The webcast and transcript of our visit with Ed David, science advisor to Richard Nixon from 1970-1973, are now available online. Dr. David related a story that I had never heard before about how the scheduling of the Apollo missions were affected because of political considerations related to the 1972 presidential election. In short, President Nixon was worried that an accident might hurt his reelection prospects. Here is how Dr. David described the events:
“Another interesting situation I found myself involved with was the Apollo program. When I arrived on the White House scene, two Apollo missions had already been canceled. They were Apollo 18 and 19. There were originally plans, as I remember, for 20 and 21, but 21 never really got off the drawing board. The possible cancellation of Apollo 16 and 17 was in the wind, it was talked around, even though those two missions were slated to provide important scientific information about the moon, and they were basically the payoff of all of the efforts that went into the Apollo program. Most of the man-hours on the moon came during those two missions. In fact, most of the scientific measuring equipment the astronauts placed on the moon at that time are still there and many of them are still operational. So there’s an awful lot of data coming in. Now, after examining this issue closely with the help of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, which was called PSAC in those days, and specifically the help of Professor Tommy Gold of Cornell, who some of you may know, I wrote a memo to the president saying, in effect, that the nation had bought everything for these trips except the fuel, and that we ought to go ahead in light of the potential knowledge to be gained. That memo had some effect, and Apollo 16 and 17 proceeded, and Apollo 17 put the first scientist on the moon. And he’s a good friend of mine now.
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