This rationale now was broadening to include the launching of spacecraft, many of which would require upper stages to reach high orbits. So that dictates a fairly low density volume. The new rules called for a payload of 50, pounds carried both up and down, a volume of 10, cubic feet. The payload bay could be 15 or even 22 feet in diameter, the latter accommodating craft that would fit atop an S-IVB. Mueller had been a professor of electrical engineering during part of the s.
Drawing on this background, he proceeded to lay out a new concept for the use of computers to achieve rapid onboard checkout, and to present flight crews with the information they would use during a mission. This concept would make it possible for a small ground crew to carry out the preflight checks, achieving true aircraft-like simplicity. Mueller called for designers to equip individual shuttle components, such as rocket engines, with sensors that would monitor their condition.
Each component would carry a black box that would keep track of measured parameters. At any moment, some parameters would stand within acceptable limits, while others would lie outside such limits. Still other parameters would be within bounds at that moment, but would be drifting toward unfavorable values.
Further queries from the computer then could identify the bad parameters and permit cures. Mueller also wanted the onboard computer to take the initiative in presenting data to the flight crew. While the data would be available on flight-deck instruments, because there would be many such instrument displays, a pilot might easily miss something. It represented a milestone in presenting the Space Shuttle concept as one that might win serious support, for it broadened the rationale while narrowing the range of acceptable design approaches.
Since the early s, shuttle advocates had been bedeviled by a multiplicity of reusable launch-vehicle concepts, all of which could claim the name of a shuttle. In their day these had included boosters powered by scramjets or by LACE, horizontal-takeoff vehicles employing a rocket sled, and behemoths such as the Nexus that matched the weight of an ocean liner. This was somewhat like having the Air Force propose to build a new military airplane, without specifying whether it would be a fighter, bomber, or transport.
The May 19 report now rejected the use of an expendable booster. It might use a big solid-propellant first stage or rely on low-cost liquid-fueled engines, making it cheaper to buy and fly. This vehicle, however, would splash into the Atlantic every time one of them flew-something that NASA was not about to do.
After all, the goal from the start had been to move well beyond the Saturn V, not to develop it anew in a less costly version. The report also broadened the rationale. To NASA, though not to the Air Force, a shuttle had primarily held the promise of low-cost logistic support for a space station.
That made it a speculation nested within a speculation, for the station existed only at the level of designs and dreams.
The report now added several attractive types of missions that reflected current practice or that built on current activities in plausible ways. This broadened rationale also made it more likely that NASA could come up with a configuration that would win Air Force support, thus further widening its usefulness.
A shuttle might not only place satellites in orbit; it could service them. Standard practice amounted to shooting and hoping, as ground crews launched their rockets and trusted their spacecraft to work. A shuttle crew, however, could check out a satellite after carrying it to orbit, ensuring that it was functioning properly.
If a costly spacecraft failed in orbit, a shuttle might fly up to fix it. A shuttle might also carry it to a repair facility within a space station, or return it to earth for rebuilding. This reusable launch vehicle could also be large enough to carry the highly capable Centaur upper stage and powerful enough to carry communications satellites or planetary spacecraft of considerable size.
A shuttle could also serve as an interim space station, by carrying an instrumented and crew-tended module within its payload bay. Such a mission might fly for up to thirty days. It could be far less costly than Skylab, while offering duration, internal volume, and onboard power considerably beyond that of Apollo. On these terms, the Shuttle would indeed go forward.
Though these leaders and their constituencies held distinctly different views on the future of space flight, the STG would have to reach a consensus if it was to speak with one voice. Much of the work of the STG took place outside its infrequent formal meetings, as these members commissioned studies that would define their positions. NASA already had a well-established planning procedure in place; Homer Newell, the Associate Administrator, had set it up the previous year to develop program options that the Administrator could present to the BoB.
Newell took on the task of using this machinery to prepare the planning document that Paine would take to the STG. OSSA had operated in the shadow of the far more powerful Office of Manned Space Flight, and Mueller, its director, was not about to defer to Newell when it came to planning. Newell and Mueller initiated their planning exercises in December , with the work of the Townes panel under way.
Though the STG still lay two months in the future, Newell hoped to influence the FY budget that would become the subject of serious negotiation during In the course of that month, Mueller told Von Braun that Nixon would go all-out and pick the space shuttle as his big program. Armed with this study, Mueller approached Bellcomm. With two pages of handwritten notes, he joined a Bellcomm staffer on a flight to Cape Canaveral late in March.
The two men discussed the outline of what Mueller wanted. It amounted to an extension of the space station approach that was taking shape, wherein a single module would serve as a building block for later construction of a space base.
Similarly, a minimum number of major new systems were to serve as many roles as possible. The program called for an initial station in , with a crew of 12, followed quickly by additional stations in polar orbit and in geosynchronous orbit, the latter at an altitude of 22, miles.
A space shuttle would enter service during Newell did not ignore thoughts of piloted flight to Mars. His working groups included a task force on planetary exploration. In sowing the earth-moon system thickly with space stations, Newell was repeating the basic theme of the ambitious Apollo Applications wish list of a few years earlier.
Mueller knew from sad experience that this would not work. He had tried it, and all he had produced was was the Skylab. The stations also failed to point a clear path toward Mars. Mueller, working with the planners at Bellcomm, was devising both an integrated program and an integrated set of projects that could carry it out.
Similarly, while Mueller and Bellcomm aimed specifically at Mars, they expected to get there by using rockets and spacecraft that would serve a broad range of activities between the earth and the moon.
The key was breadth of application. In addition to the Space Shuttle and a space station module, the plan called for three new program elements:. Space Tug: This would serve as a general-purpose vehicle that would be based in space, returning to earth only at rare intervals, if at all. It would draw on the ability of the shuttle to carry propellants in substantial quantities. Astronaut-Tended Spacecraft: These would include large automated telescopes in orbit as well as automated applications satellites.
It would operate between low earth orbit, lunar orbit, and geosynchronous orbit, with its exceptionally high performance enabling it to carry heavy payloads and to do considerable amounts of work with limited stores of liquid-hydrogen propellant. In turn, the nuclear shuttle would receive this propellant from the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle, space tug and nuclear shuttle together would constitute a complete reusable space transportation system, with the tug and nuclear shuttle both based in space.
In turn, this system would serve an array of programs that would focus on applications of a space station module. What of Mars? A piloted mission could use this same equipment, with the nuclear shuttle providing propulsion for a spaceship that would draw again on the basic space station module.
Mueller, like Newell, looked toward such a mission in , defining it also as an ultimate goal. Unlike Newell, however, he expected to get to Mars with equipment that could find plenty of uses closer to home. Within a week, however, the appendix became the core of the report. The reason for this, as one might expect, was Tom Paine. A dissatisfied Paine saw the report as tantamount to stapling together the contributions of its task groups, for the PSG at that moment had nothing so succinct as a clear emphasis on space stations.
Paine reacted quite differently when he received a briefing from Mueller. By then there was not much difference between the two plans; both featured space stations galore along with lunar stations and a trip to Mars. Mueller, however, had the more convincing scenario as to how it might happen, for he made Mars appear to grow out of ongoing future activity in a natural way. By contrast, Newell made Mars appear more ad hoc. Paine then would learn that there were plenty of people, in both the Air Force and in the scientific community, who opposed a single-minded emphasis on piloted flight, and who certainly were in no hurry to get to Mars.
He willingly endorsed and even emphasized the value of a space shuttle:. I recommend that we embark on a program to study by experimental means including orbital tests the possibility of a Space Transportation System that would permit the cost per pound in orbit to be reduced by a substantial factor 10 or more.
Even though the development of a large manned space station appears to be a logical step leading to further use and understanding of the space environment, I do not believe we should commit ourselves to the development of such a space station at this time. He also issued invitations to other institutions to present their own positions. The AIAA might readily have done the expected by acting as a standard Washington lobby, pleasing its corporate members by asking for the moon.
It did no such thing; it issued a report that was remarkable for its moderation. Flight to Mars? While it is technically possible to commit to development of vehicles for this program at this time, it would not be reasonable to do so. Space stations? We encourage early steps be taken to commit to flight demonstration a partially reusable low-cost space-transportation system which could start initial operations in the period….
For example, most versions of low-cost space-transportation systems can effectively compete with present expendable boosters in delivering medium to large unmanned payloads to orbit…. We consider that commitment to an entirely new space station is less urgent than commitment to a new logistics system [emphasis in original].
Drew became convinced that the Shuttle was the key element in the long-range program. Drew wrote a background paper that emphasized its use in launching automated spacecraft. Significantly, he downplayed its uses in supporting a space station. Study, with a view to early development, a reusable space transportation system with an early goal of replacing all existing launch vehicles…with a system permitting satellite recovery and orbital assembly and ultimately radical reduction in unit cost of space transportation.
NASA had developed this concept for use in space station logistics, but the other three institutions rejected such a station out of hand.
Nevertheless, they liked the Shuttle because it seemed to promise lower cost and greater effectiveness in supporting automated spacecraft. This unanimity gave critical political support to NASA during and afterward. In their overall views, however, the members of the STG were badly split.
There was good agreement between the views of Seamans and of DuBridge, but Paine was far out in the blue sky. This raised the possibility that DuBridge and Seamans might collaborate on a majority report, leaving Paine to tack on his views as an appendix, as Francis Clauser had done with his letter to the Townes panel. The STG, however, had a fourth member: its chairman, Spiro Agnew who had been developing his own views as well. Like many other children of immigrants, Agnew had advanced in the world largely through his own talent and effort.
He acquired a law degree and launched his political career by winning the presidency of his local PTA. He rose in politics through the next 20 years, and ran for governor of Maryland in It was a time of racial upheaval, and his Democratic opponent courted the votes of white people with thinly-disguised racial appeals.
Agnew built a reputation as a moderate, won support among black voters, and took the election. He maintained his role as a political moderate, becoming a leading supporter of Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York, who competed with Nixon for the GOP presidential nomination.
He became better known during the campaign due in part to his personal coarseness. This insensitivity was part of a larger artlessness, for in dealing with the space program he quickly showed that despite having no background in this area, he would rush in where leaders such as Robert Seamans and Lee DuBridge would fear to tread.
He then raised the prospect of Mars repeatedly in subsequent discussions. Would we be denying the people of the world the enlightenment and evolution which accompany every great age of discovery? Thus far he had restricted his comments to audiences at STG meetings. On July 16, however, as he joined thousands of people at Cape Canaveral for the liftoff of Apollo 11, he went public.
I have been a space man ever since I was a child, and I think I would be betraying my profession if I were to tell you that we should not send men to Mars. I think we should and we will, and I am all for the finest and the most energetic space program we can imagine. Had we done this in the first meeting of the Space Task Group, we would really have shot our wad too early. I felt that this was the right time. Everyone had listened to various proposals. Timing was important in other ways as well, for the early months of the Nixon Administration coincided with the brilliant successes of Apollo 8 and Apollo Less than a month after Apollo 8 had carried the first astronauts to orbit the moon, Nixon had spoken of them in his inaugural address:.
Now in July, the Apollo 11 lunar landing encouraged even more far-reaching thoughts. In addition to this, the success of Apollo 11 had the highly practical consequence of freeing up the first Saturn V for other duty, as Paine committed one of them to launch the Skylab dry workshop [ NASA SP , pp. Such broadened use of the Saturn V would be a keystone of an effort that would aim at Mars. The members of the STG—Paine, DuBridge, Seamans, and Agnew—had not held a full-dress meeting since March, for their staffs had been busy preparing proposals and working papers.
On August 4, however, two weeks after the moon landing, these principals met anew. Carrying 12 astronauts, it would leave Earth orbit in two spaceships on November 12, It would arrive in Mars orbit on August 9, and would spend 80 days in this orbit, with six crew members descending to the Martian surface and spending up to two months exploring it.
The expedition would leave Mars late in October and would swing past Venus four months later. It would arrive back in Earth orbit on August 14, , ending a flight of days. The Mars ships would be variants of a standard space station module. The only major new item would be a Mars Excursion Vehicle, to carry crews from orbit to the surface of that planet. There was a fifth man at that meeting: Robert Mayo, director of the Budget Bureau. Though he was an observer rather than a full member of the STG, his views would carry weight.
His staff had been considering proposals as well. They emphasized the need not for a single program, but for alternative programs with budgets at different levels. DuBridge did not emphasize his own point of view, but tried to encourage a comparison. None was within reach; indeed, while the STG had hoped to recommend a single program to the White House, there was no chance it could agree on one.
Rather than continue to seek the elusive single set of recommendations, the STG decided to prepare three program options, which the staffer Russell Drew described:.
This commitment would carry no fixed date, but the mission would probably fly in the mid- to lates. This was a major victory for Paine. This three-option package again reflected standard practice, with the one in the middle as the one for the President to choose. The other two choices then would appear as too much and too little. The only questions would involve the pace, schedule, and budget. Paine, quickly following up this victory with another, won the assignment of preparing the details of the three options.
This played to a long-established art whereby the officials chosen to write a White House report can often shape it to suit their preferences.
The three alternatives featured dates as follows:. These plans were ready in mid-August. In other respects it was identical to Plan C. Plan D, the least ambitious, called for simultaneous development of a space station and a space shuttle, with both becoming operational in Significantly, amid the deliberations of the STG, the members with the most experience—Seamans and DuBridge—favored the most modest initiatives.
Agnew, most enthusiastic of all, had never dealt with space at any serious level; he hardly knew a rocket from a sprocket. The nation had changed since The circumstances that had led to Apollo no longer applied. America now faced new issues and new concerns to such a degree as to make even the moon landing appear merely as an irrelevant distraction.
In no way would Nixon endorse a mission to Mars. Indeed, within this new climate, even Plan D would prove to be out of reach.
Table of Contents Chapter 4. Our Goals Defending Earth: Protecting humanity from dangerous space objects Clean Energy from Space: Enabling everyone to benefit from space solar power. Developing Space: Making the vast resources of space available to all. Publications NSS publishes a variety of content including our award-winning ad Astra magazine, our peer-reviewed Space Settlement Journal , and our e-newsletter.
Events In addition to our annual International Space Development Conference, the NSS hosts a number of events to further facilitate space-faring conversation. Videos The NSS publishes content frequently across a number of digital channels.
Get Involved Looking to get involved in the conversation? Why Join? What We Do Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Our Future In Space Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
About Us Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. NERVA nuclear rocket under test. Smithsonian Institution Photo No.
Newell himself admitted that the results were not up to the standards of boldness and imagination expected at the beginning of the cycle, or worthy of our first decade in space.
These rockets give the orbiter the thrust it needs to get into orbit, change its orbit, and to rendezvous with a space station or another space vehicle. Neither the Soyuz rockets nor the Soyuz vehicles are reusable.
With the solar panels open they remain closed during launch the Soyuz measures A Soyuz vehicle can carry up to three astronauts. A Soyuz is made up of three modules: the service, the orbital and the reentry modules. The space shuttle shuttles people and cargo from earth to space low earth orbit Space stations Are more like research stations in space. For example the international space station has people all round the year conducting research activity in space.
So a space shuttle can have multiple rockets in order to help attain the escape velocity required to reach into the orbit. On its first mission, on Aug. After modifications, it flew the first Space Shuttle mission of the post- Challenger era on Sept. On March 9, , it touched down after its final flight. The Atlantis OV made its first orbital flight Oct. During its second flight, Nov. It was modified and returned into orbit Dec.
The May 19, , launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis introduced a host of enhancements, including an adaptation of the glass cockpit system used in the Boeing The radar function can pinpoint objects in space as far away as miles kilometers for shuttle rendezvous. By linking with a NASA satellite, the communications function allowed crews to transmit television-like pictures, voice messages and high-speed data streams.
The next shuttle, the Endeavour OV , made its first flight, May 7, Its final mission lasted from May 16, to June 1,
0コメント