States could close the launch vehicle gap with the Soviet Union and the relative roles of the NASA and military space programs.

Congress, of course, had the final say as to how much money would be authorized and appropriated for NASA. In those first years NASA had little trouble in getting its budgets passed. In fact, throughout the years Congress consistently gave strong backing to the space program even when, in later years, paring down parts of the budget.

In the period immediately following launch of the first Sputnik, committee members would listen with rapt attention and undisguised enthusiasm to description of plans and accomplishments-and then give NASA pretty much what it asked for. It was a learning period for the legislators as much as it was for NASA. As experience and understanding grew, lawmakers' questions became more pointed and penetrating, and no longer was there an inclination to accept a budget simply on the grounds that NASA said it was required. But while increasingly critical, the Congress remained basically supportive throughout the years.

NASA budgets for 1958 (fiscal 1959) through 1976 are given in table 8 and figure 68. A comparison of the total space budget with the part assigned to research and development for space science appears in table 9. For the sake of comparison, budgets for space activities in the Department of Defense and other agencies are included in table 8.11

The simplified numbers and graphs cannot give a true picture of the agency's funding structure. For example, a good amount of space science was supported with funds in the manned spaceflight budget, since the exploration of the moon necessarily included a great deal of scientific investigation. Likewise, much advanced research and technology was important to space science and could properly be charged to that activity if one chose to do so. But, with these limitations in mind, it is still possible to derive some valid impressions about the support that space science received through the years.

First, while never a major part of NASA's total budget, space science funding was nevertheless an appreciable part of the total, at times accounting for as much as 20%. Actually, as Webb continually pointed out, invidious comparisons of absolute or relative numbers did not make sense, because, while manned spaceflight did indeed enjoy much greater funding than did space science—as the scientific community repeatedly complained— that did not imply a lack of suitable support for science. The Gemini and Apollo projects simply cost more money, and if the nation was going to have a manned spaceflight program, it had to pay the necessary costs. The proper question to ask was not whether manned spaceflight was getting more money than space science, but whether space science was getting the funding it needed. Webb would add that even if the scientists should manage to get the manned spaceflight program canceled-as Abelson and others

*Space science was also assigned additional funding for construction of facilities, research and program management, and administrative operations.

would have liked12—the monies would not be reassigned to the science program, which would continue to have to justify its budget on its own merits.

Certainly the funding available to space science was enough to pay for a great deal of scientific research. The tens and hundreds of millions of dollars per year available in NASA's appropriations for science were a far cry from the one or two millions per year with which the Rocket and Satellite Panel had to make do. In fact, the amount of money going into space science was so large in comparison with other science budgets-for example, NASA's funding of space astronomy equaled or sometimes exceeded the National Science Foundation's entire budget for ground-based astronomy-that many scientists were greatly concerned. But space scientists, spurred on by the growing number of exciting problems that the field had to offer, did not hesitate to complain about not getting their fair share of the space budget.

When the Apollo program was introduced, the upward slope of the space science budget lessened appreciably. This point was not missed by

the scientists who felt that the rapid rate of increase in the space science budget would have continued had not the Apollo program imposed its great demands. The point could not be proved—and in fact there were those who thought that the NASA budget, including that for space science, would soon have leveled off had it not been for the sustaining influence of the manned spaceflight program. Both Webb and the Apollo people were convinced that the Apollo budget helped to keep the other budgets up. With this in mind, as an aid to justifying budget requests, the practice developed of dividing NASA's total request into three parts: Apollo and related manned spaceflight work; other programs that supported Apollo, such as unmanned lunar exploration, studies of the space environment, and solar physics; and the remaining NASA program.

For the scientists, especially those who were opposed to the Apollo program, this practice of justifying a substantial part of the space science program on the basis of what it could do for Apollo was anathema. In their view space science, like space applications, was one of the intrinsically valuable components of the space program, justifiable on its own merits. Moreover, during the long period of preparation for the manned lunar missions, most of the substantive achievements of NASA came from the applications and space science programs, not from manned spaceflight.13 But for NASA management it was a matter of practical politics, of recognizing the realities of life: better to assign science to a service role and get the money to carry it out than to risk a loss in total funding just to keep the science pure.

The scientists had a stronger reason for complaint when programs were actually cut short for lack of sufficient funding. The lunar projects Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter, all terminated just as they were getting into full swing, were cases in point.14 So was the cancellation of the Advanced Orbiting Solar Observatory, which caused almost a hundred solar physicists to petition NASA for better support.15 But as Administrator James Webb and Associate Administrator Robert Seamans could point out, such actions were not arbitrary or whimsical, nor were they antiscience in nature. In fact, Webb was one of the strongest supporters of a balanced space program. When, in 1962, the Apollo program needed an additional $400 million, President Kennedy seemed ready to accept a suggestion that the funds be taken from other parts of the NASA budget. To do so, however, would have crippled the space science and applications programs, and Webb refused to go along. Mr. Webb told the author that he had indicated to the president an unwillingness to continue as administrator of a program that did not have a proper balance among space science, applications, technology, and manned spaceflight. In a letter to the president, Webb offered to wait until the next budget to request the additional funds for Apollo, a compromise that was accepted. 16 Throughout his tenure Webb continued to give strong backing to space science, but he also refused