3) There is real merit to the future of NASA and to its proposed programs. Skylab and NERVA particularly offer the opportunity, among other things, to secure substantial scientific fallout for the civilian economy at the same time that large numbers of valuable (and hard to employ elsewhere) scientists and technicians are kept at work on projects that increase our knowledge of space. It is very difficult to reassemble the NASA teams should it be decided later, after major stoppages, to restart some of the long-range programs.

4) In response to our pressure NASA has reduced its requested development budget for the next several fiscals by half.

5) Apollo 14 was very successful from all points of view. Most important is the fact that it gave the American people a much-needed lift in spirit (and the people of the world an equally needed look at American superiority). Announcement now that we were canceling or severely diminishing the US manned space program would have a very bad effect. It would be confirming in some respects a belief that I fear is gaining credence at home and abroad, that our best years are behind us, that we are turning inward, reducing our defense commitments, and voluntarily starting to give up our superpower status, and our desire to maintain world superiority.

America should be able to afford something besides increased welfare…

Handwritten addendum: I agree with Cap. RMN.

Source: Caspar W. Weinberger, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Memorandum to the President, 27 August 1971. White House, Richard M. Nixon, President, 1968-1971 File, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.

Wednesday, December 1, 1971

JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, PASADENA

Ben Priest swung through Glendale and then turned north on Linda Vista, heading past the Rose Bowl. His hired car was an antique Dodge, and its heating was malfunctioning; outside it was a cold December day, and York alternately baked and shivered.

“This seems a long way out of Pasadena,” she remarked.

He grinned. “Yeah. Well, they used to test rocket engines here. Everyone thought the place would be dangerous, so they built it way the hell out there, in the arroyo. And then they built a sprawling, expensive suburb all around it.”

York saw that office buildings filled the arroyo; some of them were drab boxes, but there was also an imposing tower of steel and glass.

There were cars parked for a quarter of a mile along the road leading to JPL, and the street outside the press center was nearly blocked by TV vans.

There was a guard at the JPL entrance; he waved them into a parking lot. It seemed to York that pretty much every space was taken.

They got inside quickly; the cold seemed to be deepening.