the $3.2 billion budget and, perhaps, would include a shuttle of about $5 billion total investment running about 1 billion per year.

I indicated that this might be in the same ball park, and that we were thinking along similar lines but so far had not discussed them in any detail with the Flax Committee.

Surprisingly enough, he felt this was the wise thing to do from our point of view and he would hope that we would continue to keep such studies confined to a group in NASA until the time came to discuss them. I received a very definite impression that he would like to take credit for coming up with a reduced cost shuttle.

He also told me that the Bureau of Budget has its own low-cost shuttle they wanted to force on us; it is a mere glider of $3.5 billion total investment.

When it came to discussing tactics, he did agree that the two of us ought to sit down after he analyzed the Flax Committee results; then we could plan out a program together.

However, his initial thought was that he should propose the $3.5 billion glider to theBureau of the budget himself, but that we should try to resist in order to argue from a better bargaining position.

I am not sure that this is a good way to proceed but his suggestion was based on the fact that we already recognize that the Bureau of the budget can’t entirely be trusted to commit to any kind of program and that if we agreed too easily to the low-cost glider, they might try to work us down to a smaller budget yet.

Basically, the strategy and tactics remain unresolved, except Ed did agree to chat further with us on the subject when the Flax Committee results were available. I was personally a little discouraged by the conversation in the sense that he didn’t feel there was anyone in the Bureau of the budget who could be completely trusted-not that they were dishonest, but that their sole function was to put a ratchet on the budget.

I tried out your ideas regarding the Space Council and, at first, Ed David was quite defensive, indicating that the Office of Science and Technology perhaps served the function that we had in mind for the Space Council, particularly when the business of earth resources policy came up.

However, after some discussion we agreed that the idea was worth considering, but he wanted to mull it over first. I think his thought was that perhaps he could chair the Space Council in the absence of the Vice President instead of “yours truly.”

I am afraid we are going to have some difficulty on this one, but I am willing to pursue it further if we still think it is a good idea. Perhaps you should discuss the matter with our fellow astronaut William Anders, who is the council executive secretary."

Document title: James Chipman Fletcher., Administrator, Memorandum to Dr. Low,
“Meeting with Ed David,”
August 1971
Source: NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington,D.C.

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Note: Alexander Flax
He was boss of the NRO (here we go again !) from 1965 to 1969. Late 1971 he was head of a panel assessing the space shuttle for President Nixon.
One can ask if the NRO big spysats (like the KH-9) influenced the shuttle payload bay size.

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