A document from the CQ Researcher archives: Report Outline
Special Focus Overview The Soviet Union's launch in May of a powerful new unmanned rocket stunned the American space community, which is still reeling from the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in the 1986 catastrophe that has all but grounded U.S. space exploration. Press reports touted the ability of the Soviet rocket, Energia—the world's most powerful—to lift cargoes four times the weight the American shuttle could carry. The Soviets announced that the rocket will be able to lift into orbit a manned space shuttle they have developed—previously considered a uniquely American achievement. The rocket might also permit them to send crews to Mars or to place a manned space station into orbit, piece by piece, for a potential steppingstone to Mars. Meanwhile, U.S. scientists and communications companies are chafing at the dim prospects for launching any satellites at home for several years. In the aftermath of the Challenger explosion. U.S. space advocates and experts have been forced into an era of introspection. The accident halted America's primary civilian space vehicle, the space shuttle, until June 1988 at the earliest, when a severely limited number of flights is tentatively scheduled to resume. Now, as America contemplates the next leg of its space program—construction of a manned space station—the shortcomings of the shuttle program and recent Soviet advances are looming large. A combination of romantic visions of man in space, budget restraints and technical compromises caused the United States to fall unexpectedly behind the Soviet Union in space exploration. While the Soviets plodded along in the development of powerful rockets to catch up with the pre-eminent Americans, the United States abandoned unmanned rockets for the revolutionary manned shuttle. Ironically, Energia has barely caught up technologically with the Saturn rockets in which American astronauts shot to the moon 18 years ago. But America decided to halt production of the Saturn and other “expendable” throwaways rockets in 1971 in favor of developing the shuttle. The shuttle seemed attractive because, unlike other rockets, it could carry humans, could be landed by a pilot on its return from space and could be reused for space flights. But although the shuttle was perceived as a glamorous advance by the American public, its advent engendered cries of protest in scientific segments of the space community. The Energia was the proof, in the view of those scientists, that the Russian tortoise had beaten the American hare. As early as last year, the unofficial but authoritative Jane's Spaceflight Directory, published in Britain, called the Soviet lead in space exploration “almost frightening.” The United States in opting for the daring manned shuttle, plagued first by delays and later by the Challenger tragedy, eventually lost ground in a variety of space areas Planetary science slowed to a halt as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was unable to launch unmanned stellites to other planets in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of shuttle delays. While American astronauts took turns taking rides of several days on the shuttle, the Soviets used unmanned rockets to boost manned space stations into orbit for months at a time, logging an unequaled record for long human flights. Now, it seems clear, Energia will have the versatility to life the kinds of large scientific and military satellites that have been grounded in America by the Challenger accident. “The decision in the 1970s to rely on the shuttle as the only launch vehicle and then to phase out the unmanned launches has set space science back seriously,” says Thomas M. Donahue, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Michigan and chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Commenting on Energia, he says. “The Russians have been very methodical about this. They developed a whole stable of launch vehicles….This step with Energia is something we have to do sometime soon.” In choosing the exclusively manned approach to space flight, the United States had not counted on delays, accidents or a reduced number of flights. To sell the shuttle to the Nixon administration. NASA justified it as a cost-saver that would replace all other civilian and military rockets of comparable power. Taking the cost-saving argument seriously, the government decided to phase out all unmanned rockets with a heavy-lift capacity. But the shuttle turned out to be much more expensive than anyone imagined and was not able to fly as often as expected. Planetary scientists, who had been counting on powerful rockets to boost satellite observatories into space, were told by NASA to wait until the shuttle was completed. The shuttle, however, suffered delays from inception and now has been grounded for a year-and-a-half. They must wait at least another year before it is again operational and can carry aloft space vehicles for unmanned exploration of neighboring planets. “Today, we've ended up with no shuttle, no science and no money,” says Gerald Wasserburg, a professor of geology and geophysics at the California Institute of Technology. “We can't launch a satellite. We can't even launch a baseball …. The United States was at the pinnacle of activity in planetary exploration [in the late 1970s], and we've let it all slip by.” The experience with the shuttle has made many advocates of space science outspokenly hostile toward projects whose primary goal is to put humans in space. The current target of that hostility is the next costly manned project planned by NASA—an earth-orbiting space station containing permanent living quarters and a science laboratory. Once again, some scientists fear, a large man-oriented project with escalating costs will constrain the budget for space science. “The present space station program is nothing more than a blind leap of faith,” says Albert D. Wheelon, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Hughes Aircraft Co. in Los Angeles, a manufacturer of satellites. “If we take this leap, almost nothing else will get done at NASA—our only agency for doing civilian space projects. An exclusive commitment to the space station would be even more tragic than our exclusive commitment to the space shuttle.” Of course, the space station has its defenders, too. “If we do not accept the challenge of manned space exploration, other nations will not wait for us to do so,” argue David C. Black, former chief scientist in NASA's space station office, and Peter M. Banks, a Stanford University professor of electrical engineering and chairman of the NASA Task Force on Scientific Uses of the Space Station. Banks and Black point to the Soviets' existing Mir space station and Russian plans for more ambitious space stations, as well as to European and Japanese plans for manned space flight. Space science, Banks and Black argue, has moved from the remote observation of planets by automated satellites to a new stage in which scientists can undertake experiments in person, in laboratories traveling through space's unique gravity free environment. Dreams versus budget realities With the space station, as with the space shuttle, the romantic lure of space exploration frequently clashes with budgetary constraints and scientific demands for specific information. NASA, faced with White House and congressional demands that it provide a cost-effective justification for the space station, has argued that the station can fulfill a long laundry list of functions—much as was claimed for the shuttle. But some critics attack those proposed functions—serving as a science laboratory or a jumping-off point for travel to Mars—as afterthoughts in a bureaucracy more concerned with hardware than function. The critics say the danger is that in trying to satisfy all constituencies, the space station may not do anything well. Some space scientists think the scientific gains from a space station will not be worth the cost involved, which is now estimated at $33 billion. The Space Science Board, an advisory group of scientists to NASA under the aegis of the National Academy of Sciences, has found “minimal” scientific need for a space station over the next 20 years. In a national political atmosphere that is dominated by cost-conscious attention to the federal budget deficit, it is unclear whether the country will be willing to pay the price for such an expensive project. Already the toll taken by the shuttle's loss on America's scientific stature has inspired a new note of caution in Congress which once was eager to finance popular manned space flight. In an attempt to protect space science programs, the House of Representatives recently voted to cap the share of future space spending that may be devoted to the space station. Moreover, both Congress and NASA appear to be moving toward support of a mixed space fleet that would include expendable rockets as well as manned ones. Some critics of the space program fear that Congress will commit the space program to an apparently affordable technology only to find the true costs escalate later. Already, the space station's costs are expected to be four times larger than the $8 billion estimate made in 1984, a National Academy of Sciences panel reported in June. Astronaut Sally K. Bide and other advisers within NASA are pushing for a manned mission to Mars, but planetary scientists are cautioning the government to learn as much as possible through automation and robots before sending humans on an arduous three-year trip to Mars and back. In a report scheduled to be delivered to NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher the week of Aug 8. Ride will recommend that NASA's next major goals include establishment of a manned base on the moon as a jumping-off point to Mars. Recently the Soviets invited the United States to participate in a joint mission to Mars to collect samples of the planet's materials via robots. It is an invitation many American scientists find attractive now that American planetary science is in the doldrums. The Soviet Union has also announced its intention to send a manned mission to Mars, a goal to which the United States government has made no commitment. For the first time in 20 years. Americans are expressing concern that the Soviet Union may be winning the space race. Whether the nation will respond to this challenge by cooperating with the Soviets in space or by devoting increased taxpayer's dollars to regain the lead remains a question for the future. Shuttle era is cost-conscious When most Americans think of the glory days of the space program, they look back to the dramatic proposal by President Kennedy in 1961 that the nation send a man to the moon. The nation accepted his ambitious space program with no limitation on costs—challenging the Russians, who had established supremacy be sending the first unmanned satellite (Sputnik I) into orbit around the earth and the first manned satellite four years later. Kennedy called on Congress to commit itself to a $25 billion undertaking for the largely intangible goals of prestige and competition. And Congress agreed. In today's dollars, the spending commitment would amount to more than $60 billion. After the first American astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, NASA tried to define its next goals. It once again picked an idea with a powerful imaginative lure: a permanently inhabited space station that would orbit the Earth and be served by a reusable rocket that could “shuttle” back and forth to the living quarters in space. But in contrast to the free-spending attitude that prevailed during the Apollo program, the agency now confronted a new era of cost constraints on federal space spending. “Only slowly, if at all, would NASA administrators and other space advocates come to realize that the Apollo [moon program] commitment was a political anomaly defying duplication,” writes John M. Logsden, a chronicler of the space program and director of the graduate program in science, technology and public policy at George Washington University. In later years, much of the debate over the shuttle would revolve around an initially ambitious concept trying to adapt to limited budgets and practical questions about purpose. As costs were scaled back and compromise made the space program suffered setbacks that in retrospect appear even more costly. These include the decision to phase out unmanned rockets, abandonment of the nation's first primitive space station and delays of planetary science missions, all of which have played a role in eroding America's pre-eminence in space. When NASA first brought the concept of a space station to public view in 1969, its picture was unabashedly ambitions. The agency described the station as a taking off point for assembling and launching a manned vehicle to Mars, “thereby initiating man's permanent occupancy of space.” When the Nixon White House rejected this proposal. NASA was left to find another project that could gain political approval. That new compromise program would be the shuttle Previous human voyages into space has taken place in a space capsule, which was strapped to the top of a powerful rocket. The rocket would boost the capsule into space and then disintegrate. The capsule would then splash down in the ocean to be recovered. By contrast, the shuttle would operate as an integrated system from start to finish. The spacecraft holding the astronauts and the cargo would also have enough power to propel itself part of the way to space and to land like an airplane. Today, the shuttle consists of an orbiter, which holds the crew, payloads and three main engines; an external tank: and two solid rocket boosters attached, to either side of the of the craft to provide additional power during the first two-and-a-half minutes of launch. The boosters are recovered from the ocean after takeoff. The orbiter returns to a landing strip. NASA's early attempt to sell the concept of the shuttle was an uphill climb. In 1969, the agency faced a White House budget office that was skeptical about the benefits of manned space flight, and the high cost. According to Logsden, the shuttle was “the first space project subjected to formal economic analysis.” To impress cost-conscious skeptics, NASA argued that the shuttle could replace all existing launch vehicles and thus save money in the long run. For this argument to work, the shuttle would have to capture all military and intelligence satellites, which were expected to comprise about one-third of the future space traffic. In taking on this new definition of the shuttle's purpose to win the support of an important constituency, NASA set a pattern for which it was later criticized—attempting to be all things for all people. The space agency scrambled to redesign the shuttle so that it could meet military requirements. The design revisions increased the shuttle's system required and put additional demands on the propulsion system. Further changes in the shuttle design were forced by the Nixon administration's decision to keep the agency's budget frozen in the five years after the shuttle proposal. Once again NASA scrambled, trying to come up with a shuttle that could be built with half the funds originally anticipated. The main approach was to lower the development costs at the expense of higher future operating costs, to be borne by future taxpayers. But in the end, after all the agency squabbles over costs, it was international stature in space exploration, not cost, that swayed Nixon in favor of the shuttle. Like Kennedy, President Nixon became convinced that the United States would have to build the shuttle primarily for reasons of national prestige. Nixon told his advisers that “even if [the shuttle] were not a good investment we would have to do it anyway, because space flight is here to stay.” Nixon was also intrigued by the airplanelike design of the shuttle and the prospect that “ordinary people” would be able to fly in it. Congress bought the shuttle idea for many of the same reasons that Nixon did. But cost also figured in its consideration. Congress became convinced that it could not afford to pay for both the shuttle and expendable launch vehicles. The shuttle was so expensive that the only way to justify it would be to “fly full and often,” replacing the need for any other rockets. The manned element of the shuttle appealed to Congress, even though making the vehicle safe and comfortable for man increased its cost significantly over that of a rocket designed to hold only automated equipment. One appeal of a manned space flight program was that its sheer expense would provide business for important congressional constituencies: aerospace contractors and federally supported space research centers. The scientific community testified against the shuttle in congressional hearings in 1970, and 1971, but the criticisms fell on deaf ears. For many years scientists would make the argument that robots could collect scientific materials and information at less cost than man could, but their arguments did not receive favorable notice until after the Challenger accident. Ironically, the national decision in 1971 to abandon unmanned rockets would eventually put America's manned space-flight program far behind the Soviet program, which has relied on unmanned rockets to launch a steady stream of manned space stations since 1978. The United States, by contrast, considered the development of the shuttle a necessary step toward a space station and abandoned a primitive version of the station, known as Skylab, that had been built in connection with the Apollo program. Skylab was a science laboratory manned temporarily by astronauts, who used Apollo space capsules to reach the station three times during its six-year orbit from 1973–79. Initially, NASA had counted on the shuttle to boost Skylab into a higher orbit where it could remain indefinitely. However, in 1979, unexpected atmospheric conditions sent Skylab hurtling back toward Earth, and NASA reluctantly let it self-destruct. The agency had been caught empty-handed. The shuttle was not yet operating as scheduled, yet the unmanned Saturn rockets had been scrapped. “The big mistake we made is not to rescue Skylab” by keeping a backup launcher on hand, says Hans Mark, a former deputy administrator of NASA and currently chancellor of the University of Texas system. In the intervening years, he points out, the Soviets have surpassed the United States in manned space flight because of their repeated-launches of space stations that keep astronauts in space for long periods of time. Over the past decade, the Soviets have logged some 12 years of manned space travel, compared with America's five years. The Soviets' intensive experience with man in space can be dated from a 1978 orbit in which cosmonauts exceeded the 84-day record that U.S. astronauts had set aboard Skylab in 1973–74. In 1984, three Soviet cosmonauts orbited still longer, for 237 days. While the Soviets relegated the launch of their space stations to the unglamorous Soyuz rockets, logging information about the effect of weightlessness on man's mind and body, the United States concentrated on developing the space shuttle. Critics of the shuttle program point out that if the United States had continued to keep powerful unmanned launch rockets in operation. American communications, science and military satellites would still have a way to get to space. Defenders of NASA say the decision to phase out powerful rockets made sense at the time, when it was thought that the shuttle could replace their functions. When the shuttle fleet resumes flying in June 1988—or later if NASA's schedule slips, as many observers predict—only four flights are planned in the first year of operation, not the 24 that NASA had previously projected. The number is due to increase gradually each year, reaching a maximum of 14 in 1994, when a replacement for the Challenger becomes available. NASA has been forced to reduce the number of shuttle flights for several reasons. The Challenger accident deprived the shuttle of one of its four orbiters. In addition, safety questions posed by Challenger have required NASA to shift away from an aggressive policy that pushed the system to fly as often as possible to a policy aimed at flying as safely as possible. NASA is expected to reduce the weight of the cargo on each flight as a safety precaution, particularly in the case of an emergency landing. The new limits on shuttle flights and cargoes will put a crimp in commercial and scientific missions in particular. Before the Challenger accident, NASA projected that flights would be divided equally among military, NASA and commercial needs. By the time NASA put out a revised flight schedule in November 1986, the agency had announced that flights for commercial and foreign satellites would be cut from 30 percent to 12 percent of all flights and would be limited to cargoes that for technical, national-security or foreign-policy reasons had no alternative transport. Military satellite, NASA says, will occupy 41 percent of flights. NASA's scientific needs will be satisfied by 29 percent of the flights. An additional 14 percent will be devoted to sending up parts of the space station. The remaining 4 percent will satisfy other NASA needs. The competition for the limited number of heavily booked flights will delay scientific satellites that were scheduled for launching in 1986 and subsequent years, setting back scientific experiments. Commercial satellite owners bumped from Challenger are looking to other countries or to the embryonic private American launch industry for a lift into space. According to Banks of Stanford: “The situation since the Challenger accident has become increasingly catastrophic for our national program of space science.” Before the accident, he says, 76 science tasks were planned for fiscal years 1986–95. In the revised schedule, only 22 scientific missions remain. In addition to delaying many science missions. NASA also has canceled 32 of the 37 science tasks it had planned for Spacelab, a manned laboratory to be placed in the shuttle cargo bay. According to a NASA spokesman, the agency is reluctant to finance new scientific investigations because it is not clear when they can be flown. Space experts predict that further delays in the shuttle would put the highest priority to military needs, necessarily bumping scientific missions further into the future. Since the late 1970s. NASA had been telling planetary scientists to be patient until the shuttle came into operation. Then, NASA promised, launches would be available once more. There has been no launch of an American spacecraft to any planet or moon since two Pioneer probes were sent to Venus in 1978. Although the shuttle was in operation from 1982 until January 1986, no planetary mission has been launched from it yet. Four major projects are waiting: Mars Observer, to Mars: Magellan, to orbit Venus; Galileo, to Jupiter: and Ulysses, which will orbit the sun. At the time of the Challenger accident, Galileo and Ulysses were scheduled for launch from the shuttle the following May and June, and the others were to go in 1987. Planetary missions are dependent on finding a “window” when planets are in the correct position for observation. The limited number of astronomical windows available combined with new limits on future shuttle flights will cause delays of two to five years for these missions. The few remaining unmanned rockets in the government's hands have been limited to military uses, but recently they have bad their own share of problems. The powerful Titan 34D failed in 1985 and again in early 1986. NASA's last Atlas-Centaur rocket was severely damaged in July as it attempted to launch a military communications satellite. According to Air Force Secretary Edward C. Aldridge, more than 25 military satellites are awaiting launching. A major area of concern is the inability to replace aging communications and intelligence satellites. Space race with Soviets Are the Soviets leading the Americans in space? The American trade press seems to think so. “The Soviet space program has taken the lead over U.S. manned flight operations, and the USSR's rapid pace in unmanned launches and development threatens to overcome the West's technological lead in space,” in the view of Aviation Week & Space Technology. According to Marcia S. Smith, an aerospace specialist with the Congressional Research Service, the Soviets have captured the lead in the use of human crews in space, but America remains ahead in technology. Yet experts on the Soviet space program say that what is important is not the less-advanced level of Soviet technology but how well they use what they have. “That one element” of greater experience with human endurance in space “would put them in a better position to conceive some more ambitious programs to the moon or Mars,” says Nicholas Johnson, an expert on the Soviet space program and a scientist with Teledyne Brown Engineering located in Colorado Springs, Colo. According to Smith, the biggest difference between the two countries is their level of commitment. “The Soviet system is just the leaders,” she says, “The leaders are in place longer. It's better for long-range commitments. The fact that they don't have new technology doesn't matter.” Soviet space-watchers often laugh over the nuts and bolts look of Soviet rockets, mass-produced for repeated use year after year, compared with the sleek modern look of American spacecraft. But it is that same plodding perseverance that has brought the soviets where they are today. For example, the Soviets used the same basic rocket design for 20 years to launch one space station after another, capturing the lead in human flight experience. The Soviets view their space stations, which provide essential information about human survival in space, as a prelude to a manned mission to Mars. By contrast, the U.S. space station will not be permanently manned for another nine to 10 years. Although the current design for the U.S. station is more sophisticated than the Soviets' latest space station—it is bigger and has more scientific laboratory capabilities—the Soviets can be expected to develop a comparable station in the intervening decade, according to Johnson. He agrees that Soviet spacecraft “don't have the same bells and whistles that we do.” But in his view: “The end result is they are receiving comparable data from their satellites as the U.S.” The new Soviet rocket, Energia, appears to be significantly more versatile than the shuttle. The Soviets plan to use the rocket to launch a manned space shuttle as well as large payloads without humans. Unlike the American shuttle, which requires satellites to be designed so that they can fit inside the cargo bay, the Soviet rocket permits a wider variety of designs and sizes for the satellites it boosts. Smith points out that although Energia holds great promise for the Soviet space program, its May launch cannot yet be considered a complete success because its payload ended up in the ocean instead of in space orbit. Nevertheless, Johnson predicts that Energia will probably be operational within about two years after the first successful flight, expected later this year. Meanwhile, in this country, space planning is centering on construction of a manned space station. By using such a station as a launching point, travel to Mars, for example, would become possible for the first time. As the debate over whether and how to build a space station unfolds, issues similar to those of the shuttle debate are being aired again. These include trying to determine the true cost of the program at the outset and deciding whether the station's primary purpose is to put a man in space or to achieve scientific goals. Once again, NASA is claiming that the station can serve multiple purposes. The station will be suitable for everything from biomedical research to Mars exploration, the agency contends. In response, the most vocal space scientists scoff at NASA's designs as inadequate to achieve its scientific goals. Also, the reliability of the shuttle to boost the space station into orbit is once again being questioned. The need for a heavy launch rocket as a backup to the shuttle is being reconsidered. Although President Reagan enthusiastically endorsed the station in 1985, he has only recently begun to come to grips with the enormous costs it would entail. In an attempt to reduce the expense that would be incurred during his administration. Reagan decided in April to divide the station's costs into two phases. In the first, covering fiscal 1987–97, Reagan has committed to spending $12.2 billion to build a science laboratory and permanently manned living quarters. Under this scenario, the space station would be “man-tended,” visited temporarily by astronauts from 1994–96. Starting in 1996, the station would be permanently occupied by humans. The second phase, costing $3.8 billion, would be left for the next administration to decide upon in fiscal 1991. That cost would include additional structural elements and a servicing garage. Already, questions are being raised about the accuracy of these cost estimates. A panel of the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded in an interim report in June that the total cost of the station was closer to $33 billion than the 1984 estimate of $8 billion and that future difficulties with assembling the station could drive the cost higher. Many space experts think the assembly of the space station is overly dependent on the shuttle, which is supposed to ferry 29 separate packages of station parts into space, where it will be assembled. The panel's interim report suggests that NASA may want to avoid relying exclusively on the shuttle by developing a powerful unmanned rocket as a backup. Its final report, due Sept, 1, is likely to enumerate many of the additional costs that could be anticipated in a project of this complexity. The debate over the space station is spotlighting the major space-policy arguments of the past 20 years. Perhaps NASA's greatest difficulty lies in defining the station's purpose and coming up with a design to meet it. Many scientists have attacked the project as being a large building in space looking for a definition. Bruce Murray, a professor of planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology, wants the space station to be designed to qualify human beings for planetary exploration in space. Instead, he contends, NASA has designed a “hotel,” not a scientific laboratory for studying man's biological reaction to long-term flight voyages. “NASA is unable to say it's for anything specific,” Murray says. “Is it worth $20 billion to have astronauts doing handstands in space 20 years after the Soviets?” Hans Mark, an early advocate of the space station white director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., in the 1970s, contends that “the space station has had a very clear purpose from the beginning.” Mark counts four longstanding functions for the station: as a maintenance base for orbiting satellites, as a laboratory in space, as an environment for testing the ability of people to survive in space and as a staging base for such complex space missions as returning to the moon or going to Mars. As early as the 1950s, Mark says, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was arguing that a manned space station would be needed in sophisticated space operations to take advantage of human judgment and imagination. Thomas F. Rogers, who directed a critical study of the space station in 1984 for the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, sees the confusion over the space station's function as a result of NASA's attempt to satisfy a large variety of political constituencies. “While the case has been made for an assemblage, the case has not been made for the particular model put forward” by the space agency. Rogers says, “We've seen change after change as NASA has tried to respond” to new interest groups. NASA's most recent public description of the space station catalogs a variety of purposes for it, ranging from the biological study of man on long voyages, to laboratory investigation of the effect of “microgravity”—or zero-gravity—on materials, to a possible jumping-off point for Mars. “Symbolic values of the space station, however, may exceed its considerable practicality,” NASA concludes, making a pitch for American world leadership in space. The continual search for new practical functions for the space station, only to end up with a symbolic value as the most compelling argument, is to many observers all too reminiscent of the shuttle's history. To some scientists, the scientific purposes appear to be an afterthought. Banks recently noted that the space-station budget includes no funds for scientific facilities, instruments or experiments. “Unless adequate new funds are obtained, the space station will inevitably impose great hardship upon existing's science projects, by diverting funds from them, Banks told a Senate subcommittee in May. Charles Redmond, a spokesman for the science programs at NASA, concedes that the space station's lack of a budget for science is representative of an agency “where the philosophy is a hardware philosophy. We fund the hardware and then find the science that's needed,” he says. Only recently, according to Redmond, has NASA bit upon the idea of transferring some scientific laboratory equipment from the shuttle's Spacelab to the space station. Space scientists, particularly planetary scientists, have blamed the shuttle for drastic cuts in their budgets starting in the 1970s. Spending for planetary programs, adjusted for inflation, is now less than 25 percent of what it was in the early 1970s. NASA's defenders respond that planetary scientists have been hurt more by competing science interests, such as the study of the Earth, astronomy and life budget has remained between 15 and 25 percent of the overall NASA budget since the mid-1970s, a period in which the total NASA budget has remained level. Nevertheless, scientists from a variety of fields have joined the planetary scientists in opposing the space station as a threat to more immediate scientific funding needs, such as new expendable rockets. Prominent scientists have also charged that they see “no urgent scientific need for a space station.” Those were the words used in a March 27, letter to Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-Mass.), chairman of the House funding panel for NASA, from Donahue, who is the chairman of the Space Science Board. The board “was determined that, whatever rationale was developed to justify the space-station program, it not involve a requirement that space science needed a space station during the next two decades,” writes Donahue in the opening chapter of the panel's report on space science needs for the 21st century, to be released this fall. “The pressure to proceed with a space station was not coming from its potential users, but from the technologists, the manned space centers, and the aerospace industries.” The study leaves open the possibility that the station holds scientific promise in the 21st century, but is skeptical of its use or even of any need for humans in space before the year 2000. In looking at the entire range of space science disciplines, the study decided that the only scientific field for which man's presence on a space station would be required is the study of human biological and psychological reactions to a long space voyage. The Soviet astronauts returned from their longest voyages in a severely weakened, almost jelly-fish condition, taking several months to recover the loss of muscles they suffered in the no-gravity environment of space. NASA's remaining list of scientific uses for the space station is dismissed by the science board in its coming report. For example, NASA offers the space station as a useful way for astronauts to repair and maintain satellites in space. According to Donahue, who coordinated the report, the expense and technical problems involved in trying to recover satellites from a higher orbit than the station's raise doubts about the station's usefulness for this purpose. Largely to contain costs, the space station is designed to orbit close to Earth at a 250-mile altitude. Its circular path approximately follows the equator. By contrast, satellites that the station would service are at higher altitudes and follow different orbital paths around the Earth. Communications satellites remain 22,000 miles higher than the space station in “geostationary” orbit—moving at the same speed as the Earth rotates, and thus appearing to remain in the same place relative to the Earth. Earth and weather-observation satellites use polar orbits, circling over the Earth's poles. NASA has recently put great emphasis on the station's no-gravity environment as a unique laboratory setting for man to experiment with the effect of zero-gravity on materials, wish possible commercial applications. But according to the Space Science Board report, the presence of man is not required for such an experiment. In addition, says Donahue, humans would be incompatible with such experiments because the contact of people with the spacecraft changes the gravitational environment. Next stop: Mars A likely planetary destination for a space journey using the space station as a launch base would be Mars. At least since the science fiction world of H. G. Wells became popular late in the last century, man has been fascinated with the idea of exploring Mars. Today that fascination is shared by planetary scientists, suggesting that a manned planetary mission could unite both popular and scientific interests. Space scientists view Mars as the next logical planet for man to visit. Its earthlike terrain of mountains and valleys makes it interesting to geologists, and it appears to be the only planet in the inner solar system where man could survive—even with protective clothing and equipment. The crust of Mars contains water, and carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere, raising the possibility that humans could manufacture breathable oxygen from those two compounds. By contrast, other nearby planets pose great hazards: heat great enough to melt lead on Venus, and lethal radiation around Jupiter. Yet how and when to go to Mars—with or without man, in what kind of vehicle—remains a subject of vigorous dispute. If Mars is the ultimate goal, say some scientists, then the space station should be designed to help get us there. One possible route to Mars has been put forward in the Soviet proposal for a joint U.S.-Soviet unmanned Mars mission. While American scientists have expressed interest, the U.S. government has not made a decision on whether to participate. Under the proposal the Soviets would take advantage of the superior American knowledge in robotics by employing an American-built rover to travel over the surface of Mars and collect samples for examination by scientists. America would take advantage of the Soviets' superior rocket-booster capacity by relying on a Soviet rocket to launch the rover to Mars. Because two separate pieces of machinery would be involved, the two countries could presumably limit the exchange of sensitive technology that they wish to keep proprietary. A sign of the Soviet determination to go to Mars is the plan to send two automated probes to a moon of Mars. called Phobos, for preliminary examinations next year. Another plan for reaching Mars is outlined by Ride in her coming NASA report. Ride, who in August will leave NASA to accept a fellowship at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, is expected to recommend that the agency establish a manned lunar outpost, using both the shuttle and the space station, as a first step toward human exploration of Mars. “Mars is the ultimate goal of human exploration,” Ride says. “We probably are not smart enough for that to be our goal yet…. It appears that starting from where we are today, the correct approach is to make use of the shuttle, an expanded space transportation system and the station to evolve the capability.” In another argument for returning to the moon. Ride says, “There is still a lot of lunar exploration, lunar science and research on advanced technologies to be done.” Ride's recommendation has already come in for criticism in the space community. Some scientists attack a lunar outpost as an overly cautions way of approaching a Mars mission. They say Ride's recommendation is motivated not by science but by NASA's fear that it will not not be able to sell an expensive all-out Mars mission to the White House. Others say it is too early to commit to a manned mission before we know what advantage the human presence would offer. Scientist Donahue is critical of Ride's Mars recommendation. “The human-presence-in-space mystique, the institutional needs of NASA and the aerospace industry is driving that, not science,” he says. Planetary scientist Murray, who supports a mission to Mars in the long term, views Ride's lunar base approach as too cautious. He also is critical of NASA's approach to the space station as being too hurried. He believes that a space station, not the moon, is the correct jumping-off point for a Mars mission, but that the space station as currently designed cannot achieve that objective. In his view. NASA should delay the space station, concentrate on getting the shuttle running properly again, and then redesign the station for such a mission. Smith of the Congressional Research Service directed the 1986 study for the Reagan-appointed National Commission on Space, which came up with similar recommendations to those favored by Ride. Smith commends the establishment of a moon base as permitting man to test Mars-like living conditions first in a location only three days away from the Earth. No matter what the scientific benefits and disadvantages, the popular interest in exploring new planets may well have the final say as to how and when to reach Mars. In response to the Ride recommendations. Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins says, “I think it is a mistake to consider the moon as a necessary steppingstone to Mars. It will not get support politically, or from the U.S. public, which thinks we've already ‘done the moon.’” Go to top Introduction As America plans a manned space station for the next leg of the the Soviets appear to have gained the lead with unmanned rockets. Go to top Bibliography Recommended Reading BOOKS Mark, Hans, The Space Station: A Personal Journey, Duke University Press, 1987. A scientist who held pivotal positions in the space program under Presidents Nixon, Carter and Reagan describes the political history of the space shuttle and the space station from his immediate experience in this conversational account. As secretary of the Air Force under Carter and deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Reagan, Mark pushed actively for both manned space vehicles. Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, Mark writes, persuaded him that manned space flight was needed. “He felt there was really no substitute for the presence of human judgment and imagination on the spot and that these qualities would be important on any advanced mission.” Oberg, James E., The New Race for Space, Stackpole Books, 1984. Although this comparison of the Soviet and U.S. space programs predates the Challenger accident and the Energia launch, the description of the programs' overall approaches is still valuable. Oberg, a longtime observer of the Soviet space program, writes in a clear style for a popular audience. “Each side,” predicts Oberg, “will be seeking to develop capabilities already mastered by the other. This startling situation offers generally unrecognized opportunities for both third-party contributions as well as significant joint endeavors by the United States and the USSR.” ARTICLE Cooper, Henry S. F. Jr., “Letter from the Space Center,” New Yorker, June 8, 1987. “Everyone acted as if [the shuttle] were the perfect answer to all our future needs in space, and the more problems there were with it, the more wonderful everyone said it would be,” says Gerald Wasserburg, a professor of geology and geophysics at the California Institute of Technology, in this article presenting scientists' criticisms of NASA's reliance on the shuttle. Fallows, James, “The Americans in Space,” New York Review of Books, December 18, 1986. According to Fallows' analysis, space “provides a powerful, illuminating example … of why America has faltered in the more down-to-earth forms of technical and economic competition.” Taking the space shuttle as his theme. Fallows argues that once the pressure of the Sputnik-inspired race to the moon disappeared. NASA became a classic bureaucracy, “intent of ways of spending money and of making life easier for themselves.” The result was an increasingly expensive, badly designed space shuttle. Murray, Bruce, “Civilian Space: In Search of Presidential Goals.” Issues in Science and Technology, spring 1986. Planetary scientist Bruce Murray of the California Institute of Technology attacks the shuttle for hurting scientific programs and proposes a joint Soviet-U.S. manned mission to Mars after 2000. As a result of problems with the shuttle, Murray writes, “the United States is losing its pre-eminence in planetary exploration and clearly will be second to the Soviets by the mid-1990s absent a major presidential intervention.” Murray also makes the case for the study of Earth from space to solve environmental questions. Waldrop, M. Mitchell, “Soviet Space Science Opens to the West,” Science, June 12, 1987. The author, having interviewed Soviet space scientists, describes an atmosphere of increased openness and interest in international cooperation. “You can sense a buoyancy there,” a recent U.S. visitor to the Soviet space program is quoted as saying. “The contrast with the mood at NASA is black and white.” Possible cooperative efforts with the United States in the exploration of Mars are outlined. “Policy Focus: National Security and the U.S. Space Program after the Challenger Tragedy,” International Security, spring, 1987. Seven space-policy experts, including some of NASA's strongest critics, discuss the space program's problems in light of the Challenger accident. The essays are a representative sampling of the raging debates over manned space flight, the space station and the shuttle. Richard L. Garwin, a fellow at the International Business Machines Corp., charges that NASA developed the shuttle mostly because “it wanted to be paid.” Former NASA Administrator Hans Mark counters that NASA's long-range goal has always been “the permanent presence of human beings in space.” REPORTS AND STUDIES Smith, Marcia S., “New Soviet Space Launch Vehicles.” Congressional Research Service, May 29, 1987 (87–462 SPR). This report outlines the capabilities of the new Energia rocket launched by the Soviets in May. The report may be obtained free of charge by making a request to a member of Congress. ——“Space Activities of the United States, Soviet Union and Other Launching Countries: 1957–1986,” Congressional Research Service, Feb. 27, 1987 (87–229 SPR). A comprehensive and concise review of the space programs in major launching countries. Available free of charge through members of Congress. Go to top Footnotes Go to top Special Focus PAYLOAD The cargo carried by a rocket or other vehicle into space. Payloads can refer to satellites, manned space stations or even a science laboratory designed to fit into the shuttle's cargo bay. The larger the payload, the more powerful the rocket needed to lift it. EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE Unmanned rockets that drop away and are not recovered after they have delivered their payload into space. Today, the preponderance of space vehicles are of this type. Only the shuttle does not fit this category, since it returns to Earth after completing its mission in space. HEAVY LAUNCH VEHICLE A powerful rocket, such as the Soviet Energia or the now-defunct American Saturn, which can lift heavy payloads into high orbits. The United States phased out heavy launch vehicles for civilian purposes in the 1970s in the expectation that the shuttle would eliminate the need. But experts are recommending the development of a new heavy launch vehicle to propel space-station components and heavy observation satellites for planetary exploration. LOW EARTH ORBIT An orbit just beyond the Earth's atmosphere, ranging from 120 miles to 360 miles in altitude, and the easiest to reach from Earth. The space station is intended to travel in a low Earth orbit following a path at an angle to the equator. A vehicle in this orbit is free of the Earth's strong gravitational pull. GEOSTATIONARY ORBIT This orbit, 22,300 miles above the earth's equator, is the home for all civilian communications satellites. In this orbit, a satellite travels at the same speed that the Earth rotates, and thus appears to be “stationary” in relation to one fixed spot on the Earth. POLAR ORBIT An orbit whose plane intersects the Earth's axis of rotation at the poles. As the satellite orbits, the Earth rotates beneath, permitting the satellite to observe the entire Earth over a given period. Weather satellites and military intelligence satellites are used in this orbit. MICROGRAVITY A gravity-free environment, experienced in outer space. The lack of gravity may offer an advantage in the manufacture of certain substances, but poses a serious threat to the health of astronauts who must remain in this environment for months at a time. Space Science in the 21st Century A report by the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, an advisory group to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recommending the science directions to be taken by NASA in the next century. Due to be released in fall, 1987. It recommendations: MANNED SPACE FLIGHT The biomedical study of the space environment's effect on the human body is the only scientific discipline for which man must be present in space and which could make early use of a space station. For all other scientific disciplines, there is insufficient evidence to say whether humans are preferable to the use of automated systems. MOON AND MARS Human trips to the moon or Mars “should be deferred until a robust technological base and a life support system have been developed.” An ambitious unmanned program should be undertaken to collect samples of the Martian crust. SPACE STATION The scientific need for a space station in the next two decades is minimal but could be greater in the next century in the areas of astronomy and life sciences. EARTH EXPLORATION Undertake a “Mission to Planet Earth” via unmanned space “platforms” to learn about the interactions among oceans, atmosphere, human beings and solid earth. ASTRONOMY Observatories in space should continue to be established to help us understand how the universe was formed and how it evolved. MICROGRAVITY SCIENCE Test of physical laws in the gravity-free environment of space should be carried out via instruments in space. The Future Direction of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Internal NASA report by former astronaut Sally K. Ride, currently acting assistant administrator for the Office of Space Exploration, under NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher, Due to be released the week of Aug. 3. Its recommendations. MOON BASE U.S. astronauts should return to the moon by the year 2000 to gather more scientific information about the moon and to prepare for a manned mission to Mars. MARS The U.S. should launch a manned mission to Mars in the 21st century. EARTH EXPLORATION NASA should undertake a “Mission to Earth,” using unmanned space platforms to gather data on pollution, climate and their interaction. Important questions include the influence of industrially produced “greenhouse” gases, such as carbon dioxide, on the earth's temperature. SPACE STATION Make use of a space station for the Earth, Mars and moon initiatives. Also develop a powerful new unmanned rocket. Report of the National Research Council Committee on Space Station A report of a National Academy of Sciences panel requested by NASA and the White House on the costs of the space station, potential problems and alternative designs. Due to be released in September, 1987. Its recommendations: SPACE STATION COSTS The total cost of the space station as estimated by NASA—including hardware, launch costs and some operations—will be $32.8 billion, four times the 1984 estimate of $8 billion. AREAS OF COST INCREASES Future cost increases could result from uncertainties in hardware costs, the complexity of assembling the station in space, the need for spare parts and the construction of additional space vehicles needed for the station to service satellites. UNMANNED BOOSTER OR SHUTTLE Limitations on future flights of the shuttle, which is to boost the station in pieces into space, may require the development of a powerful unmanned rocket to help launch the station. Following the 1986 Challenger accident, private companies that depended on shuttle flights to launch their satellites were told to look elsewhere—unless their satellites were designed to fly exclusively on the shuttle. A substantial group of satellite owners, primarily communications companies, found themselves looking at foreign offerings for space flight. About 150 satellites are expected to seek commercial flights over the next seven years, according to two major competitors. Arianespace and General Dynamics Corp. Some satellite owners bumped from the Challenger sought Flight reservations with the shuttle's main competitor, the Ariane rocket, cooperatively funded by a group of European nations under the umbrella of the European Space Agency. According to a spokesman for Arianespace, the French company in charge of Ariane's flights, the company agreed to take six additional satellites bumped from the Challenger. But the Ariane was booked through 1989, so “it was difficult to fit people in,” the spokesman said. But the Ariane suffered its own technical problems. A faulty ignition system grounded the rocket last May 30. Arianespace, which had captured 50 percent of the market before the Challenger tragedy, expects to resume flights this September if the rocket passes technical tests. With the Ariane and the shuttle out of commission a Soviet offer to launch commercial satellites at half the cost of Western companies has increased appeal. The Soviet Union first offered to fly foreign satellites in 1982. So far, no Western customer has taken up the offer. But Russian marketing to Western satellite owners has intensified with launch problems and the advent of the Soviet glasnost policy of openness toward the West. Grier C. Raclin, a Washington attorney who represents American Satellite owners studying the Soviet option, believes that there are few equally attractive alternatives for companies that want to launch a large satellite in the next three to four years. “The Soviets have the product and they've got it priced right,” says Sarah C. Carey, a former State Department employee who works with Raclin. The Soviet Proton rocket was launched 90 times last year, compared with Ariane's projected eight or nine flights a year. The Chinese, too, are soliciting commercial launches on their Long March 3 rocket, but the rocket has failed on one of its three launches and is limited to relatively small payloads. Three American companies—General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Martin Marietta Corp.—are planning to adapt their unmanned military rockets for the commercial market. None has yet signed contracts with any satellite company, although all have “reservations.” General Dynamics, the only American company to have obtained rights from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to use a launch pad, does not expect to launch its first rocket until late 1989 or 1990. Despite the technical and economic selling points of the Proton, it is not clear whether the United States government will permit American-made satellites to be launched on the Soviet rocket. Transferring sensitive American technology to the Soviet Union is prohibited under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, administered by the State Department. The State Department reiterated last month that American satellite technology, which is used by most Western nations, would be covered by these regulations. Raclin and Carey, however, still expect American companies to ask for a waiver of the regulations. The satellite owners would argue that they could keep the Soviets from gaining valuable technical information through such methods as shrouding and guarding their satellites before takeoff. Go to top
Document APA Citation
Glazer, S. (1987). Space race. Editorial research reports 1987 (Vol. II). http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1987073100
Document ID: cqresrre1987073100
Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1987073100
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