Jerry Brown: “let me add my compliments for the role that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) has played over the years in voicing…”

“let me add my compliments for the role that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) has played over the years in voicing his objections to the Space Station. He showed great understanding and knowledge of the space program, great tenacity. Mr. Chairman, the system is such that he may well end up being chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics in the fairly near future, and he may have an opportunity to directly exercise the kind of control over the Space Station that he is trying to do with this amendment. I do not agree with his position, and so I rise in opposition to his amendment. I would like to point out that the space program has never been judged in terms of its immediate, measurable benefits. Several mentions have been made of Alan Shepard's flight back in 1962, and of President Kennedy's announcement of the Apollo program shortly after that. There is no way on earth we can justify the Apollo program on economic grounds. It was a one-time effort. It was a crash effort. It was done out of fear that the Russians, who had already excelled in several things, they had launched the first satellite, they had launched the first man, and it was the fear in America that we had irreparably lost our technological leadership of the world. That led the President to announce that we would send a man to the moon. We created the Apollo program. The huge Saturn rockets, we have never used them again. We have lost the plans to them.”