Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 257
have been based on incredibly bad advice.
Follow intensive review in the early days of this Administration President Nixon proposed
in his 1970 budget start of a major earth resources satellite experiment. In his
speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 18, 1969, the
President reaffirmed his commitment to an earth resources satellite program.
Ambassador Yost has undertaken further initiative with Secretary General U Thant to
implement the President’s commitment.
During November 1969, Dr. DuBridge discussed with Canadian representatives the
basis of their collaboration with the United States in the earth resources satellite program.
Dr. Paine’s support for the program as a major high payoff component of our space
effort was publicly stated on a National TV appearance within the past ten days.
The EROS-ERTS program has exceptionally strong support within the Congress.
Interior 1970 budget proposals were not only approved but increased. The House
Committee on Science and Astronautics terms the program “. . . perhaps the best possible
opportunity to achieve tangible economic returns from the substantial investment already
made by the American taxpayer in the U.S. space program.” The Committee has been vigorous
in its advocacy of the earth resources concept and has urged expedited action on
the EROS-ERTS programs.
The program has attracted widespread professional, public, industrial, scientific, and
academic interest throughout the Nation and the World.
The abrupt change in Administration policy proposed by [the Bureau of the Budget]
cannot help but become a major embarrassment to the Administration. The Budget
Bureau has advanced no adequate rationale in support of its action. Accordingly there is
no basis for its defense by myself and my staff before the Congress or the public.
I understand funds for the NASA ERTS program were cut because [the Bureau of the
Budget] claimed the resolution capability of the proposed system did not meet needs of
the use[r] agencies. This is not the case. Dr. Pecora and other user agency authorities
wrote NASA clarifying this point and I believe these letters have been furnished to your
examining staff. We support the technical discussion provided by NASA in defense of the
ERTS program. The questions posed in the Interior “passback” have been previously
answered by the numerous independent appraisals of the earth resources concept and
program and the Issue Papers provided by this Department in prior years.
The course of action proposed by the Bureau of the Budget affects our ‘70 program
as well as our 1971 budget. For this reason a decision must be made as soon as possible.
If, after consideration of this appeal, you are still unable to recommend that the program
proceed as planned, I propose that the issue should be discussed by myself and
Administrator Paine with the President at his earliest convenience.
Document II-22
Document title: Robert P. Mayo, Director, Bureau of the Budget, to Honorable Walter J. Hickel,
Secretary of the Interior, April 14, 1970, with attached: “Statement for Senator Mundt.”
Source: Record Group 51, Records of the Office of Management and Budget, Federal
Records Center, Suitland, Maryland.
Although the Bureau of the Budget wanted to block spending on an Earth resources survey system,
NASA and the Department of the Interior maintained moderate program support through congressional
pressure as well as through direct appeals to the president. NASA was given the go-ahead to work on
two experimental satellites, while the U.S. Geological Survey in the Department of the Interior would
build a data-processing facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but only if the satellites’ performance
demonstrated the need for it. The latter development was made possible with the intervention of South
Dakota Senator Karl Mundt, who lobbied strenuously for ERTS funding in the Department of the
Interior after Sioux Falls was designated as the preferred location for the data-processing facility.