Hi Mark,

I didn't say budget - I said resources. Resources are the sum and total of facilities, manpower and decades of expenditures.

The rest of the post is indeed - equally very valid. You wont find the DOD directive in a lot of books - even the Space Almanacs are notoriously silent about it. However if you can obtain an early sixties copy of "The Dawning Space Age" - a invaluable and extremely scarce publication produced by the Civil Air Patrol out of Ellington Air Force Base (and several others circa 1961-2) you will find this and many other little known, and now well buried, facts in its appendixes.

Here's another juicy tidbit for you to ponder and explains in detail the way the military exerts its influence:

(Everyone get your pen and paper out for notes! I'm only posting this once.)

The ultimate enemy of manned space exploration, mars probes, moon bases and space tourism:

The Civilian-Military Liaison Committee

This committee, "shall consist of a chairman appointed by the President, representatives from the Department of Defense, Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force and" lastly...."from NASA".

"Its purposes are to keep eachother fully informed and to advise and consult with each other on aeronautical and space activities within their respective jurisdictions."

Here's the way it works:

NASA says "we want to do XYZ"
DOD says "nope that endangers TUV"
NASA usually backs down immediately.
If NASA doesn't and asserts itself
The President of the United States under section 201 (e) of the Space Act makes the determination.

Well... if the NASA administrator reports to the Vice-President's Science Advisor and the Joint Chief's report directly to the President - who do you think is going to win that battle? Do you think NASA has EVER won?

It's exactly as I claim. The DOD is the big boss of space and to believe otherwise is a wishful-thinking, pie-in-the-sky self-delusion ;-)

Take care Mark,

SDAI-Tech1

PS
Don't blame ME - I didn't write that worthless bit of flim-flam 'civilian space' bit of PR legislation known as the NASA.