During a news conference in Houston that same day, several NASA
officials commented on the President's address. Associate
Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr., stated that Kennedy's
proposals came as no great surprise. He said that many "large
areas" for cooperation exist, such as exchanges of scientific
information and in space tracking, but emphasized that no
cosmonauts would be flying in Apollo spacecraft. Deputy
Associate Administrator George E. Mueller shared Seamans' views,
comparing future U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation in space to joint
explorations in Antarctica. Scientists from both nations work
together, but "they get there in different ships." Just three
days earlier, MSC Director Robert R. Gilruth had told the
National Rocket Club that a joint American-Russian space flight
- especially one to the moon - would present almost insuperable
technological difficulties. "I tremble at the thought of the
integration problems . . . ," he said. Gilruth cautioned his
audience that he was speaking "not as an inter