army necessary to operate and maintain the shuttle. This cost and the low reliability of the shuttle were not appreciated in the initial estimates. There was also some specious thinking at NASa about markets and either wishful thinking or an underappreciation of the difficulty of developing a new engine. The new engine contributed to the delays of the first STS launch until 1981 and have contributed greatly to the poor reliability of the STS. A truck it is not, it is much more like a finely tuned racecar President Nixon never saw space as a race or as a competition with the Soviets In his mind, space and defense were much more clearly linked going back to the Eisenhower policy. Unhappily, the NASa administration under him, Tom Paine never seemed to appreciate where the President's position came from. Paine felt that Agnew was important in the administration and paid much attention to him rather than building a constituency in the OMB. This is a mistake that Webb would not have made. Paine kept rying to persuade the President of the value of doing things like a space station before the Soviets built there own. He never appreciated that the president actually wanted detente not competition with the Soviets. Paine left in 1970 and was replaced by Fletcher Fletcher however seemed to have completely bought the NASa position of needing to do the next big thing and he made the critical decision on sts as well The Nixon emphasis and choices led to the first Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975 s the Skylab(the first space station). Unhappily, the SME caused delays in STS meant that Skylab literally crashed to the ground in Australia while the StS was unable to get up and save it. The Apollo-Soyuz mission was pursued at Nixon's insistence (although after he left). It was almost an after thought in the space program and given the worsening relations with the Soviets that occurred by 1979 ultimately did not lead far. In any case, it's real objective was foreign policy not space policy Since Nixon thought of space as defense first, an especially important agenda item for him was the ABM program. The ABM treaty in 1972 had important implications for space policy. The ABM treaty restricted both sides to limited ABM systems, one deployed around the national capital and one at an ICBM site( Grand Forks). It formally recognized the role of satellite reconnaissance and agreed that verification could be carried out by national technical means consistent with international law. It thus made credible the policy of mutual assured destruction(MAD). It had another provision that later proved contentious for SDI and today. It restricted each party not to develop, test or deploy abm systems or components that are sea-based, air-based, space-based or mobile land based. The space-based piece is the one that has proven difficult as technology has marched on verify Soviet compliance and warn of any possible attac le system of reconnaissance, The aBM treaty had the effect of making the whe warning and communication satellites even more important. They were necessary to Something else that happened in the seventies that had a profound effect on future thinking on space policy was the development of MiRV technology for ICBMs The Us developed the technology for MIRVs first and in an example of wherearmy necessary to operate and maintain the shuttle. This cost and the low reliability of the shuttle were not appreciated in the initial estimates. There was also some specious thinking at NASA about markets and either wishful thinking or an underappreciation of the difficulty of developing a new engine. The new engine contributed to the delays of the first STS launch until 1981 and have contributed greatly to the poor reliability of the STS. A truck it is not, it is much more like a finely tuned racecar. President Nixon never saw space as a race or as a competition with the Soviets. In his mind, space and defense were much more clearly linked going back to the Eisenhower policy. Unhappily, the NASA administration under him, Tom Paine never seemed to appreciate where the President’s position came from. Paine felt that Agnew was important in the administration and paid much attention to him rather than building a constituency in the OMB. This is a mistake that Webb would not have made. Paine kept trying to persuade the President of the value of doing things like a space station before the Soviets built there own. He never appreciated that the President actually wanted détente not competition with the Soviets. Paine left in 1970 and was replaced by Fletcher. Fletcher however seemed to have completely bought the NASA position of needing to do the next big thing and he made the critical decision on STS. The Nixon emphasis and choices led to the first Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975 as well as the Skylab (the first space station). Unhappily, the SME caused delays in STS meant that Skylab literally crashed to the ground in Australia while the STS was unable to get up and save it. The Apollo-Soyuz mission was pursued at Nixon’s insistence (although after he left). It was almost an after thought in the space program and given the worsening relations with the Soviets that occurred by 1979 ultimately did not lead far. In any case, it’s real objective was foreign policy not space policy. Since Nixon thought of space as defense first, an especially important agenda item for him was the ABM program. The ABM treaty in 1972 had important implications for space policy. The ABM treaty restricted both sides to limited ABM systems, one deployed around the national capital and one at an ICBM site (Grand Forks). It formally recognized the role of satellite reconnaissance and agreed that verification could be carried out by national technical means consistent with international law. It thus made credible the policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD). It had another provision that later proved contentious for SDI and today. It restricted each party not to develop, test or deploy ABM systems or components that are sea-based, air-based, space-based or mobile land based. The space-based piece is the one that has proven difficult as technology has marched on. The ABM treaty had the effect of making the whole system of reconnaissance, warning and communication satellites even more important. They were necessary to verify Soviet compliance and warn of any possible attack. Something else that happened in the seventies that had a profound effect on future thinking on space policy was the development of MIRV technology for ICBM’s. The US developed the technology for MIRV’s first and in an example of where