On April 12, 1961 – the day that cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to venture into space – President John F. Kennedy held a press conference at which three of the first twenty questions had to do with the Soviet Union and space exploration. While Kennedy was able to fend off those queries with generalized responses, he was eventually faced with a more daunting inquiry that would dominate the following day’s news.
“Mr. President, a member of Congress said today that he was tired of seeing the United States second to Russia in the space field,” a reporter began. “What is the prospect that we will catch up with Russia and perhaps surpass Russia in the field?” Although unnamed at the press conference, that “member of Congress” was Representative James G. Fulton of Dormont, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, and his exact quote was, “I’m darned well tired of coming in second-best all the time.”
When NASA administrators James Webb and Hugh Dryden appeared before the House of Representative’s Science and Astronautics Committee the next day, Fulton decided to turn his words into actions. As the proceedings came to a close, he said to Webb, “Tell me how much money you need and this committee will authorize all you need.”
It was a bold statement, but bold was the trademark of James Fulton when it came to space exploration throughout his 26 years as a United States Congressman. Initially elected in 1944, Fulton served until his death in 1971 and was not only a member of the House Science and Astronautics Committee but advisor on space exploration to the United States delegation at the United Nations. As a result, he was able to use his position and influence to advance the nation’s space program.
Despite the euphoria surrounding the final flight of Project Mercury in 1963, for instance, Congress gave serious consideration to slashing NASA’s budget until Fulton addressed the assembly. “On the House floor, Congressman James Fulton of Pennsylvania elevated NASA administrators and astronauts into the pantheon of explorers alongside Columbus, Hudson, de Soto, Crockett, Boone, and Lewis and Clark,” historian Douglas Brinkley writes in American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race, published in 2019. “All those legends were considered ‘nuts’ in their day, Fulton said, and he argued that the new breed of ‘nuts’ in Kennedy’s New Frontier ‘will lead a great America in the conquest of outer space.’ Fulton ended his appeal by saying he favored increased funding for Project Apollo ‘because it is in keeping with the pioneer spirit of this great nation.’”
While Fulton’s words may have swayed the day in 1963, he was less persuasive the previous year when he spoke on behalf of a group of potential female astronauts dubbed the Mercury 13. A 1960 privately funded program had invited women to undergo the same physical tests as the seven male Mercury astronauts. Thirteen passed but were denied official entry into the program, and hearings were held by the House Committee on Science and Astronautics in July 1962 to determine if the women had been discriminated against because of gender.
Among the guidelines for admittance to NASA’s astronaut program was military test pilot experience. That position, however, was not open to women at the time. Another requirement was a bachelor’s degree, something that John Glenn – the first American to orbit the Earth – did not have when he was accepted into the program, qualifying under an “or equivalence” clause instead.
According to Stephanie Nolen in her 2003 book Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race, James Fulton argued that since an exception was made for Glenn, the overall flight experience of the female applicants should likewise count as an “equivalence.”
When that idea was shot down, Fulton took a different approach. “Since this group of women has passed these tests successfully, NASA should outline a training program that does not interfere with the current programs but will let women participate,” he said. “It’s the same old thing cropping up, where men want to protect women and keep them out of the field so that it is kept for men.”
While the NASA representative agreed that the requirements to enter the astronaut program should and would be reevaluated, he was non-committal regarding a timeline. Fulton pressed for “now” rather than “later” and asked, “Why not have a ‘first woman in space’ project and get started right away?”
The representative countered that such a program would take focus and funds away from the existing project – proposed by President Kennedy – of landing on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. Fulton’s idea had merit, he conceded, but one that would have to wait until the completion of the current mission, which meant that such an initiative would have to be pushed back at least ten years.
“To me that is the same thing that has been said to women when they were interested in suffrage,” Fulton responded. “Of course, nobody wants to retard the Lunar program. You have adequate facilities. You are being given $2 billion more this year, and it is not all programmed. You have been changing your programs. You could very well make a small test program for these women and get them started.”
In the end, however, it was to no avail. Not only did NASA fail to introduce an astronaut program for women in the 1960s, it wasn’t until 1983 and the seventh Space Shuttle mission that Sally Ride became the first female American astronaut to travel into space.
Although James Fulton was instrumental in shaping U.S. space policy in the 1960s, space enthusiast Frank Sietzen Jr. argued in his 2003 article “How Jim Fulton Saved the Space Shuttle” on SpaceRef that Fulton’s greatest achievement came at the start of the following decade when he was literally on his deathbed.
After the success of Apollo 11, the Nixon administration commissioned a re-examination of the United States’ space program. The resulting report advocated a reusable Space Shuttle that could travel to multiple space stations that in turn would be launching pads for future journeys to not only the Moon but Mars as well. President Richard Nixon quickly scrapped the plan, declaring that expensive projects were no longer affordable and NASA had to operate in a more prudent fiscal manner.
NASA scaled back their proposal to only include the Space Shuttle and one orbital space station. Even this was met with resistance from Democrats in Congress, however, who believed the Space Shuttle was unnecessary compared to more urgent needs facing the country. Led by Representative Joseph Karth from Minnesota, a reduced budget that would only fund NASA through the end of Apollo made its way to the House floor.
James Fulton was the ranking Republican on the House Committee of Science and Astronautics but a heart attack in early 1970 kept him from actively being involved in the proceedings. Karth’s budget amendment failed, but Representative Charles Mosher – the ranking Republican in Fulton’s absence – was willing to reintroduce it as a Republican initiative, a move that would have likely led to its approval.
On April 23, 1970, an ambulance pulled up to the nation’s Capital and James Fulton made his way to the House chamber. Aids had kept him informed of the proceedings and despite his dwindling health, he was determined to intervene. After huddling with supporters, Fulton addressed the Committee and proposed slashing NASA’s budget by $30 million against spaceflight operations in general while leaving the full budget intact for the Space Shuttle.
Fulton prevailed, and it was his proposal that went to the House floor as opposed to that of Charles Mosher. The bill easily passed and while President Nixon had been undecided in regards to the Space Shuttle program, he did not object to the budget compromise. Eighteen month later – on October 6, 1971 – James Fulton passed away from heart complications.
“In all of the state of Pennsylvania there are no monuments to the Space Shuttle, or to NASA, or to manned spaceflight,” Frank Sietzen Jr. wrote in 2003 on SpaceRef. “Except, in one sense, maybe just one. In Mount Lebanon Cemetery, that marks the resting place of the man who saved the Space Shuttle.”
That man was James Grove Fulton. He may never have given a speech to Congress as well-known as that of John F. Kennedy when the President committed the United States to landing on the Moon by the end of the decade, but Fulton’s achievements within that very same chamber were just as influential and worthy of remembrance as well.
Anthony Letizia