Space for the Military

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's decision to abandon the Dyna-Soar space glider project offers an encouraging sign of budgetary restraint in the American space program. The Dyna-Soar project, which was expected to cost more than $1 billion, would have contributed little to U.S. military capability or scientific understanding of space. Since the Pentagon had already spent nearly $400 million on Dyna-Soar, its apparent determination to halt further extravagance on a program with limited potential is surprising and welcome.

But the abandonment of the Dyna-Soar project was accompanied by much less heartening news. McNamara announced that the Air Force will begin the development of a manned space station to be orbited in 1967 or early 1968. MOL, as the project will be called, will cost approximately $900 million, and it will contribute considerably more to American space technology than Dyna-Soar. While Dyna-Soar was designed solely to investigate the means of returning a man from space, the manned-orbiting laboratory will give scientists valuable information about man's ability to survive in space over an extended period.

By ordering the development of MOL at this time, however, McNamara has further confused the very basic question of American priorities in space development and research. There are strong suggestions that the Pentagon made an apparently wise decision for entirely inappropriate reasons.

Until now, the Defense Department has limited its space goals to the development of defensive capabilities; it has explored projects like the communication satellite system and has avoided research in space programs with offensive military potential. By giving the go-ahead to MOL, Defense has entered the realm of offensive capability without redefining its goals. Does McNamara's decision mean, for instance, that the United States will also consider the possibilities of manned space stations armed with nuclear warheads? A sizable block of Congressmen has urged that the United States pursue such programs. The Pentagon should not formulate its space goals in deference to the pleas of election-minded Representatives. Nor should it offer responsibility for a manned space project to the Air Force merely because the Air Force can no longer work on Dyna-Soar.

Instead, the Government should carefully reconsider its entire space program. Resources for space development are limited, the costs of many programs are exorbitant, and the justifications for several projects are unclear. Under no circumstances should an expensive program like MOL be begun until we are completely sure why we need it and what it will bring.