And it’s elegant. Don’t you see that? No brute force here: no huge nuclear V-2s. Just proven technology, and elegance, and style. A little thought, gentlemen.

“In conclusion, it has been shown that the Venus swing-by mode is generally applicable to all of the Mars flyby and stopover round-trip launch opportunities, with very favorable benefits.”

Dana stepped back from the podium, retreating from the glare of the light. He was numbed, a little giddy, unable to feel his hands or face.

Seger thanked him, then opened up for questions; with a glance at his watch he signaled that they should be brief.

“…What about guidance and navigation? Don’t you realize that you’re now talking about devising a mission profile with possibly four planetary encounters? — Mars, Venus maybe twice, and Earth on return? And at each encounter the accuracy of positioning will have to be of the order of a few hundred miles, after traveling tens of millions. How can we navigate so accurately? Why, we haven’t yet proved we can manage a single swing-by on such a scale.”

“But we will,” Dana insisted. “Remember, NASA committed to the lunar-orbit rendezvous mode for Apollo — which required a rendezvous a quarter of a million miles from home — before a single space rendezvous had been demonstrated.”

There was some muttering at that. Hardly a valid comparison.

“What about the design constraints? Near Venus the sunlight is four times hotter than at Mars, so you’ll be sacrificing payload space for a cooling system that will be deadweight at Mars. And there’ll be problems with the increased level of radiation coming from the sun…”

Dana tried to answer — I’ve incorporated spacecraft design modifications into my weights analysis, and… But he was all but drowned out by the noise of an audience which had little interest in him.

Then Hans Udet stood up, and a hush gathered. Udet said precisely, “On what basis have you arrived at your figures? I am aware of the preliminary analyses of the complicated mission classes you describe. I am aware of no detailed analyses which show the savings you claim.”

Dana began to stammer out a reply. But our understanding of spacecraft systems has advanced since those early studies, and with the figures I have compiled, we can now show that -

“These results are false.” Udet glanced around at the audience — tall, aristocratic, in control, still charming. “This is obvious. The figures we are shown are based on unstated suppositions. The speaker doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It may be incompetence, or malice, whatever. We should not expend further energy on this red herring.” He sat down, his back ramrod-straight.

There was an uncomfortable stirring in the audience, some nervous laughter.

Bert Seger got to his feet, quickly thanked Dana, and turned away from him.

Udet’s words were incredible to Dana. Such accusations should not be made, in such fora as these, or beyond. It is — uncivilized. Somehow, though, now that it had happened, there seemed a certain inevitability about it all. Of course, I have been rejected. But this isn’t about logic, or engineering, or science. It was because he’d gone outside the hierarchy, the formal channels. This really is about power. Infighting. It’s possible Udet is even sincere. Maybe he really does think I’ve cooked up these numbers, that I’m just infighting for Langley.

Dana gathered together his foils, clumsily, and got off the stage.

The lights went up, and the conference room was quiet. Bert Seger got to his feet and began stalking along the stage, eyeballing the delegates as if challenging them, his hands on his hips.

“I’ve heard a lot of good things today about the nuclear mode,” he said. “And I’ve heard nothing else today, frankly, that makes a hell of a lot of sense to me in comparison.” He glared at the audience. “Now, I have to say that I think we can do this. I think we do indeed have a ‘Kennedy option’ to present to the President. And I’d like to hear now what son of a bitch thinks nuclear isn’t the right thing to do.”

There was a little more to and fro. Wernher von Braun got to his feet to make a brief statement commending the nuclear option. Then one of the chemical option presenters from Houston got up, and graciously conceded defeat to the guys from Marshall.

Seger closed the meeting. “Gentlemen, I want to thank you here for all the work you’ve done. I think we’ve found a way we can work together and do this thing. I think we’ve worked out how we’re going to Mars.”

He started to clap, then; and the hall joined in, applauding themselves for their achievement.

All but Dana. At least he could resist that much.

The Germans had won again.

Seger might be right. Perhaps we’ve made a historic decision that will, indeed, take men to Mars within my lifetime. But it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong.

Anyhow, he thought, it’s still possible this huge mission will never be funded. Perhaps Nixon will choose to build the Shuttle. Or nothing at all.

Nothing at all.

The applause went on, until the delegates started to cheer themselves.

Future of NASA

Present tentative plans call for major reductions or changes in NASA by sharply reducing the balance of the manned space program and many remaining NASA programs.

I believe this would be a mistake.

1) The real reason for reductions in the NASA budget is that NASA is entirely in the 28 percent of the budget that is controllable. In short, we cut because it is cuttable, not because it is doing a bad job or an unnecessary one.

2) We are being driven, by the uncontrollable items, to spend more and more on programs that offer no real hope for the future: welfare, interest on national debt, Medicare, etc. Essentially they are programs not of our choice, designed to repair mistakes of the past.

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.