NASA Space Shuttle decision

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Even before the Apollo moon landing in 1969, in October 1968 NASA began early studies of space shuttle designs. The early studies were denoted "Phase A", and in June 1970, "Phase B", which were more detailed and specific.

In 1969, United States Vice President Spiro T. Agnew chaired the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which discussed post-Apollo options for manned space activities [1]. The recommendations of this body would heavily influence these directions.

They considered four major options:

  • manned Mars expedition
  • follow-on lunar program
  • low earth orbital infrastructure program
  • discontinuing manned space activities

Based on the advice of the Space Council, president Richard M. Nixon made the decision to pursue the low earth orbital infrastructure program. This program mainly consisted of a space station and space shuttle. However funding restrictions precluded pursuing both simultaneously, so NASA chose to develop the space shuttle first and then use the shuttle to construct and service a space station.

The primary intended use of the space shuttle was supporting the future space station. This function would dictate most of the shuttle's features. The U.S. Air Force was also interested in using the shuttle, and NASA welcomed their participation and influence to ensure political and financial support for the shuttle program.

Many potential shuttle designs were proposed during the 1960s, and they varied widely. Many were exceedingly complex. An attempt to re-simplify was made in the form of the "DC-3" by Maxime Faget who had designed the Mercury capsule among other vehicles. The DC-3 was a small craft with a 20,000-pound (9 metric ton) payload, a four-man capacity, and limited aerodynamic maneuverability. At a minimum, the DC-3 provided a baseline "workable" (but not significantly advanced) system by which other systems could be compared for price/performance compromises.

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[edit] Air Force involvement

During the mid-1960s the U.S. Air Force had both of its major piloted space projects, X-20 Dyna-Soar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory, canceled. This underscored the need to cooperate with NASA to place military astronauts in orbit. In turn, by serving Air Force needs, the Shuttle took shape as a truly national system, carrying military as well as civilian payloads.

Air Force involvement emphasized strategic reconnaissance, which required ability to launch spy satellites southward into polar orbit from Vandenberg AFB. This required higher energies than for lower inclination orbits. The Air Force desired the ability to land at the Vandenberg liftoff point after one orbit, despite the earth rotating 1,000 miles beneath the orbital track. This required a larger delta wing size than the earlier simple "DC-3" shuttle. However NASA also desired this increased maneuvering capability since further studies had shown the DC-3 shuttle design had limitations not initially foreseen. The Air Force planned on having their own fleet of shuttles, and re-built a separate launch facility originally derived from the canceled Manned Orbiting Laboratory program at Vandenberg called Space Launch Complex Six (SLC-6). However for various reasons, due in large part to the loss of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, work on SLC-6 was eventually discontinued with no shuttle launches from that location ever taking place.

SLC-6 was eventually used for launching the Lockheed Martin-built Athena expendable launch vehicles, which included the successful IKONOS commercial Earth observation satellite in September of 1999 before being reconfigured once again to handle the new generation of Boeing Delta IV's. The first launch of the Delta IV heavy from SLC-6 occurred in June 2006, launching NROL-22, a classified satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

[edit] Shuttle design debate

During the early shuttle studies, there was a debate over the optimal shuttle design that best balanced capability, development cost, and operational cost. Initially a fully reusable design was preferred. This involved a very large winged manned booster which would carry a smaller winged manned orbiter. The booster vehicle would lift the orbiter to a certain altitude and speed, then separate. The booster would return and land horizontally, while the orbiter continued into low earth orbit. After completing its mission, the winged orbiter would reenter and land horizontally on a runway. The idea was that full reusability would promote lower operating costs.

However further studies showed a huge booster was needed to lift an orbiter with the desired payload capability. In space and aviation systems, cost is closely related to weight, so this meant the overall vehicle cost would be very high. Both booster and orbiter would have rocket engines plus jet engines for use within the atmosphere, plus separate fuel and control systems for each propulsion mode. In addition there were concurrent discussions about how much funding would be available to develop the program.

Another competing approach was maintaining the Saturn V production line and using its large payload capacity to launch a space station in a few payloads rather than many smaller shuttle payloads. A related concept was servicing the space station using the Air Force Titan II-M to launch a larger Gemini capsule, called "Big Gemini", rather than using the shuttle.

The shuttle supporters answered that given enough launches, a reusable system would have lower overall costs than disposable rockets. If dividing total program costs over a given number of launches, a high shuttle launch rate would result in lower per-launch costs. This in turn would make the shuttle cost competitive with or superior to expendable launchers. Some theoretical studies mentioned 55 shuttle launches per year, however the final design chosen would not support that launch rate. In particular the maximum external tank production rate was limited to 24 tanks per year at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility.

The combined space station and Air Force payload requirements weren't sufficient to reach desired shuttle launch rates. Therefore the plan was for all future U.S. space launches -- space station, Air Force, commercial satellites, and scientific research -- to use only the space shuttle. Most other expendable boosters would be phased out.

The reusable booster was eventually abandoned due to a several factors: high price (combined with limited funding), technical complexity, and development risk. Instead, a partially (not fully) reusable design was selected, where an external propellent tank was discarded for each launch, and the booster rockets and shuttle orbiter were refurbished for reuse.

Initially the orbiter was to carry its own liquid propellant. However studies showed carrying the propellant in an external tank allowed a larger payload bay in an otherwise much smaller craft. It also meant throwing away the tank after each launch, but this was a relatively small portion of operating costs.

Earlier designs assumed the winged orbiter would also have jet engines to assist maneuvering in the atmosphere after reentering. However NASA ultimately chose an unpowered gliding orbiter, based partially on experience from previous unpowered gliding vehicles such as the X-15 and lifting bodies. Omitting the jet engines and their fuel would reduce complexity and increase payload.

The last remaining debate was over the nature of the boosters. NASA examined four solutions to this problem: development of the existing Saturn lower stage, simple pressure-fed liquid-fuel engines of a new design, a large single solid rocket, or two (or more) smaller ones. Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (where the Saturn V development was managed) were particularly concerned about solid rocket reliability for manned missions.

[edit] Final design chosen

NASA eventually decided to use the smaller solid rocket boosters due to their lower development costs. While the liquid-fueled systems provided better performance and enhanced safety, delivery capability to orbit is more a function of the upper-stage performance and weight than the lower; the money was hence spent elsewhere. The final design would be a winged orbiter with three liquid fueled engines, a large expendable external tank which held liquid propellant for the main engines, and two reusable solid rocket boosters.

[edit] The shuttle in retrospect

Opinions differ on the lessons of the Shuttle. While it was developed within the original development cost and time estimates given to President Richard M. Nixon in 1971[2], at a cost of $ 6.744 billion in 1971 dollars, (versus $ 5.15 billion estimated[3], within the overrun expected) but the operational costs, flight rate, payload capacity, and reliability have been worse than anticipated.

The shuttle is sometimes criticized for adopting a simpler, compromise design than was originally envisioned. Ironically it is also criticized for being too complex or excessively pushing the state of early 1970s technology. If it had incorporated the originally planned fully reusable manned booster, it would have been far more complex than the current design. According to Bob Thompson, space shuttle program manager from 1970 to 1981, attempting the more complex fully reusable design would possibly have doomed the entire program.[2]

Due to the two disasters, the shuttle is often viewed as an intrinsically unreliable or flawed design. However, the two losses were both caused when known technical problems were discovered, and the vehicle was flown without correcting these. Other launch systems, past or future, if flown with known major problems could likewise fail if managed similarly.

The NASA Chief Administrator Michael Griffin has recently suggested the decision to develop the Space Shuttle and International Space Station was a mistake by saying, "It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path. We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can."[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Space Task Group (1969). Report of the Space Task Group, 1969. Retrieved on February 1, 2006.
  2. ^ a b Columbia Accident Investigation Board (2003). CAIB public hearing transcript, April 23, 2003. Retrieved on February 4, 2006.
  3. ^ Astronautix-Shuttle
  4. ^ Watson, Traci. "NASA administrator says space shuttle was a mistake", USA Today, Gannett, September 27, 2005. Retrieved on 2006-10-17. (English) 

[edit] External links

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