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Press, Volume CX, Issue 32361, 29 July 1970, Page 16

of cost at between $3OOO million and $lO,OOO million. This struck some listeners as decidedly odd. The sum looks much too low; in Washington, for example, guesses of between $6OOO million and $24,000 million were being put forward earlier in the year. It is hardly likely that I the new system can cost 'much less than the original Apollo. This included constructing the N.A.S.A. establishments but new stations are likely to be needed for the shuttle system too. Moreover, inflation has made big inroads into the purchasing power of the dollar since Apollo was developed in the early 19605. European Help? When this has all been added together, the suspicion emerges that N.A.S.A. is hoping for a fairly substantial European contribution, both technically and financially, towards the new space programme. There has been an increasing flow of information back and forth across the Atlantic, all designed to encourage any European governments who are fed up with the disappointments of their i own small space programmes to bitch on to the American star. They should certainly do this. This is the new technology of the twenty-first century, and European industry will diminish into a poor third to the Americans and Russians if it is permanently excluded from it. If N.A.S.A. is gambling on their acceptance, this would make Houston’s relatively . modest cost estimates look . more reasonable. But the fact that N.A.S.A. should need to lean so heavily on outside contributions shows how space has diminished since that day 12 months ago when Eagle landed on the moon.