The key decisions were made by people like Treovr Gardner, and other people who you have never heard of. I'd like to tell you about them someday, when less pressing business is at hand, and if someone pays me a large stack of money to do it. In the meantime, Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronautica is freely available online.

Kennedy's statement must be taken in the context of the conversation, where Webb uses "space" to talk about "space science", trying to differentiate it from it from the manned Moon program. When Kennedy says he's not interested in "space", what he's telling Webb is that he is not that interested in "space science".

Times change.

By the way, Goldin did too work on both a manned Mars project and on Viking, and I am still waiting for that model of the manned Mars spacecraft for my desk.

EP