Defense Research and Engineering, announced that he had decided to terminate the Saturn program. York felt that the DoD should not be funding a booster whose only concrete role was to support a civilian space program. A meeting was arranged to "save" the program, which resulted in the Saturn program, and all of ABMA with it, being transferred to NASA. Members and Directive At the request of the Associate Administrator of NASA in November of 1959, the Director of Space Flight Development formed an inter-agency study group composed of members of NASA, the Directorate of Defense Research and Engineering, ARPA, ABMA, and the Air Force. These members were Abe Silverstein (NASA) as Chairman, then Col. N. Appold (USAF), A. Hyatt (NASA), T. C. Muse (ODDR&E), G. P. Sutton (ARPA), W. von Braun (ABMA), and E. Hall (NASA) as Secretary. The request was for the group to formulate recommendations for the development of the Saturn rocket, specifically concerning selection of the upper stage configurations. The study was additionally tasked with focusing on four primary areas: determine the desired missions and payloads, identify potential problems with technical development, determine the cost and development time, and compare future growth in vehicle performance. Selecting an upper stage Nevertheless, the Air Force continued to agitate the development process. In December, ABMA, still part of the Army at this point, received an order to change the upper stage of the Saturn from the Titan-derived vehicle with a 120 inch diameter, to a new one with 160 inch diameter that would require considerably more development. The 160 inch diameter stage was the same as the Titan C upper stage, and by making this change to the Saturn the DoD would have two competing upper stage designs for the SLV-4 requirement, as well as allowing Saturn to launch Dyna-Soar if the need arose. ABMA was already testing the engines for their Titan-derived upper stage, and was upset with this new request. A meeting of all involved parties was arranged under the direction of Abe Silverstein, whose earlier efforts were instrumental in Saturn being selected for NASA missions. The group listed three missions for the initial Saturn vehicle: unmanned lunar and deep space missions with an escape payload of about ; payloads to geostationary orbit; and manned spacecraft missions of about in low orbits, such as Dyna-Soar. To make such "high altitude" missions practical, the performance of the upper