High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Saturn Vehicle Evaluation Committee, better known as the Silverstein Committee, was a US government commission assembled in 1959 to recommend specific directions that NASA could take with the Saturn program. The committee was chaired by Abe Silverstein, a long-time NASA engineer, with the express intent of selecting upper stages for the Saturn after a disagreement broke out between the Air Force and Army over its development. During the meetings the Committee members outlined a number of different potential designs, including the low-risk solution von Braun was developing with existing ICBM airframes, as well as versions using entirely new upper stages developed to take full advantage of the booster stage. The advantages of using new uppers were so great that the committee won over an initially skeptical von Braun, and the future of the Saturn program changed forever.