and there politically. Inaccurate claims can usually be asserted more quickly than they can be refuted. Unconvincing arguments tend to weaken the aura of scientific invincibility and suggest a bureaucratic tendency to keep trying a multitude of arguments to weaken people's resistance, or to provide that particular argument which one group can accept. This list is by no means complete. (1) The "Critical Threshold" Argument NASA will maintain that funding must be kept at a certain level to preserve the necessary scientific and engineering base in people and facilities. There is no one threshold, but a series of thresholds depending on the level and the purpose of R & D. The concept itself is suspect: if a base could be created when needed, it can be recreated. The costs of starting it up must be balanced against the costs of an entrenchment process that diverts the government's attention and funds from new problems, or new approaches to old problems. (2) NASA's Stimulative Effect on the Economy It is claimed that NASA expenditures are highly labor intensive, have a high multiplier effect, are not inflationary, and return the investment many times over due to the advanced technology involved. Aside from the fact that these are the findings of studies commissioned by NASA (see following section on vested experts), the point is not how stimulative NASA spending is in absolute terms, but how stimulative it is compared to equivalent spending by some other agency in some other sector, or by different fiscal and monetary policies. (3) The Level Budget "Commitment" of January 1972 NASA often refers to OMB assurances that it would have a funding floor in constant dollars to build the shuttle. Actually the "commitment" was made by NASA, not by OMB. The political process does not permit long-term commitments to controversial programs, yet claims of a "commitment" are still heard. (4) The "Cutting Edge" of Technology In simplest form this argument holds that what makes America preeminent is advanced technology, and that we depend on it for our defense and foreign exchange earnings. The "cutting edge" is never far from nuclear energy and the aerospace industry, and in these areas the high quality of research brings the highest return on our R & D dollars. This argument confuses the value of R & D with subjective judgments on the value of different types of R & D. The issue should not be whether aircraft sales are a major earner of foreign exchange, but whether some other industry would have produced greater social and economic benefits if an equivalent amount had been invested in it. As to quality of Our military and space efforts might well benefit from cheaper, more numerous and more expendable units. See Annex D, (5) Individual Science Programs Vital This tactic is to evaluate individual science programs in isolation from basic research policy. The stress is on the worthy objective and not on whether the program is cost effective, or whether data are related to results from recent or concurrent programs, or whether technology offers the possibility of leap-frogging to a more advanced stage. The Space Telescope is a case in point. If observations are vastly improved outside the earth's atmosphere, why have observatories been built or upgraded recently in Chile, Mexico, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Arizona? Is there duplication from military space programs? (6) National Security, or A Race with the Russians The space club is not averse to taking a page out of DOD's book. When pressed, NASA will disclaim competition, but say the Russians are ahead. DR. FLETCHER. We don't regard ourselves as being in a race with the Soviet Union. We Some proponents will say that NASA programs have profound security implications. These claims suggest that DOD does not recognize certain defense needs, or that NASA should pay for a certain part of national defense. (7) International Prestige Akin to national defense is the notion that to keep our political and cultural values in high esteem, here and abroad, we must periodically give a display of technological virtuosity. Perhaps a winning team in sports or technology helps Americans feel less threatened by foreign developments beyond our control. We transfer vigor and Number 1 status in a particular field, to the nation as a whole. Selling international prestige on this basis panders to people's insecurities. (8) The Call of Adventure Adventure covers a variety of appeals to our emotions and imaginations. - Vicarious space travel: e.g. the Shuttle will have hygienic facilities for both men and women and that "average" people-non-astronauts-will be placed in orbit, to obtain the "liberating perspectives" of space - Creativity: e.g. the space program fills the same human need as cathedral-building in the Middle Ages. - An Alternative to War: e.g. World War I might have been avoided if European nations could have vented their aggressiveness on space operations rather than armaments. - A New Start for Mankind: e.g. artists' conceptions of space colonies, space factories. - America's Destiny: e.g. the United States is the only country on this planet that can answer the riddle of man. - Spectator Sport: e.g. Astronauts-technological sports figures-may do more to heighten this sense of adventure than to justify the added expense of manned over un-manned space missions. Perhaps they can be likened to a strong football team, that provides the gate receipts to support other athletic programs. As with the international prestige appeal, there is a touch of "Madison Avenue" to this-space is more than R & D-it is patriotism, "gee-whiz" technology, entertainment, creativity, our national destiny. But the very success of these appeals to our emotions and imaginations shows that welfare and security are not the total of human aspiration. We enter a decision-making area full of risk for public policy which imposes certain responsibilities on government officials. Programs funded emotionally often lead to waste, empty psychological gratifications, and inflation. Ancient and recent history offer examples of peoples who have asserted their values and spirit in unprecedented, uneconomic programs that drained them, sometimes fatally, of their vitality and resources. The display of power was as important as the end it was put to. See Annex, Shuttle Justifications, 2g. But non-economic or “irrational" motivations do exist, and they carry the potential for great creativity as well as great waste. Adventurous social programs and R & D programs have given us new knowledge, new powers and perhaps a new identity. Thus it is essential to argue over what kind of adventure we are getting into, and the costs. This is almost impossible when budget requests are made entirely on economic grounds, and the appeal to non-economic motivations is under the table. (See Recommendations.) (9) Fait Accompli Statement "The debate over manned vs. unmanned space flight was settled by the decision to build the Shuttle." This ploy can be used for most programs. It was a favorite for continuing the Vietnam war. d. Expert vs. Popular Opinion Related to the consensus of scientists and engineers with regard to budget requests is the absence of an outside vantage point that the layman could turn to for a professional but fresh perspective. The problem goes beyond the natural similarity of viewpoint of persons in the same field. As then Senator Mondale asked on May 9, 1972: How can Congress and the public approve massive spending on new technology programs without the benefit of independent evaluations of such programs? NASA's contractors are not likely to offer opinions which have not been checked with NASA. At times estimates suggest a form of blackmail: NASA said that if the expendable alternate were selected, a further analysis might increase the development cost of the new expendable (launch vehicles) by about 1 billion dollars.' On the one hand there must be a taxpayer counterweight to vested expert opinion. On the other hand there must be disinterested expert opinion to dampen public enthusiasm for space programs based on psychic gratifications rather than economic or scientific returns. Those who find entertainment or the solution to war in space may ultimately push space expenditures higher than space scientists and engineers. The object of both counterweights is to use national resources wisely. 4. Recommendations a. Outline National Goals-for example— (1) The President's Economic Goals: -inflation under x% – a balanced budget, amounting to 21% of GNP - a relatively favorable balance of trade (2) Defense Against Military Threat (3) Pollution at Acceptable Levels (4) International Collaboration, Project Humanitarian Values (6) A program to Express National Values and Energy (?) b. Outline Corresponding Space Programs-for example— (1) Defense Satellites (2) Scientific Probes, Experiments (3) Economic Application Satellites (crop and weather forecasting, resource management) (4) Pollution Detection Devices (5) Public Service Satellites (education, search and rescue) (6) Solar Energy Platform (7) Reimbursable Projects (communications satellites, space manufacturing) (8) International Cooperative Ventures (To train foreign scientists, share information, share the expense, use and seek superior talent.) To make these ventures effective the U.S. should avoid paternalism, or the notion that our resources give us a Manifest Destiny in space. tems. 1 Note that there is no comparison of total development costs of expendable and reusable launch sys (9) Experimental Civilian R & D Develop technology that applies to the way people live now, in this country and abroad. See Annex D, NASA's R & D Direction. c. Accurate Labelling Avoid the scientific mystique. Justify programs in terms of all other activity being carried out to achieve the same broad objective. Set forth all the arguments used to support the program, strong or weak, point by point, if the program is based partly on non-economic considerations, such as curiosity or adventure, make that part of the appeal explicit, so that the rest of us can recognize the trade-offs and judge for ourselves whether the adventure will strengthen or weaken us in the long run. d. Downgrade Economic Objectives Economic stimulation should take a back seat when R & D programs are funded, because these programs invest in personnel and facilities that are far more specialized and influential, and multiply more rapidly, than the constituencies of non-R & D programs. Multiplying the supply of program administrators multiplies the demand for more of the same. This skews the economy more than it stimulates it. See Annex D, NASA's R & D Direction, Constituencies. e. Curb Budget Expansion Through Executive Order establish an obstacle course of hearings, studies and consultations for budget increases over, say, 5%. Once a benchmark budget has been set, vary the size of the slices, not the pie.... When priorities change, resources must be shifted, not added on. Scientists and engineers should be encouraged to blunt their spears on each other rather than the Administration. f. Use a Science/R&D Jury to Recommend R & D Priorities to the President Appoint a Science/R&D Council, headed by the Vice President, made up of distinguished laymen, to recommend allocation of R & D funding as to function and agency.... This Council would not resemble the President's new Committee on Science and Technology. It would present the president with a proposed R & D budget. Its members. would represent labor, business, education, consumers, the press and other sectors without being weighted 2 to 1 in favor of engineers, scientists and bureaucrats. The members would serve full-time, for a year, without staff. The Council would hear expert testimony from scientists, engineers, and those most knowledgeable about R & D. Its recommended budget would include military as well as civilian R & D in the space field, for example, the members would have security clearances adequate to allow them to try to fund military and space programs from the same "pie," minimizing duplication and maximizing multiple missions. Discussion: In seeking impartiality for decision-makers it would seem logical to assign laymen to determine the over-all size of the Science/R&D budget, and scientists and engineers to decide how the R&D pie will be divided. But more impartiality can be achieved by reversing the roles. At the level of deciding between the nation's R & D and other non-defense goods and services (assuming this model is accepted, laymen are not disinterested, and may be too shortsighted to see the value of R & D, whereas the parochialism of scientific and engineering opinion would be less at the overall R & D level than at the level of funding individual R & D programs. At the program level, experts seek national commitments to their own programs, thus tending to jack up overall R & D on political considerations. Expert opinion at the overall R & D level, however, might dampen this effect. A compromise would be to set R & D within a narrow percentage range of general spending (not GNP). R & D priorities are as political as they are scientific. A full debate is necessary. Without it we will be less likely to achieve mid-range budgetary stability and more importantly the lead-time necessary for contractors and scientists to prepare themselves for new problems and priorities. |