A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

-22-
there were two other manned military space systems seeking ARPA approval
in the summer of 1958.
Von Braun's team at the Redstone Arsenal.
The Army's proposal was put forward by Wernher
It had a faster time schedule
than the Air Force "Soonest" program but involved only a suborbital
flight. The Navy also proposed a manned satellite study called Manned
(22)
Earth Reconnaissance I.
Following the establishment of NASA, the DoD, ARPA, and NASA agreed
upon divesting the DoD of many of the above-mentioned space-related
projects, facilities, and personnel. By Executive Order, issued in
December 1958, NASA acquired the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Air
Force transferred to NASA its contract and funds to develop a 1.5 million
lb thrust, single-chamber engine.
By these and other moves,
NASA quickly gained competence in electronics, guidance, tracking, propulsion,
and systems analysis.
Through the years, NASA and DoD reached
agreement on numerous cooperative efforts involving, for example,
launch sites, tracking stations, and launch vehicle development.
this level the cooperation was exemplary. From the outset, however,
there were numerous projects in a gray area between military and
civilian, including the very important man-in-space project. NASA and
DoD initially attempted one solution to this problem by making the
project a joint one.
The Bureau of the Budget, however, frowned
on jointly managed projects; consequently, this approach was dropped.
By August 1958, the Eisenhower Administration clearly assigned NASA
specific responsibility for the manned spaceflight mission, thereby
cancelling the "Soonest" project and leaving the Air Force with Project
Dyna-Soar as its only near-term manned-spaceflight opportunity.
At
NASA actually wanted part of the ABMA (Wernher Von Braun's team)
-transferred to give the agency an in-house capability for large rocket
engine and booster development. This transfer was delayed until July 1,
1960, by DoD objections that the ABMA group was needed for Army missile
development. To support this transfer, NASA and DoD endorsed a memorandum
for President Eisenhower declaring "...there is, at present, no
clear military requirement for superboosters, although there is a real
possibility that the future will bring military weapon systems requirements...."(7)
A list of 88 joint NASA-DoD agreements made during the 1958-1964
time period are presented in Appendix D of Ref. 11.