SCRAP THE SHUTTLE? While I may agree with Carlton Meyer's basic sentiment in this regard, I have to take issue with a number of his arguments.

While the shuttle eats up $4 billion a year in NASA funding, only $1 billion was devoted to the shuttle replacement, the X-33, before senior NASA officials admitted the concept was unworkable. Experts told NASA that the X-33 just needed a rocket sled or pneumatic ground assisted launch, but NASA ignored them. Congress then gave NASA $4.8 billion over several years to develop a replacement for the shuttle.

Sled? That's news to me. The problem with X-33 was a flawed early design, specifically the hydrogen tanks and the TPS attachments, and flawed program management that only exacerbated the trouble caused by the (correctable) design flaws. Had those problems been corrected early in the program, the X-33 would likely have flown more or less as planned. Had NASA, late in the game, been willing to fund the work necessary to complete the recovery work already then in progress, the X-33 might be flying right about now (about half again over budget, true, but at least something tangible would have come of the program). However, it's important to remember that by the end the "follow-on" RLV bore very little resemblance to the X-33 demonstrator vehicle -- it's not as though terminating X-33 also terminated an incipient Shuttle replacement, as the experience with X-33 itself drove the RLV design away from everything that that vehicle had set out to demonstrate. The X-33 program wasted money and wasted time, to be sure, but like the Shuttle itself it demonstrated what could not or should not be done (technically and managerially), and ultimately serves as a valuable counterexample for future programs.

However, this Strategic Launch Initiative (SLI) became a game to keep the shuttle jobs program going, and only produced some complex artistic drawings devoid of any details like mass or engine type. At a World Space Congress panel on space operations last month, veteran shuttle flight director Wayne Hale discounted SLI concepts as ungrounded in reality. On October 22nd, NASA postponed the next phase of SLI indefinitely.

SLI = "Space Launch Initiative".

SLI has diverged from its initial plan to a large degree, sure, and is already steering to a desired configuration rather than simply developing and demonstrating a number of promising technologies without regard to a specific architecture. Typical bureaucratic "focus creep". I'm not all that clear on what he means when he says that there are no details "like mass or engine type" -- everything I've seen is sized based on weight parametrics and the capabilities of specific available or soon-to-be-available engines. The pretty pictures are there, sure, but if they weren't he'd no doubt be griping about the handwaving distractions of incomprehensible tables of weight estimates and the unimaginative reliance on currently-existing or soon-to-be-available engine types...

And isn't it a bit contradictory to, on one hand, gripe about SLI being turned into a shuttle jobs program, and on the other hand quote (without irony) a Shuttle program poohbah deriding the concepts for the Shuttle's replacements? (Keep in mind, too, that each of the participants in the program is keeping the details of its concepts close to the vest for now.)

SLI is in limbo because the focus became minute improvements in rocketry to produce the RS-83 to replace the shuttle's main engines, and the RS-84 as expensive fly-back boosters to replace the shuttle's solid rocket boosters. Now NASA is breaking the bad news to America with a message like: We tried really hard, but couldn't find a better method. Luckily, we did discover ways to improve the current Space Shuttle, so we can upgrade that system and extend it for another twenty years.

Perhaps. The Air Force has certainly done this with B-52s...even while fielding two brand-new super-high-tech "replacements". This is the deja vu feeling I'm getting from articles like this one, which suggest NASA will build a new vehicle to take over a number of the Shuttle's roles while still keeping the old birds flying.

Even if OSP doesn't pan out, Shuttle upgrades are not a dead end. The SSMEs are already near the maximum practical efficiency for a LOx/LH2 engine -- if a new engine can be built which has the same or even a minutely increased thermodynamic efficiency but with a dramatic improvement in operations efficiency (inspection, maintenance, and other ground-based costs), it makes sense to do so, as that engine can be proven on Shuttle and incorporated readily into any successor vehicle. Liquid fly-back has been in development at some level of effort since the inception of the Shuttle program -- it has not yet materialized, and I don't expect SLI to change that.

The United Space Alliance (USA) is pleased. This patriotic sounding group is a cover for the two aerospace giants (Boeing and Lockheed-Martin) who share one billion dollars a year in funding to "manage" the shuttle program. They now want billions more for Space Shuttle II to upgrade everything and replace the two solid rocket boosters with RS-84 liquid fly-backs. However, the shuttle has a payload of only ~50,000 lbs.

But then, SLI is a cover program for funneling billions of dollars in study funds to these same aerospace giants, and eventually the funds to build and fly whatever replacement they might develop. Does he really believe that either company is so married to Shuttle that they would prefer it to a new program and the unmilked government teat it represents?

And I hate to break it to him, but the successor vehicles are sized to the same payload class as Shuttle. There is a reason for this: market demand. Sure, it'd be wonderful to have a Saturn V class super-heavy-lift vehicle available, but unless Intelsat and its competitors have plans for 100-ton communications birds, how will this capacity be used? When we need heavy lift capability, it will be once again called into being. In the meantime, however, it is important to acknowledge the realities of the market -- whatever replaces Shuttle will be expected to carry commercial payloads, and if the commercial market has no foreseeable need for payloads larger than 25 tons, it makes no sense to build in extra capacity that will go unused and add to the development and operations costs.

So if you use two flyback boosters, you add two sets of landing gear, two sets of stub wings, and two jet engines per booster, plus more fuel to launch this extra deadweight, and the shuttle payload goes to zero. This proposal does not bring back the expensive fuel tank either, leaving one unsure if USA is incompetent or mismanaged.

What? This is just plain wrong. The notion that NASA would build and fly a flyback booster that was so inefficient as to reduce Shuttle payload to zero is laughable...even for NASA. No booster design would be acceptable that did not provide the same payload-to-orbit performance as the current system. How he concludes that the payload would go to zero is beyond me.

And as for the external tank...those things are actually quite a small fraction of the cost of a Shuttle mission. So small that it is in fact cheaper to throw them away than to try to bring them back for reuse, with all the redesign of the Shuttle system that that would entail. (Not to mention that enhancements to make the ET reusable would cut into payload capacity...pound for pound.)

Even the Simpson's cartoon series made fun of NASA by selecting Homer for a "regular guy" mission, along with an ant experiment which goes awry. The Russians are not paying for their share for the Space Station, and have resorted to selling trips to billionaires, celebrities, and are now negotiating to host TV game shows in space. NASA has given up on pretending that shuttle missions involve science and now proclaim they are important for international relations.

And the Russians selling tourist trips is a bad idea why? Is he unaware of how Tito's flight caught the (positive) attention of millions of people? And how it undermined the "job protecting" image of Elite Superhuman Astronauts Doing Things That No One Else Can Do Without Billions Of Dollars Of Specialized Training that NASA likes to peddle to maintain its budget and turf? I'd think he'd welcome such attempts at space commercialization, as ultimately it points to a way to get around NASA, and so obviate the need to bitterly reproach the agency and its programs, by relegating it to the status of one player among many rather than the monopoly power it is at present.

As the shuttle orbiters age, maintenance becomes even more expensive, and many experts believe its just a matter of time before another shuttle blows up due to its complex vertical launch method.

I'm sure that many experts believe we are due for another Shuttle disaster, but I'm skeptical that they attribute it to the "complex vertical launch method" rather than, say, bungled engine maintenance, or any number of other failures in what is a complex system overall.

But then, Mr. Carlton's distaste for the "complex vertical launch method" couldn't be because he has a personal preference for some other launch method, could it?

Americans in their 30s watched shuttle launches as young children. Now NASA wants to keep the program going so they can one day watch shuttle launches from their retirement home. Then they wonder why there is no enthusiasm for space programs in the nation or Congress. If the shuttle hangs on for another 80 missions, does anyone expect anything to come from them?

It's not the commonplace that Shuttle launches have become that has sapped the public enthusiasm for space (if, indeed, it has been sapped). What makes space seem dull to the public is the fact that...NASA has made space dull. And that is a combination of institutionalized resistance to risks and the perceived public unwillingness to fund more adventurous and challenging and exciting space activities. And this public unwillingness to fund NASA at a level that would support more exciting endeavors is squarely the fault of NASA itself, which has over time proved itself unable to effectively manage the funds it has been given for manned space efforts. If Mr. O'Keefe can get the agency's books in order, and accomplish something worthwhile and and exciting within the means currently available to the agency, perhaps the public will decide it merits funding for projects that aim to once again take humans beyond LEO.

There is not "no enthusiasm for space programs in the nation or Congress." Rather, there is a lack of faith in the agency entrusted to carry out those programs. Fix that perception through concrete results and the enthusiasm will follow. Better yet, do everything possible to entice private commercial development of space, and you'll see the same kind of enthusiasm for space that the public has displayed for computers over the past two decades.

Perhaps NASA should build a "Sea Station" 1000 feet below the sea and use submarines to take foreigners and other salaried government tourists on "missions" to conduct "experiments" and set "endurance records" while "improving international relations". This idea may seem crazy, but it would be much cheaper than the shuttle program and accomplish just as much.

Okay, okay, I'll give Meyer credit for an amusing metaphor here.

The Apollo program ended when America realized that expensive adventures to collect moon rocks was pointless. Can anyone name a spectacular scientific discovery from shuttle missions? Its become a jobs program and a public relations campaign to hide a lack of progress.

Apollo ended when the very limited and focused goal towards which NASA and the country had been bent for most of a decade had been achieved, and no further goals had been articulated beyond that that could sustain the momentum. It was a failure of vision, one which was well underway by 1966.

As for Shuttle, one could cynically point to that program as being an unparallelled engineering success in the Petrovskian sense.

In contrast, just $1 billion in seed money helped Boeing build the Delta IV and Lockheed-Martin the Atlas 5, the first new expendable rocket systems in over 20 years.

This is a little off-topic here, but you know something? I am fed up with people giving pride of place to the Boeing Delta IV EELV, treating it like it is the wave of the future and made of spun sugar and God's golden grace, while always, without fail, dismissing Lockheed Martin's Atlas V as an also-ran... "Ohhh, yeahhh...and Atlas V...whatever...yawn..."

Here's a reality check for all you folks who unaccountably hold Boeing's EELV in such high esteem vs. Atlas V.

• Atlas V has already flown successfully.
  
• Atlas V will probably fly for a second time before Delta IV ever gets off the ground.
  
• Atlas V will very likely be tapped to fly the satellite intended to ride the first Delta IV flight, because the customer can't wait forever for that to happen.
  
• Boeing is rumored to have invested twice as much of its own money in Delta IV as Lockheed Martin sunk into Atlas V. If true, which company (if either) do you suppose will reach profitability soonest?
  
• Boeing's done such a slipshod job with the design, integration, and project management of ISS -- what makes you think EELV will be any better?

I find it baffling the nearly universal tendency to list the Delta IV first when discussing EELV and to use Delta IV as the exemplar of the vehicle class.

Imagine what could happen if the $4 billion a year and 30,000 shuttle experts were diverted to R&D? Imagine the panic at NASA after cancellation of the shuttle program shatters their comfortable academic climate and everyone realizes that a superior method must be developed fast, lest Congress deems them inept and cuts funding.

Innovative ideas like maglev launch, nuclear engines, and the space elevator require major funding. Some top level physicists now agree that anti-gravity devices like the 512kV rotator can reduce the effects of gravity by spinning electrons, but they can't secure funding for research.

Ah, yes...Maglev launch. Right. Tooting your own horn there, eh?

So, X-33 and Shuttle are billion-dollar boondoggles, but antigravity devices are a good investment of these same resources? Maybe the reason antigravity research can't secure funding is because no one can quite seem to replicate it? That it has the academic cachet of cold fusion? Nahhh, couldn't be that...He makes here the classic mistake of assuming that throwing money and people at a problem will miraculously solve it -- even worse, that that money and manpower, when thrown at an unproven and at best "fortean" technology will result in, well, results.

Plans for pneumatic assisted launch have been around for years, but never funded. A large rail launch demonstrator requires a billion dollars, or funds for just two shuttle missions. NASA may soon cancel the promising VARISM plasma engine research project citing a lack of funds.

Unfortunately, little technological progress is expected unless NASA management and shuttle funding is diverted from the continual burden of getting yet another shuttle safely off the ground.

Um, it's "VASIMR". And again, the focus on the technology is misguided when there is not a mission for it to support. If we had a reason to need VASIMR, it would be developed. If there were missions to Mars planned, it would make sense to develop plasma drives, just as it would make sense to develop new Saturn-class launch vehicles. There is no market for it, hence, no one is currently willing to fund it.

(And is it me, or is someone a little fixated on his pet technology?)

The US Air Force has become so frustrated by NASA's focus on the shuttle that it wants to build its own manned spacecraft. Until a major technological breakthrough allows a new form of space launch, all we have today is chemical rocket power that can provide just a few percent payload by weight compared to their overall size.

No, I think USAF wants to build its own spacecraft because it sees a mission for itself in space, and needs something more affordable, reliable, and (most important) operable than the Shuttle system.

And as for some sort of "major technological breakthrough" being necessary before access to space becomes practical, well, "hooey". The quest for The One True Enabling Technology is a false one, as it is based on the false premise that there is in fact a One True Enabling Technology at all, some breakthrough which will at last make access to space as cheap as a trip to the grocery store. We've got all the technology we need to gain a foothold in space, but there isn't as yet a market for it. Once a market is brought into being, such as space tourism or support of military space activities, the existing technology will become cheaper, and the demand will drive the development of new technology. It doesn't work the other way around -- in space, "if you engineer it, they will come" doesn't work.

A massive rocket-powered horizontal launched spaceplane may work, but it would cost billions to build, must be several times larger than a 747, and may cost so much to launch and maintain that it erases the savings of being reusable, just like the shuttle. If you add wings, landing gear and engines to bring any spacecraft or fly-back booster back to Earth for reuse, that extra weight eliminates the payload.

Groan. Say it with me: "Flyback boosters do not eliminate the payload"...

And who, exactly, is seriously considering massive rocket-powered horizontal takeoff spaceplanes? The Big Two are not. And even the startups who are considering horizontal "launches" are talking about airplane-like takeoff, aerial refueling, and rocket ascent to orbit from high altitude (or variations on that theme, such as being towed to altitude by a larger aircraft). Strawman, anyone?

You can't just make a bigger spacecraft because that requires bigger wings, landing gear and engines. So the only way a reusable rocket powered spacecraft can work is with a ground assist launch to Mach 1-2 up a mountainside. This is possible today, as the Sky Ramp Technology website explains. However, funding for Sky Ramps and new technologies will remain tight so long as the shuttle program consumes the attention and funding at NASA.

There may or may not be validity to maglev assisted launchers. The problem is with putting people or other acceleration-sensitive payloads in them...a reusable spaceplane isn't going to be of much use if it turns the crew to astronaut-flavored meat paste before they even get above the clouds. Without high acceleration, you'll need a long ramp. Which means a suitably long, suitably elevated mountainside. Which the greenies are sure to hand over to you for your technology demonstration without quarrel, especially when they learn about the sonic booms, shrieking mechanical cacaphony, and brain-crisping magnetic fields the local fauna and flora will find themselves treated to.

It's ironic that Mr. Meyer falls into the same trap that dooms so many NASA efforts, namely, being so fixated on the virtues of one's pet technology that all alternatives become enemies and one loses the ability to see the big picture. In the big picture, the specific technology used to attain a goal really isn't relevant, it only needs to be just good enough to get there.

Because getting to your goal is the point -- not the vehicle you take to get there.

Posted by T.L. James on November 4, 2002 11:26 PM