In February 1969, President Richard M. Nixon convened a Space Task Group to set recommendations for the future US civilian space program, headed by his Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. Agnew was an enthusiastic proponent of NASA's follow-on plans, and the STG recommended plans to develop a reusable Space Transportation System including a Space Shuttle, which would facilitate development of permanent space stations in Earth and lunar orbit, perhaps a base on the lunar surface, and the first human flight to Mars as early as 1986 or as late as 2000. Nixon had a better sense of the declining political support in Congress for a new Apollo-style program, which had disappeared with the achievement of the landing, and he intended to pursue détente with the USSR and China, which he hoped might ease Cold War tensions. He cut the spending proposal he sent to Congress to include funding for only the Space Shuttle, with perhaps an option to pursue the Earth orbital space station for the foreseeable future.