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You probably noticed Professor Cohen is a
little bit more formal and wears a tie.

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And so, when he's here, I also wear a tie.

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[LAUGHTER]

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00:00:15,990 --> 00:00:20,340
But today we're a little bit less formal and
so no ties.

5
00:00:20,340 --> 00:00:23,529
But I'll probably have one on, on Thursday,
again.

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00:00:23,529 --> 00:00:25,899
Just so that you knew what the code was.

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00:00:25,899 --> 00:00:31,340
Tom Moser is coming.

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00:00:31,340 --> 00:00:34,789
You know, that was the generation where everybody
wore ties.

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00:00:34,789 --> 00:00:39,710
So, I'll wear a tie, too.

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00:00:39,710 --> 00:00:44,670
Anyway, despite the fact that we're a little
bit more informal that doesn't imply any intellectual

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informality.

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00:00:47,350 --> 00:00:56,219
We are actually, I think, very fortunate that
Professor John Logsdon, who is the Director

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00:00:56,219 --> 00:01:02,260
of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington
University which is part of their Elliott

14
00:01:02,260 --> 00:01:06,930
School of International Affairs -- And we
have a recent graduate of that program.

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He is going to talk to us today.

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And this is really going to be the last in
the looks at kind of the policy which led

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to the original requirements on the Space
Shuttle.

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And, as we've pointed out on numerous occasions,
when you're looking at systems engineering

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of any scale project -- Well, anything really.

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It is absolutely critical to get the requirements
straight.

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And we cannot really understand a lot of the
technical issues with the Space Shuttle and

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the challenges that we had to face without
understanding how it got to be that way.

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Professor Logsdon has written numerous articles
about the shuttle.

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And do you have an electronic version of your
science article?

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You don't.

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We'll have to dig that up.

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00:02:01,830 --> 00:02:05,070
We'll give you a version of that.

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But before that, actually, I guess the work
where he really achieved a national recognition

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was his book on the Apollo program, "The Decision
To Go To The Moon," which was a history of

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the Apollo program.

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Professor Logsdon is a recognized expert is
space policy.

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You will see numerous articles by him in Space
News.

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And he is often the first person who gets
called by the New York Times or National Public

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Radio or one of the other media for comments
on various developments in space.

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And actually, depending on how the talk today
goes on the shuttle in terms of time, if there

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is some time left over he's brought some information
about the new exploration architecture which

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was just announced formally yesterday.

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And, given that we're setting out on another
large space project where a lot of the same

39
00:03:17,079 --> 00:03:22,390
issues that we had to deal with about the
shuttle will also apply, I think it would

40
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be interesting for people in the class to
start following what's going on in this new

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space system.

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So, that's enough from me.

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00:03:31,930 --> 00:03:33,060
John, I'll turn it over to you.

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00:03:33,060 --> 00:03:36,670
And take it away.

45
00:03:36,670 --> 00:03:38,900
Good morning.

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00:03:38,900 --> 00:03:49,550
What I'm going to do this morning is somewhat
different from what you just announced in

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00:03:49,550 --> 00:03:54,660
the sense that I'm not going to talk about
the political history of the shuttle requirements

48
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as much as the political history of the shuttle
and how the requirements interacted with that

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00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:01,780
political history.

50
00:04:01,780 --> 00:04:04,290
So, it may be the same thing.

51
00:04:04,290 --> 00:04:08,709
But I'm not a technical person.

52
00:04:08,709 --> 00:04:15,640
Although, you have a bachelor's degree in
physics which is a well-hidden fact.

53
00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:16,870
Yes.

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00:04:16,870 --> 00:04:24,410
Next Tuesday is the 100th anniversary of the
publication of the equation E equals MC squared.

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And my degree in physics is almost before
that, not quite.

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[LAUGHTER]

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00:04:33,100 --> 00:04:38,280
One of the things that we've been doing at
George Washington University, seemingly forever,

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and close to it, it started in 1990, is a
project to collect the seminal documents that

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define the evolution of the US Space Program.

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There are now six volumes of this size printed,
we're working on seven and there is one more

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to follow called "Exploring the Unknown".

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Jeff thinks that it's in your library.

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00:05:04,270 --> 00:05:10,350
I'm going to try to get an electronic version
of what I'll just talk about in a moment to

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put on your class website.

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00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:16,680
Volume four, which Dr.

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Hoffman has at his home, not in his office,
deals with access to space.

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And one section of volume four deals with
the shuttle.

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And that's what I'm going to try to get an
electronic copy of for you.

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What I've done is built this talk around the
original documents that trace the policy history

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of the shuttle.

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And I'll use them kind of as backdrop.

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As NASA approached the end of the Apollo program,
its leaders, or at least some of them were

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thinking about what followed Apollo.

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And, at that time, the head of I'll say Manned
Spaceflight and apologize for the gender-specific

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language.

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But that indeed was the Office of Manned Spaceflight
in the late `60s.

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Its head was a very creative character named
George Miller who is still active.

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00:06:19,490 --> 00:06:24,509
He's one of the founders and moving spirits
in a thing called Kistler Aerospace that wants

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to provide alternative commercial access to
space.

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Miller gave this talk, as you see, August
of 1968.

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As far as anyone can tell, it's the first
use of the term "efficient earth to orbit

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00:06:41,820 --> 00:06:47,870
space transportation system and economical
space shuttle".

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00:06:47,870 --> 00:06:53,610
Miller's concept of the shuttle, which had
a lot of influence in one strain of its development,

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was rather grandiose in character.

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00:06:59,580 --> 00:07:07,590
Especially the notion that the shuttle would
operate in a mode similar to large commercial

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00:07:07,590 --> 00:07:18,630
air transports and work in and out of major
airports.

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00:07:18,630 --> 00:07:24,070
Landing would be completely automated with
prime dependence on spacecraft guidance with

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ground control backup.

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And this is a long talk.

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It's in the book I just mentioned.

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Then its basic design could be applied to
point-to-point transport.

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If the Space Shuttle were used as a global
transport, safety and comfort standards could

93
00:07:47,949 --> 00:07:50,690
be comparable to those of a large transport
jet.

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00:07:50,690 --> 00:07:54,630
It was probably not like business class in
a 747.

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00:07:54,630 --> 00:07:56,080
[LAUGHTER]

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00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:58,680
Maybe like the Concorde.

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00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:02,380
But that's certainly what they were talking
about with the National Aerospace plane.

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00:08:02,380 --> 00:08:09,740
I mean if you can develop a plane that can
take off from a runway and fly into orbit.

99
00:08:09,740 --> 00:08:14,580
And you remember, when we talked about the
rocket equation, we tried to make it clear

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why that is such a difficult thing to do.

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But, if you could do it, then you don't have
to go all the way to orbit.

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You can just go halfway to orbit and land
in Tokyo after you take off from London or

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New York.

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00:08:25,960 --> 00:08:26,460
Right.

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00:08:26,460 --> 00:08:33,740
And this kind of holy grail reduction in cost
by two orders of magnitude, that was the mental

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set of the guy who I would call at least the
policy father of the Space Shuttle, is that

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you could have an aircraft-like operations,
two orders of magnitude of a level of safety

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and reliability and operability that it could
even be used for commercial transport.

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As you know, NASA was successful in carrying
out its mission of getting humans to the moon

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in July of 1969.

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When Nixon came into office in January of
1969, he had a transition taskforce on space.

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And that taskforce told him that there was
a need for some decisions on what to do after

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Apollo.

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With the focus on getting Apollo done, the
then head of NASA Jim Webb didn't like long-range

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planning.

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He wanted the politicians to tell NASA what
to do, rather than the other way around.

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NASA was woefully unprepared for what it wanted
to do after Apollo.

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And the country hadn't discussed it at all.

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Nixon appointed a so-called space task force,
Space Task Group and asked it for definitive

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recommendations on the post-Apollo space program.

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That task group was chaired by the vice president
who traditionally has had the space portfolio

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in most administrations.

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At that time was a well-known space expert
named Spiro Agnew.

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You're all too young for that to even be a
joke.

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He was later caught taking bribes in the White
House and resigned in shame.

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He was a typical Maryland politician, which
means corrupt.

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00:10:23,980 --> 00:10:24,700
[LAUGHTER]

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That's my home state.

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The Space Task Group was captured by NASA,
by its then administrator Tom Paine who was

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a very bravado character.

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He told NASA that they should be swashbuckling.

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And by Miller, who had developed a long-range
plan for NASA.

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And, ultimately, by Wernher von Braun who
was brought up to Washington to add the charisma

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to the plan.

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00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:58,830
The report that was submitted by the Space
Task Group to the White House two months after

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Apollo 11 had these recommendations -- -- for
what NASA should do.

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00:11:11,959 --> 00:11:20,089
This was what NASA really wanted to do, mars
starting in 1981, a hundred man space base

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00:11:20,089 --> 00:11:23,170
in the mid '80s.

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00:11:23,170 --> 00:11:29,930
The program that was recommended ultimately
was Program 2 which had mars in '86.

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And you see these comparative accomplishments.

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00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:40,709
And in here was an earth-to- orbit space shuttle
for some time between '75 and '77.

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That's where the shuttle entered into national
policy, was in Nixon's reaction, or in the

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00:11:48,029 --> 00:11:52,540
country's reaction to NASA's post-Apollo proposal.

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Again, just to give you a sense of this kind
of thinking at that point, I'm not sure where

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this came from, to be frank.

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00:12:01,649 --> 00:12:10,339
But you take the station, the space based
and other stuff in this maximum program and

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00:12:10,339 --> 00:12:19,329
you're talking total space shuttle flights
a year peaking in '83 with 66 flights a year,

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00:12:19,329 --> 00:12:27,930
including 34 to service a six-man base and
a six-man orbiting station at the moon.

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So, these truly grandiose ideas of what might
be done.

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00:12:31,339 --> 00:12:37,480
I don't think it was ever clear why you had
to go to the moon every other week in order

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00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:39,399
to maintain a six-man base either.

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00:12:39,399 --> 00:12:42,019
[LAUGHTER]

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00:12:42,019 --> 00:12:47,940
No, I think it was not every other week.

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Thirty flights a year.

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00:12:50,300 --> 00:12:54,000
I think it was a three month rotation of a
crew.

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00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,370
But they've got 30, 40 flights a year.

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Maybe logistics flights, I don't know.

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Logistics.

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And you're doing two things.

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You've got a six person station in orbit around
the moon.

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Why?
I don't know.

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And a six person base.

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00:13:08,029 --> 00:13:13,860
The architecture, it was announced yesterday,
culminates in the buildup of a four or more

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person lunar base with a passing mention that,
oh yeah, we might go to mars.

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By the way, if anybody has comments or questions,
interrupt me.

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Otherwise, I'll just drone on.

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00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:28,910
Yeah, Larry.

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00:13:28,910 --> 00:13:36,750
To what extent was the Space Station's existence
importance for the shuttle back in the `70s?

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00:13:36,750 --> 00:13:39,480
It was the reason for its existence.

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00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:45,260
At this point, the reason to have a space
shuttle was to take crew and supplies to the

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station, period, at least in the core NASA
planner's ideas.

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You had people like Miller who left the agency
in September of '69 with these very grandiose

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ideas.

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00:13:59,290 --> 00:14:03,440
He was succeeded by Dale Myers, who I understand
has already talked to you.

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00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:11,360
And Myers was very instrumental in the negotiations
that led ultimately to the decision to go

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00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:14,420
forward with the station.

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00:14:14,420 --> 00:14:17,310
I remember the first time I heard the word
space shuttle.

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As Jeff said, I've been at this a long time.

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00:14:22,339 --> 00:14:27,430
I finished the book "The Decision To Go To
The Moon," published by MIT Press, but out

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of print, in late 1968.

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00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:35,070
We tried to market it as a paperback.

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00:14:35,070 --> 00:14:39,269
We were going to put a rocket and a girl on
the cover, and the inside story of why Kennedy

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sent us to the moon.

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It didn't work.

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It had footnotes and all because it was a
PhD dissertation.

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00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:50,680
[LAUGHTER]

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00:14:50,680 --> 00:14:57,720
Talking to an audience like this, they understand
what a PhD dissertation looks like.

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00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:04,550
I went down to attend my first launch, which
was Apollo 11, and for some reason hadn't

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00:15:04,550 --> 00:15:10,790
rented a car so I was figuring on hitching
a ride from Orlando to Coco Beach.

190
00:15:10,790 --> 00:15:15,760
And the person that I ended up driving to
was a man named Leroy Day.

191
00:15:15,760 --> 00:15:17,350
Did you know Roy Day?

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00:15:17,350 --> 00:15:22,889
Roy was, at that time, running the Phase A
studies of the Space Shuttle.

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00:15:22,889 --> 00:15:24,980
And he told me what he was doing.

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00:15:24,980 --> 00:15:27,990
It was the first time I had heard of the concept.

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00:15:27,990 --> 00:15:35,389
See, I don't know where this came from but
it's the kind of thinking of the need for

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00:15:35,389 --> 00:15:35,570
this.

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00:15:35,570 --> 00:15:38,839
So, to go to your point, Larry.

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00:15:38,839 --> 00:15:48,889
When NASA first presented its post-Apollo
plans to the Congress in the spring of 1970,

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00:15:48,889 --> 00:15:52,050
the program was called Station Shuttle.

200
00:15:52,050 --> 00:15:56,220
And they were coupled at the hip.

201
00:15:56,220 --> 00:16:02,440
And so it was the integral justification from
the NASA side.

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00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:08,160
Although, people like Dale Myers were already
negotiating with their counterparts in the

203
00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:13,410
Department of Defense for potential military
use of the system.

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00:16:13,410 --> 00:16:18,500
Although, almost clearly this is before any
military involvement or really commercial

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00:16:18,500 --> 00:16:22,889
involvement came in because, when you look,
there are only two unmanned satellites per

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00:16:22,889 --> 00:16:26,660
year.

207
00:16:26,660 --> 00:16:28,470
This is the manifest to implement this.

208
00:16:28,470 --> 00:16:33,560
And that was purely as NASA program.

209
00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:40,720
There was not much consideration of other
users of the shuttle at this point because

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00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:47,510
this was enough to justify the investment
in a new vehicle.

211
00:16:47,510 --> 00:16:53,750
Again, the logic was that you could put these
big things in space like space stations but

212
00:16:53,750 --> 00:16:58,019
the logistics costs would drive you crazy
if you were doing it with expendables.

213
00:16:58,019 --> 00:17:06,019
And so the only way to operate a permanent
outpost in orbit or beyond was to have reusability

214
00:17:06,019 --> 00:17:08,949
in the supply system, in the transportation
system.

215
00:17:08,949 --> 00:17:11,909
That was, in essence, the number one requirement.

216
00:17:11,909 --> 00:17:18,419
Unfortunately, well, I don't know whether
it was unfortunate but in reality the Nixon

217
00:17:18,419 --> 00:17:22,329
administration was not having any of this.

218
00:17:22,329 --> 00:17:27,849
Nixon made a statement in response to the
Space Task Force report, as you'll see, March

219
00:17:27,849 --> 00:17:29,049
of 1970.

220
00:17:29,049 --> 00:17:32,279
So, it took him six months to respond to the
report.

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00:17:32,279 --> 00:17:35,649
Meanwhile, NASA's budget was getting chopped
to pieces.

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00:17:35,649 --> 00:17:44,679
But it was essentially a fundamental 180 degree
change in policy from Apollo.

223
00:17:44,679 --> 00:17:50,379
Now, Apollo was separate leaps requiring a
massive concentration of energy.

224
00:17:50,379 --> 00:17:55,830
Space must take their proper place within
a rigorous system of national priorities,

225
00:17:55,830 --> 00:17:59,279
must be planned in conjunction with all the
other undertakings.

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00:17:59,279 --> 00:18:05,429
In other words, space has to be compared in
its priority to all the other demands on the

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00:18:05,429 --> 00:18:07,470
federal budget.

228
00:18:07,470 --> 00:18:14,210
And at least for the Nixon administration,
but in reality for every administration since,

229
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the answer has been essentially the same.

230
00:18:21,519 --> 00:18:26,840
When Kennedy made his speech saying we should
go to the moon in 1961, the NASA budget jumped

231
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:35,019
89% the first year, 101% the second year,
38% the third year.

232
00:18:35,019 --> 00:18:38,889
And it's like a rollercoaster that gets to
the top of the first hill.

233
00:18:38,889 --> 00:18:42,669
And the program has been living on that momentum
every since.

234
00:18:42,669 --> 00:18:46,549
And you came down that hill very quickly.

235
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You see by '73 or '74, this value was percent
of the federal budget, so it's kind of a constant

236
00:18:57,759 --> 00:18:58,119
measure.

237
00:18:58,119 --> 00:19:04,619
As the budget goes up, NASA gets essentially
the same share of the federal budget.

238
00:19:04,619 --> 00:19:07,389
About seven-tenths or eight-tenths of one
percent.

239
00:19:07,389 --> 00:19:11,869
And has gotten that share for 35 years.

240
00:19:11,869 --> 00:19:21,779
And this, I would say, is the way the democratic
political system makes policy choice, is through

241
00:19:21,779 --> 00:19:23,539
budget allocations.

242
00:19:23,539 --> 00:19:29,619
And if you have the same budget allocation
essentially for 35 years, I would say that's

243
00:19:29,619 --> 00:19:35,899
where space ranks in the scheme of national
priorities according to the political leadership

244
00:19:35,899 --> 00:19:38,729
in the White House and Congress.

245
00:19:38,729 --> 00:19:48,549
Just to flip ahead to 2004, one of the fundamental
premises in the Bush Vision for Space Exploration

246
00:19:48,549 --> 00:19:54,090
is that NASA will stay at this level of expenditures.

247
00:19:54,090 --> 00:19:58,570
And that everything you want to do, going
back to the moon, eventually to mars, has

248
00:19:58,570 --> 00:20:02,759
to be within that budget envelope, which means
you have to design to that.

249
00:20:02,759 --> 00:20:07,669
And remember the fundamental systems engineering
triad we talked about on several occasions,

250
00:20:07,669 --> 00:20:10,840
cost, schedule, performance.

251
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:14,909
That clearly demonstrates cost is a fixed
parameter.

252
00:20:14,909 --> 00:20:16,210
We don't have the freedom.

253
00:20:16,210 --> 00:20:24,119
Either for the shuttle or in this future program,
cost is going to go up by very much.

254
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:31,340
Just in case anybody asks what these two blips
are, this one is the replacement of Challenger

255
00:20:31,340 --> 00:20:33,769
after the 1986 shuttle accident.

256
00:20:33,769 --> 00:20:38,039
It's a one-time cost of building another orbiter.

257
00:20:38,039 --> 00:20:48,710
And this was Bush 41, you may remember, or
no, who announced a space exploration initiative

258
00:20:48,710 --> 00:20:51,179
on the 20th anniversary of Apollo.

259
00:20:51,179 --> 00:20:57,999
And he provided an increase in budget resources
to carry out that initiative which, when Bill

260
00:20:57,999 --> 00:21:01,210
Clinton was elected, quickly got undone.

261
00:21:01,210 --> 00:21:10,090
And you see the result in the past few years.

262
00:21:10,090 --> 00:21:18,519
In a sense, that decision that space had to
be planned in the context of all other priorities

263
00:21:18,519 --> 00:21:22,840
has had multiple impacts over 35 years.

264
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:27,609
The first thing is NASA has never accepted
it and has always tried to do more than it

265
00:21:27,609 --> 00:21:30,440
has resources.

266
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:35,239
And one of the things Jeff didn't say was
that I was a member of the Columbia Accident

267
00:21:35,239 --> 00:21:37,879
Investigation Board after the last accident.

268
00:21:37,879 --> 00:21:42,899
One of the things we said in our report was
that NASA had, for too many years, been trying

269
00:21:42,899 --> 00:21:44,889
to do too much with too little.

270
00:21:44,889 --> 00:21:51,119
And it created the kinds of stresses in the
organization that led to some of the organizational

271
00:21:51,119 --> 00:22:02,220
sloppiness that was at least a contributing
factor in the Columbia accident.

272
00:22:02,220 --> 00:22:10,929
It told NASA that it could not pursue in the
`70s a post-Apollo program that was anywhere

273
00:22:10,929 --> 00:22:12,919
near its ambitions.

274
00:22:12,919 --> 00:22:21,559
And so NASA had to reinvent its program from
what it had proposed in 1969.

275
00:22:21,559 --> 00:22:29,389
And, by the end of 1970, this is how budgets
get done.

276
00:22:29,389 --> 00:22:35,609
This is a letter from the then head of NASA,
Jim Fletcher, transmitting NASA's recommendations

277
00:22:35,609 --> 00:22:37,779
for the next year's budget.

278
00:22:37,779 --> 00:22:44,609
This happened last Monday, September the 12th
this year, NASA submitted its formal budget

279
00:22:44,609 --> 00:22:46,549
proposal to the White House.

280
00:22:46,549 --> 00:22:48,759
Every year this starts the process.

281
00:22:48,759 --> 00:23:09,289
Well, you can read all this rhetoric later.

282
00:23:09,289 --> 00:23:14,919
NASA had decided that the key element in the
program for the `70s was not the Space Station

283
00:23:14,919 --> 00:23:17,489
by now but the Space Shuttle.

284
00:23:17,489 --> 00:23:24,399
It supports the last four of the presidents'
six objectives, these four.

285
00:23:24,399 --> 00:23:37,789
And reflecting that decision, NASA announced,
"We have made a major decision to defer development

286
00:23:37,789 --> 00:23:44,409
of a space station to a later time and to
orient the space station studies towards modular

287
00:23:44,409 --> 00:23:50,509
systems that can be launched, as well as serviced
by the space shuttle." Again, a fundamental

288
00:23:50,509 --> 00:23:52,119
change in plans.

289
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:58,799
The station that NASA was planning in 1969
would have been launched by the Saturn 5.

290
00:23:58,799 --> 00:24:06,179
Would have been 33 feet across, have lots
of habitable space, be big, a 12 person minimum

291
00:24:06,179 --> 00:24:10,919
building up to 50 person, maybe eventually
100 person outpost.

292
00:24:10,919 --> 00:24:16,619
This represented a major shift that said,
number one, the shuttle becomes our number

293
00:24:16,619 --> 00:24:22,789
one priority, not the station, and the shuttle
has to be designed to launch space station

294
00:24:22,789 --> 00:24:24,059
modules.

295
00:24:24,059 --> 00:24:26,619
That was the overriding NASA goal.

296
00:24:26,619 --> 00:24:39,830
And so I would argue or suggest that this
decision made in late 1970 only separated

297
00:24:39,830 --> 00:24:51,119
in time shuttle and station that the intimate
link between the two programs remained.

298
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:54,859
It was just going to do them in sequence,
rather than at the same time.

299
00:24:54,859 --> 00:24:58,509
And here we are 35 years later.

300
00:24:58,509 --> 00:25:07,019
And the major issue in getting started on
exploration remains, what do you do with the

301
00:25:07,019 --> 00:25:08,940
shuttle, what do you do with the station?

302
00:25:08,940 --> 00:25:15,119
They are now seen as mortgages that have to
be paid or obstacles to the next systems or

303
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:22,169
however you want to characterize.

304
00:25:22,169 --> 00:25:31,969
What this also meant is that the traffic model
that was justifying the shuttle of all these

305
00:25:31,969 --> 00:25:39,499
launches to space stations and lunar bases
that you saw was no longer operative.

306
00:25:39,499 --> 00:25:47,349
And so beginning at the start of 1970 and
all the way through this two-year complex

307
00:25:47,349 --> 00:25:52,929
decision process, the Office of Management
and Budget kept saying well, how do you justify

308
00:25:52,929 --> 00:25:55,879
this investment?

309
00:25:55,879 --> 00:26:00,279
You're talking about a multi-billion dollar
investment in the future.

310
00:26:00,279 --> 00:26:03,359
What is the justification for it?

311
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:10,320
This was the first time, in the early '70s,
that the White House, through its Office of

312
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:18,219
Management and Budget, used cost-effectiveness
analysis, cost-benefit analysis as a tool

313
00:26:18,219 --> 00:26:19,499
in budget allocations.

314
00:26:19,499 --> 00:26:24,299
It had not been done, certainly not been done
in the space program of the `60s.

315
00:26:24,299 --> 00:26:34,940
But OMB insisted that NASA show an economic
justification for this investment.

316
00:26:34,940 --> 00:26:42,249
And in order to make it come out the way OMB
wanted it to come out, which was that there

317
00:26:42,249 --> 00:26:48,379
was no justification, how much economics do
any of you get in this environment?

318
00:26:48,379 --> 00:26:55,489
I have never had an economics course, except
at Jesuit undergraduate college called Christian

319
00:26:55,489 --> 00:26:59,219
economics, which may be a contradiction.

320
00:26:59,219 --> 00:26:59,749
Never mind.

321
00:26:59,749 --> 00:27:00,619
[LAUGHTER]

322
00:27:00,619 --> 00:27:08,139
But I'm going to say something, I don't have
a clue of what it means, which is that OMB

323
00:27:08,139 --> 00:27:16,769
insisted that NASA use a 10% discount rate,
which is the future value of current money.

324
00:27:16,769 --> 00:27:23,659
And that's much higher than the discount rate
applied to many other investments, because

325
00:27:23,659 --> 00:27:27,469
this was a long-term and risky investment.

326
00:27:27,469 --> 00:27:35,039
And so that meant the economic justification
for the shuttle had to be very strong.

327
00:27:35,039 --> 00:27:43,940
And, throughout this process, there was this
constant pressure on one hand to justify the

328
00:27:43,940 --> 00:27:45,609
shuttle economically.

329
00:27:45,609 --> 00:27:52,029
The only way that could be done, absent a
space station or an ambitious NASA program,

330
00:27:52,029 --> 00:27:54,349
was finding other users.

331
00:27:54,349 --> 00:27:56,779
And this goes back to your comment earlier.

332
00:27:56,779 --> 00:28:06,169
NASA became not just a kind of suitor of the
military as a user of the shuttle, but the

333
00:28:06,169 --> 00:28:10,889
economic justification for going ahead with
the shuttle became totally dependent on the

334
00:28:10,889 --> 00:28:15,549
military willingness to use the vehicle.

335
00:28:15,549 --> 00:28:19,619
And military is a euphemism.

336
00:28:19,619 --> 00:28:25,729
Many of the payloads that were being discussed
there were intelligence payloads operated

337
00:28:25,729 --> 00:28:31,479
by the organization called the National Reconnaissance
Office which, at that time, the existence

338
00:28:31,479 --> 00:28:36,039
of the National Reconnaissance Office itself
was classified.

339
00:28:36,039 --> 00:28:38,769
So, you could not say NRO satellites.

340
00:28:38,769 --> 00:28:39,419
You can say it now.

341
00:28:39,419 --> 00:28:44,899
NRO's existence was declassified in 1992.

342
00:28:44,899 --> 00:28:55,469
But, at that point, was all called Air Force
or DOD satellite, many of which, including

343
00:28:55,469 --> 00:29:05,229
the most demanding were intelligence satellites.

344
00:29:05,229 --> 00:29:15,450
The primary determinant of the size of the
shuttle's payload bay, the width was the ability

345
00:29:15,450 --> 00:29:17,309
to launch space station modules.

346
00:29:17,309 --> 00:29:21,889
Professor Young may be able to comment.

347
00:29:21,889 --> 00:29:26,789
If I understand it right, the kind of human
factor studies at the time said that people

348
00:29:26,789 --> 00:29:32,960
would be unwilling to live in tubes less than
14 feet across for long durations.

349
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:40,509
And so the shuttle had to be able to accommodate
a 14 foot wide module.

350
00:29:40,509 --> 00:29:43,039
The length could be adjusted.

351
00:29:43,039 --> 00:29:54,859
But the military payloads, I think Hubble
pointed down rather than pointed up.

352
00:29:54,859 --> 00:30:03,649
I think there's been enough discussion of
it that I'm not revealing classified material.

353
00:30:03,649 --> 00:30:09,479
The reconnaissance equivalent of Hubble was
the next generation reconnaissance satellite.

354
00:30:09,479 --> 00:30:13,639
And that was basically 55 feet long.

355
00:30:13,639 --> 00:30:21,509
And so the decision was that you needed a
payload bay 60 feet long in order to capture

356
00:30:21,509 --> 00:30:25,119
many military and reconnaissance payloads.

357
00:30:25,119 --> 00:30:31,839
And that was a determinant of the size of
the payload bay, which again drove the size

358
00:30:31,839 --> 00:30:36,830
of the shuttle.

359
00:30:36,830 --> 00:30:41,649
The other military requirement was the desire,
well, there were two.

360
00:30:41,649 --> 00:30:48,799
One was a desire to be able to go into polar
orbit which meant a west coast launch site.

361
00:30:48,799 --> 00:30:54,450
You cannot launch into polar orbit from Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station or Kennedy Space

362
00:30:54,450 --> 00:30:58,710
Center without flying over Boston.

363
00:30:58,710 --> 00:31:03,969
Actually, I guess you'd launch south flying
over Miami and Cuba which, for range safety,

364
00:31:03,969 --> 00:31:05,169
is not a great idea.

365
00:31:05,169 --> 00:31:10,109
If you launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base
out in California, you've got several thousands

366
00:31:10,109 --> 00:31:13,059
of miles of open ocean in front of you.

367
00:31:13,059 --> 00:31:20,739
The Air Force was in a nice position here
because it could make up any requirements

368
00:31:20,739 --> 00:31:21,169
it wanted.

369
00:31:21,169 --> 00:31:25,919
We've actually talked about the cross-range.

370
00:31:25,919 --> 00:31:26,950
OK, you've talked about it.

371
00:31:26,950 --> 00:31:28,820
That's where the cross-range came from.

372
00:31:28,820 --> 00:31:35,440
And so you've talked about cross-range leading
to delta wings, leading to heavier orbiter

373
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:42,899
because of more thermal protection, but all
of that came from the requirement of getting

374
00:31:42,899 --> 00:31:48,519
the Department of Defense to say they would
use the shuttle as a way of justifying to

375
00:31:48,519 --> 00:31:52,139
the economists the large upfront investment.

376
00:31:52,139 --> 00:32:07,679
Have you looked at anything like this?

377
00:32:07,679 --> 00:32:15,089
This is kind of from the outcome of the Phase
A studies in the last `60s and early `70s.

378
00:32:15,089 --> 00:32:20,099
As you see, Phase B proposals, a bunch of
studies.

379
00:32:20,099 --> 00:32:28,320
And then, in June of 1971, a rapid shift so
that in six months the configuration evolved

380
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:33,169
to what was finally built.

381
00:32:33,169 --> 00:32:37,389
And I presume if you've talked about cross-range
and that sort of thing you've talked about

382
00:32:37,389 --> 00:32:45,899
the difference between the preferred shuttle
of Johnson Space Center and its chief designer

383
00:32:45,899 --> 00:32:54,179
Max Faget, which was a straight wing minimal
cross-range shuttle, probably technically

384
00:32:54,179 --> 00:33:04,029
simpler to build and less expensive to build
into a delta wing configuration that matched

385
00:33:04,029 --> 00:33:09,700
the Air Force cross-range requirement.

386
00:33:09,700 --> 00:33:15,039
What happened in June of 1971 was critical
to this whole process.

387
00:33:15,039 --> 00:33:23,909
At this point, in its studies, NASA had concluded
to build a two-stage fully reusable shuttle

388
00:33:23,909 --> 00:33:31,330
that would match the cross-range requirement
and the big enough to launch space station

389
00:33:31,330 --> 00:33:36,669
modules it would cost in the order of $10
billion to $14 billion in investment cost

390
00:33:36,669 --> 00:33:40,200
with a peaks funding of $2 billion a year
during the `70s.

391
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:49,700
OMB, in May of 1971, said that's fine, but
you can only have $5 billion with a peak spending

392
00:33:49,700 --> 00:33:51,539
of $1 billion a year.

393
00:33:51,539 --> 00:33:57,629
If you want a shuttle at all, it has to fit
within that budget curve.

394
00:33:57,629 --> 00:34:03,979
And I presume Aaron and others are going to
talk about the kind of hectic trades that

395
00:34:03,979 --> 00:34:12,379
got from a fully reusable shuttle to first
moving the liquid hydrogen tanks outside the

396
00:34:12,379 --> 00:34:15,750
orbiter air frame and throwing them away.

397
00:34:15,750 --> 00:34:21,469
Then coming up with the idea that you could
put both the external oxygen and hydrogen

398
00:34:21,469 --> 00:34:26,909
fuel tanks on the outside and throw them away
to the notion that you could use strap-on

399
00:34:26,909 --> 00:34:35,668
solids to assist in takeoff and move the orbiter
down to the bottom so its engines could be

400
00:34:35,668 --> 00:34:41,510
used as part of the take-off thrust to the
final configuration.

401
00:34:41,510 --> 00:34:51,440
At that point, June to December 1971, there
were not zillions but hundreds of different

402
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:58,460
variations of shuttle design being floated
around and other designs to do something that

403
00:34:58,460 --> 00:35:10,700
was approximating but not totally -- What's
the right word I want to say?

404
00:35:10,700 --> 00:35:15,160
Totally meeting all of the payload requirements
that had been laid out.

405
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:24,480
I'm sure you're going to be talking a lot
about the engineering choices that were involved

406
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:24,900
in this.

407
00:35:24,900 --> 00:35:27,180
And I'm not capable of talking about them.

408
00:35:27,180 --> 00:35:35,039
But as apprentice young system engineers,
the notion that you could go from here, totally

409
00:35:35,039 --> 00:35:39,940
different concepts to here in six months and
know what you're doing should make you a little

410
00:35:39,940 --> 00:35:42,450
nervous.

411
00:35:42,450 --> 00:35:48,049
Why was the shuttle ultimately approved?

412
00:35:48,049 --> 00:35:55,450
OMB, the Office of Management and Budget was
on one spectrum of the participants in this

413
00:35:55,450 --> 00:35:56,470
debate.

414
00:35:56,470 --> 00:36:02,470
It really didn't believe, its staff, in the
value of human spaceflight.

415
00:36:02,470 --> 00:36:09,760
Its staff was, and is, the guardian of the
federal budget, believed it was under the

416
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:17,730
policy guidance of the Nixon administration
to cut federal expenditures dramatically across

417
00:36:17,730 --> 00:36:18,799
the board.

418
00:36:18,799 --> 00:36:27,440
And so OMB, through this whole process, through
a variety of interventions and changing demands

419
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:36,240
on NASA and political interventions, getting
leaked information from the aerospace industry

420
00:36:36,240 --> 00:36:47,289
and asking NASA nasty questions that it didn't
want to answer -- The career staff of OMB,

421
00:36:47,289 --> 00:36:51,160
they say, in retrospect, went too far in trying
to kill the shuttle.

422
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,740
So they were at one end of the spectrum.

423
00:36:54,740 --> 00:37:04,079
NASA was at the other end, obviously, because
by now, 1971, the shuttle was a survival project

424
00:37:04,079 --> 00:37:11,700
for NASA as it viewed itself as a large organization
built around human spaceflight and developing

425
00:37:11,700 --> 00:37:14,000
new large scale systems.

426
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:14,970
Yeah, Larry?

427
00:37:14,970 --> 00:37:15,940
[AUDIENCE QUESTION]

428
00:37:15,940 --> 00:37:25,309
OMB, not Congress, is
what I'm talking about.

429
00:37:25,309 --> 00:37:26,700
Well, ask your question.

430
00:37:26,700 --> 00:37:33,269
Well, the fact that non-elected AUDIENCE:
staffers, I was thinking of congressional

431
00:37:33,269 --> 00:37:33,299
staffers?.

432
00:37:33,299 --> 00:37:33,539
LOGSDON: Yeah, but OMB is the same thing.

433
00:37:33,539 --> 00:37:34,109
AUDIENCE: Have enormous influence over not
only implementing but making policy.

434
00:37:34,109 --> 00:37:38,609
And they stay long after their term [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

435
00:37:38,609 --> 00:37:46,839
LONGSDON: Any of you heard of Paul Shawcross?

436
00:37:46,839 --> 00:37:48,940
I wouldn't think so.

437
00:37:48,940 --> 00:37:51,400
Paul is an MIT graduate.

438
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:56,319
He's the Examiner for Human Spaceflight in
OMB right now.

439
00:37:56,319 --> 00:38:01,710
He did a TPP masters up here ten years ago
or so.

440
00:38:01,710 --> 00:38:04,910
And he is leading the fight to ground the
shuttle.

441
00:38:04,910 --> 00:38:12,170
Now, nobody knows his name unless you're inside
the beltway.

442
00:38:12,170 --> 00:38:20,690
One of the things I'll say, Larry, in reaction
to where you were going is at least the career

443
00:38:20,690 --> 00:38:25,150
staff on the Hill are relatively accessible.

444
00:38:25,150 --> 00:38:32,549
So, if you're an aerospace industry operative,
you know who they are and you can talk to

445
00:38:32,549 --> 00:38:33,510
them.

446
00:38:33,510 --> 00:38:38,430
Particularly back in this period 35 years
ago, the OMB staff operated under a cloak

447
00:38:38,430 --> 00:38:43,140
of anonymity, weren't open to talking to industry
people.

448
00:38:43,140 --> 00:38:45,170
It's changed a lot over the years.

449
00:38:45,170 --> 00:38:53,849
And were able to operate behind a wall of
secrecy and push their agenda into national

450
00:38:53,849 --> 00:38:55,099
policy.

451
00:38:55,099 --> 00:39:01,700
It is my belief, after starting my 40th year
in Washington.

452
00:39:01,700 --> 00:39:08,880
God, that's a long time.

453
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:14,589
Most people outside of Washington think that
Congress matters, but almost all the decisions

454
00:39:14,589 --> 00:39:20,240
that matter are made in the Executive Branch
and Congress just snips at the margins, 2%

455
00:39:20,240 --> 00:39:21,359
or 3%.

456
00:39:21,359 --> 00:39:22,490
Yes, sir.

457
00:39:22,490 --> 00:39:28,680
How much did industry lobbying affect the
design of the shuttle?

458
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:35,089
I mean you look at it and every aerospace
company had a piece of the shuttle, you know,

459
00:39:35,089 --> 00:39:36,609
they were getting money from it.

460
00:39:36,609 --> 00:39:41,730
I assume they also were probably lobbying
their senators for places like [OVERLAPPING

461
00:39:41,730 --> 00:39:42,480
VOICES].

462
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:48,460
I mean how much did industry [OVERLAPPING
VOICES]?

463
00:39:48,460 --> 00:39:56,910
Well, if you look at this, all of industry
had study contracts.

464
00:39:56,910 --> 00:40:03,190
This is Grumman, which was a separate company
at the time that had built the Lunar Lander.

465
00:40:03,190 --> 00:40:09,460
And Boeing, before it bought Rockwell, this
was North American Rockwell that had built

466
00:40:09,460 --> 00:40:11,970
the Apollo Command Module.

467
00:40:11,970 --> 00:40:15,660
This was McDonnell Douglas.

468
00:40:15,660 --> 00:40:19,539
So, the major aerospace companies each had
a concept.

469
00:40:19,539 --> 00:40:28,420
And they were lobbying or contending for the
adoption of their concept rather than what

470
00:40:28,420 --> 00:40:33,180
you see now which is work shares of a single
concept.

471
00:40:33,180 --> 00:40:38,490
But this was a decision totally inside the
Executive Branch at this point.

472
00:40:38,490 --> 00:40:45,470
Congress was more or less supportive with
the exception of one senator, Fritz Mondale,

473
00:40:45,470 --> 00:40:49,309
Walter Mondale who kept asking some difficult
questions.

474
00:40:49,309 --> 00:40:53,170
And NASA had its preferred concept.

475
00:40:53,170 --> 00:41:00,900
MSC is Manned Space Craft Center, what's now
Johnson Space Center.

476
00:41:00,900 --> 00:41:08,910
And it was Grumman and McDonnell Douglas that
came up with the idea of putting rockets on

477
00:41:08,910 --> 00:41:19,420
the side, at that point they weren't necessarily
solid rockets, to enable a cheaper configuration.

478
00:41:19,420 --> 00:41:26,319
What you ended up with was the preferred orbiter
of the Manned Space Craft Center and the NASA

479
00:41:26,319 --> 00:41:30,460
Orbiter after all these design requirements.

480
00:41:30,460 --> 00:41:41,480
With the Grumman McDonnell Douglas concept
of an expendable external tank and recoverable

481
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:42,200
strap-ons.

482
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:44,710
I don't want to say solids.

483
00:41:44,710 --> 00:41:52,109
What came out of this was an amalgamation
of everybody's ideas.

484
00:41:52,109 --> 00:41:59,450
And I said in passing, I will say again, one
of these industry firms, and all evidence

485
00:41:59,450 --> 00:42:06,940
points to North American, had a relationship
with the OMB that was feeding OMB questions

486
00:42:06,940 --> 00:42:10,730
that would embarrass their competitors.

487
00:42:10,730 --> 00:42:17,440
Or, result in not doing the shuttle at all
and continuing on with the existing systems

488
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:25,750
where North American was building at least
the Apollo Command Module.

489
00:42:25,750 --> 00:42:30,529
Players in this included the economic analysis.

490
00:42:30,529 --> 00:42:40,119
Here is a report that was given, as this debate
heated up, to NASA in October of 1971 done

491
00:42:40,119 --> 00:42:51,119
by a company called Mathematica, which was
founded by Oscar Morgenstern, an economist

492
00:42:51,119 --> 00:42:56,740
at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton.

493
00:42:56,740 --> 00:43:03,529
And his young colleague, Klaus Heiss, was
and is an Austrian somewhat crazy economist.

494
00:43:03,529 --> 00:43:10,369
Again, that may be the same thing, crazy and
economist.

495
00:43:10,369 --> 00:43:17,220
And they had the contract to do the external
economic analysis for the shuttle.

496
00:43:17,220 --> 00:43:28,990
And they came up, through their analysis,
with the conclusion that a reusable system

497
00:43:28,990 --> 00:43:32,299
is economically feasible at the current level
of activity.

498
00:43:32,299 --> 00:43:41,960
And that a thrust-assisted, that's the strap-ons,
shuttle is the economically preferred choice.

499
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:51,910
This is economists designing technical systems,
another thing that would make me nervous.

500
00:43:51,910 --> 00:43:57,049
And this goes back to your comment earlier,
the demand for space transportation by NASA,

501
00:43:57,049 --> 00:44:01,890
the Department of Defense, but particularly
by commercial and other users is the basis

502
00:44:01,890 --> 00:44:06,039
for economic justification.

503
00:44:06,039 --> 00:44:15,220
The economic analysis had, as an input, a
demand model that was totally unconstrained.

504
00:44:15,220 --> 00:44:21,890
It's everybody's wish list of things that
might be launched but weren't funded for the

505
00:44:21,890 --> 00:44:24,490
next 15 years.

506
00:44:24,490 --> 00:44:32,819
And that's where the next round of shuttle
launches, 50 or 60, which was part of the

507
00:44:32,819 --> 00:44:38,319
image at the time the decision was made, came
from this demand model which was done by the

508
00:44:38,319 --> 00:44:46,619
Aerospace Corporation given to Mathematica
to play with in its economic analysis.

509
00:44:46,619 --> 00:44:54,430
It's not clear how influential this set of
recommendations was in the final decision

510
00:44:54,430 --> 00:44:56,339
to proceed.

511
00:44:56,339 --> 00:45:01,759
Klaus Heiss, who is still very active, claims
it was very influential.

512
00:45:01,759 --> 00:45:07,069
I tend to think, well, you'll see my explanation
why the shuttle was chosen.

513
00:45:07,069 --> 00:45:18,880
These are the kind of economic comparisons
that were talked about.

514
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:28,259
The launch vehicle investment costs, nonrecurrent,
were clearly much greater for the new shuttle

515
00:45:28,259 --> 00:45:37,289
system, but the recurring costs of operations
were much less than using the current system.

516
00:45:37,289 --> 00:45:37,779
What is that?

517
00:45:37,779 --> 00:45:41,680
Almost $6 billion.

518
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:48,539
This is 514 space shuttle flights over a twelve
year or eleven year period.

519
00:45:48,539 --> 00:45:51,009
Eleven, I guess.

520
00:45:51,009 --> 00:46:00,390
That is, what, about 48 or 49 flights a year,
the model that was being used at this time.

521
00:46:00,390 --> 00:46:06,099
It always interests me when people do modeling
like that.

522
00:46:06,099 --> 00:46:11,480
You notice they chose the number 514, not
513 or 515.

523
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:15,440
I mean it sort of gives you the impression
that they know what they're talking about.

524
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:16,809
[AUDIENCE QUESTION]

525
00:46:16,809 --> 00:46:23,750
If they had just put approximately 500, that's
really as much as anybody knew at the time.

526
00:46:23,750 --> 00:46:28,670
But that's the number that will make it work,
I suppose.

527
00:46:28,670 --> 00:46:28,670
[LAUGHTER]
Now, that would be rigging the analysis, wouldn't
it?

528
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:35,319
Look at how round the numbers are at the bottom,
too.

529
00:46:35,319 --> 00:46:44,630
Well, one of the things to watch here is that
a lot of the costs were payload savings.

530
00:46:44,630 --> 00:46:51,329
There was this illusion at the time, proven
to be an illusion, that because of the characteristics

531
00:46:51,329 --> 00:46:57,339
of the shuttle you could make the payloads
much less expensive.

532
00:46:57,339 --> 00:47:02,839
You didn't have to design them to space program
standards if you want.

533
00:47:02,839 --> 00:47:04,329
Here are the payloads.

534
00:47:04,329 --> 00:47:11,990
Instead of costing $18 billion over this period,
we're going to cost $12 billion.

535
00:47:11,990 --> 00:47:17,750
That's a $6 billion savings in payload.

536
00:47:17,750 --> 00:47:26,279
And it's that combination of operation cost
and payload savings that give you the $7 billion

537
00:47:26,279 --> 00:47:32,849
advantage in the economic argument for going
ahead with the shuttle.

538
00:47:32,849 --> 00:47:37,980
Bush 41 later used the term, which I think
is properly applied to this analysis, calling

539
00:47:37,980 --> 00:47:41,690
it voodoo economics.

540
00:47:41,690 --> 00:47:49,089
And I think most of the people involved in
this decision recognize that.

541
00:47:49,089 --> 00:47:58,740
In a technical decision, the White House often,
at this period in time, depended on its Office

542
00:47:58,740 --> 00:48:05,440
of Science and Technology, now called OSTP,
Office of Science and Technology Policy, and

543
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:10,200
its President Science Advisory Committee called
PSAC.

544
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:15,630
What does PSAC mean?

545
00:48:15,630 --> 00:48:19,769
President Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology.

546
00:48:19,769 --> 00:48:27,630
And so the science advisor who was actually
an engineer, not a scientist, named Ed David,

547
00:48:27,630 --> 00:48:39,420
commissioned a PSAC, President Science Advisory
Committee study to look at NASA's proposals

548
00:48:39,420 --> 00:48:43,039
as a basis for the position he would take
in White House debates.

549
00:48:43,039 --> 00:48:58,230
Head chair of that study was Alexander Flax
who was President of the Institute for Defense

550
00:48:58,230 --> 00:49:01,789
Analyses, a think-tank in Washington.

551
00:49:01,789 --> 00:49:08,490
And this was a kind of summary report that
Flax sent in about the panel.

552
00:49:08,490 --> 00:49:13,329
Doubt that a viable shuttle program can be
undertaken without a degree of national commitment

553
00:49:13,329 --> 00:49:18,289
over the long-term analogous to that which
sustained the Apollo program.

554
00:49:18,289 --> 00:49:22,930
It may be attainable but is certainly not
apparent at this time.

555
00:49:22,930 --> 00:49:27,170
This is a long letter, and I'm just going
to show you a couple of things.

556
00:49:27,170 --> 00:49:36,099
In retrospect, I think this advice was sound
advice that was provided.

557
00:49:36,099 --> 00:49:41,839
Maintaining the program is large and risky
with the long-term prospect of fixed budget

558
00:49:41,839 --> 00:49:49,029
ceilings does not bode well for the future
of the program.

559
00:49:49,029 --> 00:49:53,869
Some decisions had been taken which introduce
additional hazards to the success of the program

560
00:49:53,869 --> 00:49:59,339
technically, operationally and economically
in order to reduce projected peak-year funding

561
00:49:59,339 --> 00:50:04,990
requirements.

562
00:50:04,990 --> 00:50:12,119
At that point, I think the strap-ons, firing
the main engines at liftoff.

563
00:50:12,119 --> 00:50:21,289
I can show you the analysis in the letter,
but I think that's what he was talking about.

564
00:50:21,289 --> 00:50:29,859
And basically what the PSAC panel recommended
was postponing the decision for a year or

565
00:50:29,859 --> 00:50:33,769
more while some of the uncertainties were
studied.

566
00:50:33,769 --> 00:50:35,849
General view.

567
00:50:35,849 --> 00:50:42,950
No significant role for manned spaceflight
in military and civilian or science.

568
00:50:42,950 --> 00:50:48,039
Didn't believe NASA's suggestion that the
shuttle would allow experimenters to conduct

569
00:50:48,039 --> 00:50:50,579
their activities in spaceflight.

570
00:50:50,579 --> 00:50:53,089
Evoke no enthusiasm from the scientists.

571
00:50:53,089 --> 00:50:54,880
You can counter that obviously.

572
00:50:54,880 --> 00:51:00,220
The shuttle was not a wonderful laboratory
for most applications.

573
00:51:00,220 --> 00:51:18,740
The scientific community in large doubts the
potential benefits of the space shuttle.

574
00:51:18,740 --> 00:51:25,049
Manned spaceflight should be considered contributions
in terms of national prestige, international

575
00:51:25,049 --> 00:51:32,079
cooperation, exploration and unforeseen future
needs.

576
00:51:32,079 --> 00:51:38,319
Basically, the justification was really kind
of arm-waving intangibles, some of which I

577
00:51:38,319 --> 00:51:41,490
think are very real like prestige and cooperation.

578
00:51:41,490 --> 00:51:59,880
[Jump back a little bit to the?]

579
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:11,259
science enthusiasm or lack of it, because
I think there was a clear division in the

580
00:52:11,259 --> 00:52:18,499
science community then between the "real space
scientist" and [OVERLAPPING VOICES]

581
00:52:18,499 --> 00:52:18,499
which sort of came into its own with Skylab
when it was realized [OVERLAPPING VOICES].
But Skylab was two years after this, Larry.
But at this point the life science community
was better that interesting things were going

582
00:52:20,049 --> 00:52:20,220
to be happening.

583
00:52:20,220 --> 00:52:21,890
But without any real data Skylab was the first
long duration exposure.

584
00:52:21,890 --> 00:52:26,150
And the life science community did not have
the high step in the space science community

585
00:52:26,150 --> 00:52:26,710
at that point.

586
00:52:26,710 --> 00:52:28,890
Space science was dominated by physicists.

587
00:52:28,890 --> 00:52:41,089
And, in fact, even within the NASA hierarchy.

588
00:52:41,089 --> 00:52:44,529
I think at that point it was still part of
space medicine.

589
00:52:44,529 --> 00:52:45,569
Right, crew medicine.

590
00:52:45,569 --> 00:52:46,720
So, yes, that split was there.

591
00:52:46,720 --> 00:52:51,499
It must be noted that new approaches have
often not been recognized or appreciated by

592
00:52:51,499 --> 00:52:56,579
the putative users until after they've been
demonstrated.

593
00:52:56,579 --> 00:52:56,940
Yeah, Mark.

594
00:52:56,940 --> 00:53:03,529
Didn't Hubble then conveniently make scientists
excited about the shuttle?

595
00:53:03,529 --> 00:53:04,779
Some.

596
00:53:04,779 --> 00:53:08,849
But, again, only after.

597
00:53:08,849 --> 00:53:12,579
We don't want to talk about why.

598
00:53:12,579 --> 00:53:19,130
We'll let Hoffman talk about whether the tradeoff
of putting Hubble in the shuttle orbit compared

599
00:53:19,130 --> 00:53:25,400
to it being serviced was a good tradeoff compared
to where you want a telescope.

600
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:29,779
If you would have been designing this large
space telescope in 1970, would you have made

601
00:53:29,779 --> 00:53:30,499
it shuttle launched?

602
00:53:30,499 --> 00:53:33,650
Well, everything had to be shuttle launched
then.

603
00:53:33,650 --> 00:53:41,730
I mean given the history of Hubble, obviously,
had it been put in an inaccessible orbit,

604
00:53:41,730 --> 00:53:44,329
we wouldn't have a space telescope now.

605
00:53:44,329 --> 00:53:50,059
So what can you say?

606
00:53:50,059 --> 00:53:54,380
Again, the shuttle cannot be justified on
a purely economic basis for the unmanned portion

607
00:53:54,380 --> 00:53:59,190
of the program so it's a position directly
opposite the thing I showed you before.

608
00:53:59,190 --> 00:54:05,299
It must be justified on the basis of new capability,
contribution to leadership and prestige, its

609
00:54:05,299 --> 00:54:10,220
unique value if we're going to have intensity
of infrequent manned spaceflight.

610
00:54:10,220 --> 00:54:19,210
And you have to postulate expanding rather
than level space budgets over the next ten

611
00:54:19,210 --> 00:54:19,599
years.

612
00:54:19,599 --> 00:54:24,269
And the Nixon administration said that wasn't
going to happen.

613
00:54:24,269 --> 00:54:42,930
Again, the somewhat bottom line of the PSAC
position -- -- led to the conclusion that

614
00:54:42,930 --> 00:54:46,619
if you had to make a choice in 1971, you had
two choices.

615
00:54:46,619 --> 00:54:53,980
Either proceed with the shuttle program now
or soon or drop manned spaceflight after Skylab.

616
00:54:53,980 --> 00:54:57,779
And nobody likes binomial choices like that.

617
00:54:57,779 --> 00:55:06,880
But, in the large degree, that was the consideration
or the mental set as this debate came to a

618
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:09,880
head towards the end of 1971.

619
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:14,289
Actually, that brings into sharp relief.

620
00:55:14,289 --> 00:55:18,989
Remember the comment that Professor Cohen
made when he was talking about what should

621
00:55:18,989 --> 00:55:24,880
a systems engineer do when presented with
requirements that you're not really happy

622
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:28,880
with and don't know if you can meet?

623
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:34,700
But, on the other hand, recognizing as they
came to that basically if they didn't build

624
00:55:34,700 --> 00:55:39,799
the shuttle that was being specified they
probably were going to end up with nothing

625
00:55:39,799 --> 00:55:40,279
at all.

626
00:55:40,279 --> 00:55:48,170
And I think what John just showed was justification
that that, in fact, was the political environment

627
00:55:48,170 --> 00:55:48,749
at the time.

628
00:55:48,749 --> 00:55:52,769
It wasn't the shuttle or something else.

629
00:55:52,769 --> 00:55:54,509
It was the shuttle or nothing.

630
00:55:54,509 --> 00:56:01,339
Well, except at the end people like PSAC and
OMB kept suggesting alternatives.

631
00:56:01,339 --> 00:56:08,579
This was a chart drawn in November of '71
by George Low who was the Deputy NASA Administrator

632
00:56:08,579 --> 00:56:16,319
and kind of the technical strength in this
thing, showing the investment costs versus,

633
00:56:16,319 --> 00:56:22,359
this is in billions, this is in millions,
the cost of operations for various things.

634
00:56:22,359 --> 00:56:27,960
The two-stage fully reusable, $10 billion
investment, low operating cost.

635
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:34,299
The baseline 15 x 60 foot payload bay could
be done, he's saying, for $8 billion.

636
00:56:34,299 --> 00:56:37,309
Within three weeks it was $5 billion.

637
00:56:37,309 --> 00:56:46,789
A phase development, develop a simpler one
first and then a more complex orbiter later

638
00:56:46,789 --> 00:56:59,039
with the large payload bay and various rocket
assists developing a smaller one, smaller

639
00:56:59,039 --> 00:57:07,480
payload, smaller bay, or developing a Titan
3 launched glider sort of thing.

640
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:12,950
And the argument was in this curve it made
sense to pick something along this line, the

641
00:57:12,950 --> 00:57:20,210
knee and the curve on that basis.

642
00:57:20,210 --> 00:57:31,640
NASA made its last best case in a memo to
the White House.

643
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:33,739
This is dated November the 22nd.

644
00:57:33,739 --> 00:57:38,619
I think it shows up at the top.

645
00:57:38,619 --> 00:57:40,430
And look at these reasonings.

646
00:57:40,430 --> 00:57:43,190
This is really NASA's best case.

647
00:57:43,190 --> 00:57:52,910
Number one, the US has to stay in the human
spaceflight business.

648
00:57:52,910 --> 00:57:55,940
That's not subject to analysis.

649
00:57:55,940 --> 00:57:57,749
That's a belief.

650
00:57:57,749 --> 00:58:09,499
And NASA argued that this should be a policy
premise that the United States had to have

651
00:58:09,499 --> 00:58:10,440
humans in space.

652
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:16,589
And the shuttle is the only meaningful new
manned space program, the operative word being

653
00:58:16,589 --> 00:58:17,680
"new".

654
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:23,759
You could have kept launching Apollo capsules
and Saturn 1bs or something.

655
00:58:23,759 --> 00:58:25,980
Saturn 5 had been cancelled by then.

656
00:58:25,980 --> 00:58:34,999
The shuttle is a necessary next step for science
applications, military position in international

657
00:58:34,999 --> 00:58:37,489
competition and cooperation.

658
00:58:37,489 --> 00:58:41,809
The cost and complexity is one-half of what
it was six months ago.

659
00:58:41,809 --> 00:58:46,579
Again, as engineers, that statement ought
to be very nervous that in six months you

660
00:58:46,579 --> 00:58:51,519
can cut cost and complexity in half.

661
00:58:51,519 --> 00:58:57,529
And starting the shuttle now will have a significant
positive effect in aerospace employment.

662
00:58:57,529 --> 00:59:03,230
Not starting will be a serious blow to both
the morale and health of the aerospace industry.

663
00:59:03,230 --> 00:59:07,029
Let me talk about that last one.

664
00:59:07,029 --> 00:59:12,759
Those, I think, were NASA's five best reasons
for going ahead.

665
00:59:12,759 --> 00:59:15,829
Employment impact was one of them.

666
00:59:15,829 --> 00:59:22,619
This is an undated memorandum from somebody
within OMB.

667
00:59:22,619 --> 00:59:30,089
Peter Flanagan was Nixon's top person right
at the intersection of policy and politics

668
00:59:30,089 --> 00:59:34,319
who was overseeing the space program.

669
00:59:34,319 --> 00:59:40,749
And Flanagan had asked for impact of the shuttle
on the aerospace industry.

670
00:59:40,749 --> 00:59:45,650
And this is what came back.

671
00:59:45,650 --> 00:59:54,499
What the program is.

672
00:59:54,499 --> 01:00:03,140
Here is the additional employment impact on
the engine program space shuttle.

673
01:00:03,140 --> 01:00:04,779
Main engine.

674
01:00:04,779 --> 01:00:06,829
Not very much in early '70.

675
01:00:06,829 --> 01:00:08,749
This is '71.

676
01:00:08,749 --> 01:00:18,440
But in '72 fairly significant employment impacts
in either California or Florida.

677
01:00:18,440 --> 01:00:29,589
And on the airframe,

678
01:00:29,589 --> 01:00:39,190
depending on when the decision was made to
go ahead with the shuttle, the impact in '72

679
01:00:39,190 --> 01:00:42,470
not very big, but big enough.

680
01:00:42,470 --> 01:00:46,539
Peak of 70,000 jobs might ultimately result.

681
01:00:46,539 --> 01:00:52,460
The number of actual jobs by the end of 1972
would be relatively small.

682
01:00:52,460 --> 01:00:56,519
Why do you think 1972?

683
01:00:56,519 --> 01:01:02,920
You have to recreate the environment of the
time.

684
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:04,960
This was 1971.

685
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:09,049
The supersonic transport had been cancelled.

686
01:01:09,049 --> 01:01:13,630
Defense spending on Vietnam was ramping down.

687
01:01:13,630 --> 01:01:16,460
NASA had no new program.

688
01:01:16,460 --> 01:01:23,730
And, in doing the article that Jeff mentioned
on the space shuttle decision, I ended up

689
01:01:23,730 --> 01:01:28,950
one afternoon in, of all places, Santa Fe,
New Mexico talking to John Ehrlich, one of

690
01:01:28,950 --> 01:01:29,819
Nixon's top guys.

691
01:01:29,819 --> 01:01:39,660
He said they sat down in the White House and
mapped NASA jobs on key election states and

692
01:01:39,660 --> 01:01:47,480
said if we want to win the 1972 election,
again this is political history well before

693
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:47,859
your time.

694
01:01:47,859 --> 01:01:53,019
At that point, the leading candidate was Ed
Muskie of Maine who was viewed as a serious

695
01:01:53,019 --> 01:01:54,900
candidate.

696
01:01:54,900 --> 01:02:00,999
It wasn't George McGovern who was, for better
or for worse, not a serious opponent.

697
01:02:00,999 --> 01:02:08,019
So that the political people were worried
about winning places like California and Florida

698
01:02:08,019 --> 01:02:17,299
and saw in the Shuttle Program a way of providing
the indication of future jobs in key electoral

699
01:02:17,299 --> 01:02:18,700
states.

700
01:02:18,700 --> 01:02:23,579
Some of the people I have talked to over the
years say that, at least for the top political

701
01:02:23,579 --> 01:02:28,809
levels of the White House, that was the major
reason for going ahead with this program.

702
01:02:28,809 --> 01:02:33,960
Was in order to have aerospace employment
impacts for the '72 election.

703
01:02:33,960 --> 01:02:40,069
You can judge whether that's a good reason
or not.

704
01:02:40,069 --> 01:02:44,309
The decision kept getting postponed until
very late in the budget process.

705
01:02:44,309 --> 01:02:48,999
OMB kept asking for more studies.

706
01:02:48,999 --> 01:02:56,210
This was a letter to the Deputy Director of
OMB, Caspar Weinberger, later Secretary of

707
01:02:56,210 --> 01:03:03,329
Defense, which NASA said we've concluded the
full capability still represents a best buy.

708
01:03:03,329 --> 01:03:10,960
But, in recognition of budget problems, we
are recommending a smaller vehicle, 14 x 45,

709
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:17,309
because that is the smallest that will still
be useful for manned spaceflight, Reid Space

710
01:03:17,309 --> 01:03:19,049
Station.

711
01:03:19,049 --> 01:03:28,089
It won't accommodate many DOD payloads and
some planetary payloads.

712
01:03:28,089 --> 01:03:29,538
And here are the numbers.

713
01:03:29,538 --> 01:03:32,380
I don't know whether you've seen these numbers
yet.

714
01:03:32,380 --> 01:03:39,710
Attached to this letter, this is what NASA
was telling the White House last business

715
01:03:39,710 --> 01:03:48,769
day of 1971 what the cost of various shuttle
configurations would be.

716
01:03:48,769 --> 01:03:56,299
You notice very little difference in the development
cost of the configurations, eight-tenths of

717
01:03:56,299 --> 01:04:05,819
a billion dollars between a very small and
less capable and the full size fully capable.

718
01:04:05,819 --> 01:04:13,680
And the operating cost relatively low across
the board.

719
01:04:13,680 --> 01:04:25,690
Look at that number, $7.7 million a flight
for a payload cost of $118 a pound.

720
01:04:25,690 --> 01:04:31,299
I think one of the points of your course,
if I understand it, is to understand maybe

721
01:04:31,299 --> 01:04:36,749
where these numbers came from and where they
ever possible?

722
01:04:36,749 --> 01:04:37,710
I shouldn't bias the answer.

723
01:04:37,710 --> 01:04:39,900
Were they ever a possible realization?

724
01:04:39,900 --> 01:04:47,180
I mean here are the heads of the leading technical
organization in the US government presenting

725
01:04:47,180 --> 01:04:49,609
these figures to the White House.

726
01:04:49,609 --> 01:04:56,519
Did NASA lose its technical integrity in this
process, was there any foundation for these

727
01:04:56,519 --> 01:05:04,839
numbers or where these total salesmanship,
are all, I think, valid questions.

728
01:05:04,839 --> 01:05:08,640
You said you took a two-minute stretch break.

729
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:10,339
Yeah.

730
01:05:10,339 --> 01:05:16,150
Let's do that, and then I'll come back with
the answer of why they ultimately went ahead

731
01:05:16,150 --> 01:05:16,720
with the shuttle.

732
01:05:16,720 --> 01:05:51,650
I'm going to argue that the decision to go
ahead with the shuttle was made before all

733
01:05:51,650 --> 01:06:04,220
of this last six months or so of 1971 back
and forth when it occurred.

734
01:06:04,220 --> 01:06:14,430
And the basis for that is primarily this memorandum
written through the Director of the OMB, George

735
01:06:14,430 --> 01:06:24,288
Shultz, by Cap Weinberger to the President
in which he is talking about the staff proposals

736
01:06:24,288 --> 01:06:31,450
for reducing the NASA budget, which included
eliminating the last two Apollo flights and

737
01:06:31,450 --> 01:06:33,670
eliminating Manned Spaceflight.

738
01:06:33,670 --> 01:06:39,509
And Weinberger said in this memo to the President,
I believe this would be a mistake.

739
01:06:39,509 --> 01:06:45,839
The reason for reducing NASA is because we
cut it because it's cutable, not because it's

740
01:06:45,839 --> 01:06:48,329
not doing a thing.

741
01:06:48,329 --> 01:06:54,920
That the uncontrollable programs that offer
no real hope for the future, this is remember

742
01:06:54,920 --> 01:07:01,339
a republican administration, are eating up
the budget.

743
01:07:01,339 --> 01:07:11,450
We do need to reduce the budget but we need
to do it on a reasonable basis.

744
01:07:11,450 --> 01:07:16,529
There is real merit in the future of NASA.

745
01:07:16,529 --> 01:07:24,220
And, if you took NASA apart, it would be very
hard to put it back together again.

746
01:07:24,220 --> 01:07:32,869
And he says stopping Apollo and not starting
new programs would be confirming a belief,

747
01:07:32,869 --> 01:07:35,700
I fear, is gaining credence at home and abroad.

748
01:07:35,700 --> 01:07:37,799
Our best years are behind us.

749
01:07:37,799 --> 01:07:42,979
We are turning inward, reducing our defense
commitments, involuntarily starting to give

750
01:07:42,979 --> 01:07:47,910
up our superpower status and our desire to
maintain our world's superiority.

751
01:07:47,910 --> 01:07:49,660
[LAUGHTER]

752
01:07:49,660 --> 01:07:55,089
America should be able to afford something
besides increased welfare.

753
01:07:55,089 --> 01:07:55,979
Notice the underlining.

754
01:07:55,979 --> 01:08:04,079
And this came back with a handwritten note,
I agree with Cap.

755
01:08:04,079 --> 01:08:07,059
That's Nixon.

756
01:08:07,059 --> 01:08:12,829
My view, the decision was made with those
four words.

757
01:08:12,829 --> 01:08:13,089
Yeah?

758
01:08:13,089 --> 01:08:15,210
Just out of ignorance, who is Weinberger?

759
01:08:15,210 --> 01:08:21,299
Weinberger at that time was the number two
person in the office of Management and Budget,

760
01:08:21,299 --> 01:08:29,549
long-time California associate of Nixon, became
Secretary of Defense under Reagan.

761
01:08:29,549 --> 01:08:37,068
Who he is, in a sense, irrelevant, except
he was a political appointee and a trusted

762
01:08:37,068 --> 01:08:41,059
associate of the President.

763
01:08:41,059 --> 01:08:49,630
And basically he was telling Nixon that the
reason for continuing the space program was

764
01:08:49,630 --> 01:08:51,540
image.

765
01:08:51,540 --> 01:08:54,920
I mean, again, read those words because they're
interesting words.

766
01:08:54,920 --> 01:09:02,198
Not having the strongest space program would
confirm our lack of desire to maintain our

767
01:09:02,198 --> 01:09:08,599
world's superiority.

768
01:09:08,599 --> 01:09:15,639
I should you this December the 29th memorandum
where NASA went to the White House and said

769
01:09:15,639 --> 01:09:21,830
we would recommend the full-size orbiter usually
but, with tight budget, will go with 14 x

770
01:09:21,830 --> 01:09:22,359
45.

771
01:09:22,359 --> 01:09:28,549
That was a Friday, the 29th of December, or
maybe earlier in the week.

772
01:09:28,549 --> 01:09:36,690
Anyway, over that New Year's weekend, '71,
'72, somehow somewhere Nixon and his inner

773
01:09:36,690 --> 01:09:41,460
circle decided to approve the shuttle and
approve the full-size shuttle.

774
01:09:41,460 --> 01:09:44,599
And they decided if we're going to approve
it, we might as well approve the one that

775
01:09:44,599 --> 01:09:47,690
NASA thinks is best.

776
01:09:47,690 --> 01:09:55,920
And there was a meeting scheduled between
NASA leadership and the President in the San

777
01:09:55,920 --> 01:10:02,760
Clemente on January the 5th.

778
01:10:02,760 --> 01:10:05,409
This is written by George Low.

779
01:10:05,409 --> 01:10:06,820
For a historian, Dr.

780
01:10:06,820 --> 01:10:08,340
Low was wonderful.

781
01:10:08,340 --> 01:10:14,460
He dictated his notes every week on the events
of the week and then backed it up with the

782
01:10:14,460 --> 01:10:16,940
documents.

783
01:10:16,940 --> 01:10:21,750
That's like a treasure load for somebody that's
trying to write the history of this.

784
01:10:21,750 --> 01:10:23,520
Met for 40 minutes.

785
01:10:23,520 --> 01:10:26,889
Here's what the President had to say.

786
01:10:26,889 --> 01:10:30,580
We should not hesitate to mention the military
applications.

787
01:10:30,580 --> 01:10:31,650
Routine operations.

788
01:10:31,650 --> 01:10:36,159
Quick reaction times.

789
01:10:36,159 --> 01:10:38,210
Solar power satellites.

790
01:10:38,210 --> 01:10:41,800
These kinds of things tend to happen more
quickly than we expect.

791
01:10:41,800 --> 01:10:44,320
Nuclear waste disposal.

792
01:10:44,320 --> 01:10:50,090
He liked the fact that ordinary people would
be able to fly in the shuttle.

793
01:10:50,090 --> 01:10:53,730
Preserve the skills of the people in the aerospace
industry.

794
01:10:53,730 --> 01:10:57,820
In summary, we do not know of the things the
shuttle will be able to do.

795
01:10:57,820 --> 01:10:59,820
It will open up entirely new fields.

796
01:10:59,820 --> 01:11:05,449
Did we think it was a good investment?

797
01:11:05,449 --> 01:11:08,030
We, the top two leaders of NASA.

798
01:11:08,030 --> 01:11:10,650
It's not a $7 billion toy.

799
01:11:10,650 --> 01:11:15,449
But he indicated even if it were not a good
investment, we would have to do it anyway

800
01:11:15,449 --> 01:11:17,530
because spaceflight is here to stay.

801
01:11:17,530 --> 01:11:24,010
Men are flying in space now and will continue
to fly in space, and we best be part of it,

802
01:11:24,010 --> 01:11:28,590
which was essentially what Weinberger had
said six months earlier.

803
01:11:28,590 --> 01:11:36,650
And, to me, that link in doing research in
this area, I've talked with both Weinberger

804
01:11:36,650 --> 01:11:38,800
and Ehrlichman and others around that.

805
01:11:38,800 --> 01:11:48,070
It's that link of human spaceflight to national
image of the United States, plus the employment

806
01:11:48,070 --> 01:11:53,070
impacts in the '72 election that were the
fundamental reasons for going ahead with the

807
01:11:53,070 --> 01:11:55,719
shuttle.

808
01:11:55,719 --> 01:12:01,949
You may make a judgment that those aren't
great reasons, but there they were.

809
01:12:01,949 --> 01:12:10,719
Finally, the decision was made, say, January
3rd, we would develop a shuttle with the big

810
01:12:10,719 --> 01:12:11,900
shuttle.

811
01:12:11,900 --> 01:12:16,980
And the only major open issue was whether
to use a liquid or solid strap-on.

812
01:12:16,980 --> 01:12:30,139
And that was studied for three months.

813
01:12:30,139 --> 01:12:33,230
Trade-off between future benefits and earlier
savings.

814
01:12:33,230 --> 01:12:46,639
Liquid boosters have lower operating cost,
solid boosters have lower development cost.

815
01:12:46,639 --> 01:12:51,659
Conclusions here are heavily dependent on
the mission model.

816
01:12:51,659 --> 01:13:00,080
The basic concern was keeping within the development
cost of the shuttle and somebody else worry

817
01:13:00,080 --> 01:13:07,420
later about operating costs.

818
01:13:07,420 --> 01:13:20,330
All of that argument led to a decision in
favor of the solid booster.

819
01:13:20,330 --> 01:13:27,489
The rest of this is kind of irrelevant to
that.

820
01:13:27,489 --> 01:13:33,869
Basically with the OMB acceptance of this
letter and the choice of the solids, the configuration

821
01:13:33,869 --> 01:13:34,739
was frozen.

822
01:13:34,739 --> 01:13:39,510
There were some things in it that I'm sure
you'll talk about later.

823
01:13:39,510 --> 01:13:43,360
There was at that point it had abort capability
on the solids.

824
01:13:43,360 --> 01:13:47,330
I'm not quite sure how that would have worked.

825
01:13:47,330 --> 01:13:53,300
And somewhere along the line, and it's not
clear to me, at one point the shuttle was

826
01:13:53,300 --> 01:14:00,320
going to have jet engines so it could fly
to a landing rather than glide to a landing.

827
01:14:00,320 --> 01:14:01,790
And those were taken out.

828
01:14:01,790 --> 01:14:14,880
And I think it was after this, but I'm not
sure.

829
01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:26,800
As I said at the start, the technical requirements
of the shuttle, I want to say it a little

830
01:14:26,800 --> 01:14:27,550
differently.

831
01:14:27,550 --> 01:14:34,489
The reason for approving the shuttle had very
little to do with the specific technical characteristics

832
01:14:34,489 --> 01:14:38,000
of the system.

833
01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:43,580
If my argument that the main reasons were
national prestige, national image, aerospace

834
01:14:43,580 --> 01:14:50,179
employment rather than the actual performance
characteristics of a particular configuration.

835
01:14:50,179 --> 01:15:02,750
As long as the shuttle could be developed
within a $5 billion a year peak funding profile

836
01:15:02,750 --> 01:15:08,420
and as long as the shuttle could do things
for the Department of Defense that made it

837
01:15:08,420 --> 01:15:11,869
useful to both civilian and military users.

838
01:15:11,869 --> 01:15:17,020
Those were the drivers of the shuttle decision.

839
01:15:17,020 --> 01:15:22,639
And the technology was derivative of that
rather than the other way around.

840
01:15:22,639 --> 01:15:29,520
That presented challenges, as I'm sure Aaron
Cohen or Jeff have talked about, of developing

841
01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:35,639
thermal protection, developing a main engine,
developing a vehicle that could operate in

842
01:15:35,639 --> 01:15:37,320
multiple flight regimes.

843
01:15:37,320 --> 01:15:44,080
But those were secondary to the policy decision
that the country should go ahead with this

844
01:15:44,080 --> 01:15:44,619
capability.

845
01:15:44,619 --> 01:15:49,530
Questions?

846
01:15:49,530 --> 01:15:50,380
Comments?

847
01:15:50,380 --> 01:15:51,010
Reactions?

848
01:15:51,010 --> 01:15:51,540
Yes, sir.

849
01:15:51,540 --> 01:15:52,300
One quick question.

850
01:15:52,300 --> 01:15:58,139
I saw, in one of those earlier things you
put out, that it was around '71, it talked

851
01:15:58,139 --> 01:16:00,750
about first flight was '77 and fully operational
by '79.

852
01:16:00,750 --> 01:16:08,159
It seems to me that you could really reduce
things like heat cost and you could spread

853
01:16:08,159 --> 01:16:11,690
out your development cost if you just said
we're not in a hurry, let's do it right but

854
01:16:11,690 --> 01:16:12,559
let's take our time.

855
01:16:12,559 --> 01:16:12,750
Because there wasn't the race anymore.

856
01:16:12,750 --> 01:16:12,989
I mean we had done the Apollo.

857
01:16:12,989 --> 01:16:13,159
We had beaten the Russians.

858
01:16:13,159 --> 01:16:23,239
And I was wondering what kind of time constraints
played into this, why they were trying to

859
01:16:23,239 --> 01:16:30,860
finish it by the late `70s and why not say
let's launch it mid `80s?

860
01:16:30,860 --> 01:16:39,280
Well, it ties into the current situation rather
nicely in the sense that there was then, and

861
01:16:39,280 --> 01:16:47,830
I think is now, a perception that an extended
gap in US human spaceflight is not politically

862
01:16:47,830 --> 01:16:49,260
acceptable.

863
01:16:49,260 --> 01:16:57,219
And, at that point, at the end of '71, the
only human spaceflight missions on the books

864
01:16:57,219 --> 01:17:02,000
were three flights to the Skylab Space Station
in 1973.

865
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:09,309
The thing that followed that, the Apollo-Soyuz
Test Project, had not yet been agreed on.

866
01:17:09,309 --> 01:17:12,800
That wasn't agreed until May of '72.

867
01:17:12,800 --> 01:17:19,670
There would have been from '73 to whatever
future date a gap in American's flying to

868
01:17:19,670 --> 01:17:20,070
space.

869
01:17:20,070 --> 01:17:24,610
And I think the general sense was that that
was not acceptable.

870
01:17:24,610 --> 01:17:36,360
Also, you had a workforce issue of maintaining
the workforce with something to do at Johnson,

871
01:17:36,360 --> 01:17:43,290
by then not yet Johnson, but Manned Spacecraft
Center, Marshall Spaceflight Center and Kennedy.

872
01:17:43,290 --> 01:17:50,520
And so you needed a relatively rapid development
program so that you didn't either disassemble

873
01:17:50,520 --> 01:17:52,530
the teams and have to reassemble them later.

874
01:17:52,530 --> 01:17:58,969
And the same for the capability inside the
industry.

875
01:17:58,969 --> 01:18:07,469
This was a program that was paste within a
budget ceiling to make full use of the space

876
01:18:07,469 --> 01:18:12,210
industrial base in a reasonable timeframe.

877
01:18:12,210 --> 01:18:19,750
And I think that's why I would say, I mean
the dates were set on the basis, this is the

878
01:18:19,750 --> 01:18:22,949
earliest we can do it on this budget profile.

879
01:18:22,949 --> 01:18:23,420
Yes, sir.

880
01:18:23,420 --> 01:18:28,989
You said the decision to go for solids instead
of liquids for the boosters was the development

881
01:18:28,989 --> 01:18:31,639
costs as opposed to the operating costs.

882
01:18:31,639 --> 01:18:44,400
And now, in this new architecture, the plan
is to use the solid rocket booster.

883
01:18:44,400 --> 01:18:55,929
It's something like it's proven to be the
most reliable launcher ever developed or something

884
01:18:55,929 --> 01:18:56,040
along those lines.

885
01:18:56,040 --> 01:18:56,110
It's true.

886
01:18:56,110 --> 01:18:56,909
You've launched 228 of them with one failure.

887
01:18:56,909 --> 01:18:58,360
I agree.

888
01:18:58,360 --> 01:19:08,199
But, at the same time, if the idea then, if
they went for solid they could sort of reduce

889
01:19:08,199 --> 01:19:11,820
development costs and sacrificing operating
costs.

890
01:19:11,820 --> 01:19:19,210
Is sticking with solids in the same configuration
now kind of repeating the same possible mistake?

891
01:19:19,210 --> 01:19:20,960
Well, I don't know.

892
01:19:20,960 --> 01:19:27,360
First you seem to assume that going with solids
in the first place was a mistake.

893
01:19:27,360 --> 01:19:30,840
That a liquid strap-on solution would have
been a better solution.

894
01:19:30,840 --> 01:19:34,280
I'm not necessarily assuming that.

895
01:19:34,280 --> 01:19:35,760
Many have argued that.

896
01:19:35,760 --> 01:19:40,860
It's not really clear that the operating cost
of a liquid booster would have been less.

897
01:19:40,860 --> 01:19:46,130
One of the big concerns was you have a liquid
booster, you've got a real rocket engine on

898
01:19:46,130 --> 01:19:48,320
it, and what happens when that lands in the
ocean?

899
01:19:48,320 --> 01:19:55,070
I mean there were real concerns about could
you clean up and reuse a rocket engine once

900
01:19:55,070 --> 01:19:56,809
it's been exposed to salt water?

901
01:19:56,809 --> 01:20:01,300
And we don't know the answer to that.

902
01:20:01,300 --> 01:20:06,699
Maybe it's the time to segue, if we want to
do this, to a quick look at the new architecture

903
01:20:06,699 --> 01:20:14,730
as it was presented yesterday, which is being
driven heavily, the choices are being driven

904
01:20:14,730 --> 01:20:15,969
by budget ceilings again.

905
01:20:15,969 --> 01:20:38,219
An interesting question, Mark, is whether
you would be making the same choices now if

906
01:20:38,219 --> 01:20:52,550
you weren't constrained by budget, once again.

907
01:20:52,550 --> 01:21:29,900
I didn't mean to assume that the liquid would
be better than solid.

908
01:21:29,900 --> 01:22:05,050
Just the observation of the basis the decision
was made on.

909
01:22:05,050 --> 01:22:14,110
What this is, or at a certain level what it
isn't, is the briefing that is on the NASA

910
01:22:14,110 --> 01:23:18,699
website which is a 10-page briefing.

911
01:23:18,699 --> 01:23:28,429
This is
the 23-page briefing.

912
01:23:28,429 --> 01:23:33,659
There is a clear set of top level requirements
in this new vision.

913
01:23:33,659 --> 01:23:40,840
And, if you're space types at all, you should
know this.

914
01:23:40,840 --> 01:23:53,630
An interesting attempt to develop rationale
for exploration which, as you see, is mainly

915
01:23:53,630 --> 01:23:55,239
intangible.

916
01:23:55,239 --> 01:24:08,530
Curiosity and leadership, they are very much
the same things that started the shuttle program.

917
01:24:08,530 --> 01:24:15,090
This is about the only mention of mars in
the whole presentation, even though the President's

918
01:24:15,090 --> 01:24:22,550
vision says moon as a way of getting to mars.

919
01:24:22,550 --> 01:24:30,239
But here is why moon.

920
01:24:30,239 --> 01:24:33,460
And you're developing technologies that you're
going to use downstream.

921
01:24:33,460 --> 01:24:43,099
And, in particular, this Saturn 5 class.

922
01:24:43,099 --> 01:24:50,510
The Apollo 17 Saturn 5 launcher took 117 metric
tons to low earth orbit.

923
01:24:50,510 --> 01:24:54,630
This vehicle that's being planned is slightly
larger than Saturn 5.

924
01:24:54,630 --> 01:25:04,210
One of the few areas of technological innovation
in this system is a new engine which uses

925
01:25:04,210 --> 01:25:09,360
liquid methane rather than liquid hydrogen
as a fuel.

926
01:25:09,360 --> 01:25:09,520
Why?

927
01:25:09,520 --> 01:25:15,670
Maybe I'll ask the class, why would you be
interested in liquid methane?

928
01:25:15,670 --> 01:25:16,969
Yeah.

929
01:25:16,969 --> 01:25:19,270
You could manufacture it on mars.

930
01:25:19,270 --> 01:25:20,130
Yeah, precisely.

931
01:25:20,130 --> 01:25:26,440
It's also a lot easier to store over the long-term,
liquid hydrogen.

932
01:25:26,440 --> 01:25:32,619
But the main reason is it is a potential resource
that you could get in situ on mars and so

933
01:25:32,619 --> 01:25:35,809
you wouldn't have to carry it all the way
out there.

934
01:25:35,809 --> 01:25:39,670
And you could get oxygen on mars because there
is clearly water.

935
01:25:39,670 --> 01:25:39,849
Yeah.

936
01:25:39,849 --> 01:25:43,139
This may be slightly off topic, but I wonder
if you could comment on what you think the

937
01:25:43,139 --> 01:25:51,070
feasibility of [UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].

938
01:25:51,070 --> 01:25:58,530
Whether it's feasible or not, we're not going
to do it.

939
01:25:58,530 --> 01:26:07,690
Elements of Mars Direct are in the NASA planning
for mars which does a fair amount of in situ

940
01:26:07,690 --> 01:26:12,969
resource utilization.

941
01:26:12,969 --> 01:26:17,900
Maybe I should back up and say what is this?

942
01:26:17,900 --> 01:26:22,000
Mike Griffin was sworn in as NASA administrator
April the 14th.

943
01:26:22,000 --> 01:26:30,150
He had been convinced for a number of months
that NASA's planning for implanting the Bush

944
01:26:30,150 --> 01:26:32,900
vision was proceeding at much too slow a pace.

945
01:26:32,900 --> 01:26:40,150
And distributing money much too widely, including
to MIT graduate students.

946
01:26:40,150 --> 01:26:45,699
Jeff will explain that if none of you were
affected by it.

947
01:26:45,699 --> 01:26:54,550
And so he ordered, on April the 29th, a so-called
60-day exploration architecture study to develop

948
01:26:54,550 --> 01:27:00,219
a specific architecture for getting humans
onto the surface of the moon.

949
01:27:00,219 --> 01:27:06,190
And that architecture was basically finished
by the end of July.

950
01:27:06,190 --> 01:27:10,349
And it's taken six weeks to get White House
permission to release it.

951
01:27:10,349 --> 01:27:13,020
And so it was formally released yesterday.

952
01:27:13,020 --> 01:27:17,750
It was mainly because of two reasons, because
the senior people in the White House were

953
01:27:17,750 --> 01:27:22,540
on vacation in August, as we all know.

954
01:27:22,540 --> 01:27:28,650
And so the OMB staff could sit and snip at
this and say, well, you can put all this stuff

955
01:27:28,650 --> 01:27:32,320
down, but where is the money to carry it out?

956
01:27:32,320 --> 01:27:37,520
You have to show the business case that you
can actually do this with the budget that

957
01:27:37,520 --> 01:27:38,000
is allocated.

958
01:27:38,000 --> 01:27:49,739
And it takes a little prestidigitation, I
think, to do that.

959
01:27:49,739 --> 01:27:56,540
So, this is what NASA has now said is its
architecture for the next step in fulfilling

960
01:27:56,540 --> 01:28:00,239
our destiny as explorers.

961
01:28:00,239 --> 01:28:01,929
Safe accelerated.

962
01:28:01,929 --> 01:28:06,559
Accelerated in the sense that when Griffin
got there the schedule for the first crude

963
01:28:06,559 --> 01:28:15,650
flight of the CEV, crew exploration vehicle
was 2014, and he wanted the shuttle hard date

964
01:28:15,650 --> 01:28:17,150
retired in 2010.

965
01:28:17,150 --> 01:28:26,579
And he wanted to close that gap and thought
that it might be possible to have the CEV

966
01:28:26,579 --> 01:28:28,230
as early as 2011.

967
01:28:28,230 --> 01:28:33,219
It's turning out it is probably not going
to happen.

968
01:28:33,219 --> 01:28:38,750
Why is this just not Apollo over again sending
people back to the moon?

969
01:28:38,750 --> 01:28:40,619
Here are the arguments.

970
01:28:40,619 --> 01:28:52,300
For all crew on the moon, you can go anywhere
on the moon, not just in the equatorial regions.

971
01:28:52,300 --> 01:28:56,780
You can begin the buildup for permanent human
presence in a lunar base.

972
01:28:56,780 --> 01:28:58,880
Do institute resources.

973
01:28:58,880 --> 01:29:04,760
And it's more reliable and safer.

974
01:29:04,760 --> 01:29:11,630
The argument is that, at least on ascent,
you get almost a factor of ten improvement

975
01:29:11,630 --> 01:29:14,520
in the safety.

976
01:29:14,520 --> 01:29:23,040
And how is that going to happen?

977
01:29:23,040 --> 01:29:27,739
Well, there are specific charts on that later.

978
01:29:27,739 --> 01:29:33,610
Oh, OK.

979
01:29:33,610 --> 01:29:38,590
Although, the system is being designed from
getting to the moon backwards.

980
01:29:38,590 --> 01:29:46,400
It can also be used for the International
Space Station, if we continue with the space

981
01:29:46,400 --> 01:29:49,010
station.

982
01:29:49,010 --> 01:29:50,130
What are we going to do on the moon?

983
01:29:50,130 --> 01:29:55,040
Learn to operate away from earth.

984
01:29:55,040 --> 01:29:55,780
Do science.

985
01:29:55,780 --> 01:30:03,020
Learn how to use local resources.

986
01:30:03,020 --> 01:30:05,530
Develop one mission at a time.

987
01:30:05,530 --> 01:30:08,790
A lunar base.

988
01:30:08,790 --> 01:30:14,929
And develop techniques for the eventual human
missions to mars.

989
01:30:14,929 --> 01:30:22,190
So there is another mars mention.

990
01:30:22,190 --> 01:30:25,809
Science group picked a bunch of places that
were interesting.

991
01:30:25,809 --> 01:30:34,420
I believe this was primarily a drill because
going in NASA knew that its preferred site

992
01:30:34,420 --> 01:30:39,389
was the Shackleton crater at the south pole
of the moon.

993
01:30:39,389 --> 01:30:42,369
Why?

994
01:30:42,369 --> 01:30:48,670
Because of the possibility of water ice which
would be a very valuable resource for in situ

995
01:30:48,670 --> 01:30:52,949
utilization.

996
01:30:52,949 --> 01:31:02,099
And each mission will go to the same place
and begin to leave on the surface the elements

997
01:31:02,099 --> 01:31:04,309
of a long duration base.

998
01:31:04,309 --> 01:31:11,880
How is this going to be done?

999
01:31:11,880 --> 01:31:20,290
First you're going to have this heavy lifter,
launch the earth departure stage and the Lunar

1000
01:31:20,290 --> 01:31:21,699
Lander.

1001
01:31:21,699 --> 01:31:27,250
Then you're going to have the smaller rocket
launch the crew exploration vehicle.

1002
01:31:27,250 --> 01:31:31,250
They are going to rendezvous in earth orbit.

1003
01:31:31,250 --> 01:31:35,530
Fire up the departure stage and head off to
the moon.

1004
01:31:35,530 --> 01:31:39,480
Arrive in lunar orbit.

1005
01:31:39,480 --> 01:31:45,340
And then the lander will separate and come
down to the moon.

1006
01:31:45,340 --> 01:31:50,690
This is the lunar orbit rendezvous method
that was used for Apollo, plus an earth orbit

1007
01:31:50,690 --> 01:31:56,550
rendezvous step.

1008
01:31:56,550 --> 01:31:58,079
Work on the moon.

1009
01:31:58,079 --> 01:32:04,530
Come back and rendezvous with the CEV.

1010
01:32:04,530 --> 01:32:11,949
Probably ablative heat shield for what is
hoped to be a land landing in Western United

1011
01:32:11,949 --> 01:32:17,599
States in Oregon, Nevada or California so
you don't have to deploy the fleet.

1012
01:32:17,599 --> 01:32:25,250
The hope, but it's what the contractors will
confirm, is that most of the CEV will be able

1013
01:32:25,250 --> 01:32:29,840
to reused up to ten times by replacing just
the heat shield.

1014
01:32:29,840 --> 01:32:33,130
Again, that's the hope.

1015
01:32:33,130 --> 01:32:36,790
That is not put in as a requirement, which
is important.

1016
01:32:36,790 --> 01:32:37,699
It's a desire.

1017
01:32:37,699 --> 01:32:47,190
It's a desire, yeah, because they don't know
they can do it.

1018
01:32:47,190 --> 01:32:50,150
The baseline design is for a crew to the moon.

1019
01:32:50,150 --> 01:32:55,980
The thing can actually carry six people, either
six people to space station early on or six

1020
01:32:55,980 --> 01:33:03,320
people to a mars transit spaceship downstream.

1021
01:33:03,320 --> 01:33:11,980
It can also be used, if you take the crew
accommodations out, as either a pressurized

1022
01:33:11,980 --> 01:33:16,250
cargo module going to space station and bringing
stuff back from the space station.

1023
01:33:16,250 --> 01:33:23,059
Provides down mass capability which is missing
after the shuttle goes away.

1024
01:33:23,059 --> 01:33:27,070
The Apollo capsule was 3.9 meters across.

1025
01:33:27,070 --> 01:33:34,170
This is 5.5 meters, 32 degree slope on the
capsule.

1026
01:33:34,170 --> 01:33:46,079
So, it's a much larger capsule with hopefully
better characteristics.

1027
01:33:46,079 --> 01:33:50,309
NASA is calling the bluff of the commercial
industry.

1028
01:33:50,309 --> 01:33:56,309
It will issue shortly a request for a proposal
with a half a billion dollars behind it that

1029
01:33:56,309 --> 01:34:04,400
says you, you, the commercial sector, demonstrate
the ability to have cargo or maybe even crew

1030
01:34:04,400 --> 01:34:09,540
deliver to the space station and we'll buy
those services.

1031
01:34:09,540 --> 01:34:11,900
We won't use CEV.

1032
01:34:11,900 --> 01:34:18,989
But, in case you cannot demonstrate it, the
CEV will be able to be a space station transport

1033
01:34:18,989 --> 01:34:22,770
and crew rescue vehicle.

1034
01:34:22,770 --> 01:34:31,719
I don't think anybody believes that, in the
relevant timeframe, anybody in NASA believes

1035
01:34:31,719 --> 01:34:36,889
in the relevant timeframe the private sector
is going to develop crew transport to an acceptable

1036
01:34:36,889 --> 01:34:38,650
level of reliability.

1037
01:34:38,650 --> 01:34:39,510
Maybe cargo.

1038
01:34:39,510 --> 01:34:54,179
The National Space Transportation Policy was
issued last January that said that there should

1039
01:34:54,179 --> 01:35:01,960
be full utilization of the evolved expendable
launch vehicles, Delta 4 and Atlas 5.

1040
01:35:01,960 --> 01:35:05,699
And that caused a problem because NASA said
well, for our purposes, we're going to build

1041
01:35:05,699 --> 01:35:07,389
something else.

1042
01:35:07,389 --> 01:35:17,550
And part of the price of that is NASA agreement
to use primarily Delta 4s and Atlas 5s for

1043
01:35:17,550 --> 01:35:18,989
its robotic missions.

1044
01:35:18,989 --> 01:35:23,650
The problem with that is those things are
expensive, a lot more expensive than the Delta

1045
01:35:23,650 --> 01:35:25,340
2s.

1046
01:35:25,340 --> 01:35:32,260
And where does that leave people like Elon
Musk in space exploration in privately developed

1047
01:35:32,260 --> 01:35:37,760
launch systems?

1048
01:35:37,760 --> 01:35:44,300
Griffin was party to a study commissioned
last year by the Planetary Society that came

1049
01:35:44,300 --> 01:35:51,099
out with the conclusion that a shuttle derived
launch system was the best way to approach

1050
01:35:51,099 --> 01:35:53,340
this.

1051
01:35:53,340 --> 01:36:01,010
This study examined that system, shuttle derived,
and a number of possible alternatives and

1052
01:36:01,010 --> 01:36:03,650
came up with this conclusion.

1053
01:36:03,650 --> 01:36:07,469
This is the so-called stick.

1054
01:36:07,469 --> 01:36:14,079
The first stage is the current solid rocket
booster on the shuttle for segment solid rocket.

1055
01:36:14,079 --> 01:36:22,559
There's a new upper stage powered by some
version one space shuttle main engine, liquid,

1056
01:36:22,559 --> 01:36:24,559
hydrogen, oxygen fuel.

1057
01:36:24,559 --> 01:36:29,889
A capsule on top with a service module and
an escape tower.

1058
01:36:29,889 --> 01:36:35,179
Now you can say why is it safer?

1059
01:36:35,179 --> 01:36:40,909
It's because the crew is above any debris.

1060
01:36:40,909 --> 01:36:45,119
And, if something bad happens in the first
couple minutes with a solid, you've got an

1061
01:36:45,119 --> 01:36:48,179
escape system to pull the crew away from it.

1062
01:36:48,179 --> 01:36:56,530
And so NASA's probabilistic risk assessments
say that this is a much safer system.

1063
01:36:56,530 --> 01:36:58,599
You want to comment on that?

1064
01:36:58,599 --> 01:37:07,929
Well, the probabilistic risk assessment, I
think it's fairly obvious, if your escape

1065
01:37:07,929 --> 01:37:16,540
system has a 90% probability of working then
you have cut down, whatever the reliability

1066
01:37:16,540 --> 01:37:23,889
of the main rocket, you've just increased
your survival probability by a factor of ten

1067
01:37:23,889 --> 01:37:26,119
if the rocket blows up.

1068
01:37:26,119 --> 01:37:34,300
Now, if you listen to some of the stories
that Professor Cohen has alluded to, and we'll

1069
01:37:34,300 --> 01:37:40,139
probably talk more about that, there were
some serious questions in Apollo about how

1070
01:37:40,139 --> 01:37:47,960
well the ejection rocket would work throughout
the flight regime.

1071
01:37:47,960 --> 01:37:54,750
And he said everybody always breathed a sigh
of relief when the ejection rocket was jettison

1072
01:37:54,750 --> 01:37:56,820
in the course of the launch.

1073
01:37:56,820 --> 01:38:02,329
But, nevertheless, we've never used it in
the US Space Program.

1074
01:38:02,329 --> 01:38:13,040
But there was one example of a Russian Soyuz
which they did have a pad abort and the crew

1075
01:38:13,040 --> 01:38:16,659
was pulled off the pad by the ejection rocket.

1076
01:38:16,659 --> 01:38:23,739
At a very high G load, like 15 Gs or so, but
they survived and went on to fly again.

1077
01:38:23,739 --> 01:38:29,520
You want to comment on the comparison of that
to your level of confidence on return to launch

1078
01:38:29,520 --> 01:38:33,300
site aborts on the shuttle?

1079
01:38:33,300 --> 01:38:38,869
Which was never done, thank heavens.

1080
01:38:38,869 --> 01:38:44,790
We'll actually talk about some of the abort
schemes for the shuttle in more detail.

1081
01:38:44,790 --> 01:38:48,449
And I think I'll leave it for that.

1082
01:38:48,449 --> 01:38:53,579
But there's no question, the only way to survive
in the shuttle is for the shuttle itself to

1083
01:38:53,579 --> 01:38:55,889
survive.

1084
01:38:55,889 --> 01:39:05,159
We now have the capability either of returning
the shuttle to the launch pad and landing

1085
01:39:05,159 --> 01:39:07,010
or going across the ocean.

1086
01:39:07,010 --> 01:39:12,869
But if you cannot quite get back for a landing,
we do now have the capability.

1087
01:39:12,869 --> 01:39:16,309
I showed you the pictures of the escape.

1088
01:39:16,309 --> 01:39:20,059
You can actually bail out of the shuttle now,
but it has to be under controlled flight.

1089
01:39:20,059 --> 01:39:26,199
And there's definitely no system of just extracting
you out of the shuttle.

1090
01:39:26,199 --> 01:39:31,110
I mean the whole logic is this is claimed
to be an order of magnitude safer for the

1091
01:39:31,110 --> 01:39:32,300
crew on ascent.

1092
01:39:32,300 --> 01:39:42,179
Well, I think the other point is that the
solid booster by itself is more reliable.

1093
01:39:42,179 --> 01:39:46,489
Right now, for the shuttle to have a safe
launch, you have to have both solid rocket

1094
01:39:46,489 --> 01:39:49,059
boosters work, plus all of the three main
engines.

1095
01:39:49,059 --> 01:39:50,679
So you've got a lot more failure points.

1096
01:39:50,679 --> 01:39:54,300
This is a simpler system so only one solid
booster.

1097
01:39:54,300 --> 01:39:59,420
And then the second stage is your liquid rocket.

1098
01:39:59,420 --> 01:40:02,050
So, there are a lot fewer things to go wrong.

1099
01:40:02,050 --> 01:40:06,869
Plus the whole aerodynamics is much simpler
because it's a simple stack formation.

1100
01:40:06,869 --> 01:40:15,840
I think, just from an aerospace design point
of view, it is a simpler and safer system.

1101
01:40:15,840 --> 01:40:21,820
Apparently, there were some concerns because
this was so tall of bending and that sort

1102
01:40:21,820 --> 01:40:22,219
of thing.

1103
01:40:22,219 --> 01:40:23,730
Well, that's something they'll have to deal
with.

1104
01:40:23,730 --> 01:40:26,250
But we've launched tall skinny rockets before.

1105
01:40:26,250 --> 01:40:29,989
And I suspect they'll be able to figure out
how to do that.

1106
01:40:29,989 --> 01:40:39,940
The heavy lift is built around something derived
from the space shuttle external tank with

1107
01:40:39,940 --> 01:40:48,559
five versions of a throw-away version of the
space shuttle main engine, plus two five segment

1108
01:40:48,559 --> 01:40:49,020
solid rockets.

1109
01:40:49,020 --> 01:40:56,869
So, it's adding one more segment to the existing
booster.

1110
01:40:56,869 --> 01:41:05,619
The upper stage will be powered by one or
two derivatives of the J2 engine used for

1111
01:41:05,619 --> 01:41:07,500
the upper stages of the Saturn 5.

1112
01:41:07,500 --> 01:41:11,010
So, this is a pretty retro system.

1113
01:41:11,010 --> 01:41:13,969
But it was a good engine.

1114
01:41:13,969 --> 01:41:21,659
And the other thing to mention, some people
had suggested using five segment solids for

1115
01:41:21,659 --> 01:41:24,400
the crew launch vehicle.

1116
01:41:24,400 --> 01:41:31,489
One of the other things, when you talk about
reliability, as John said, we've had now 228

1117
01:41:31,489 --> 01:41:34,290
launches of the solid rocket boosters.

1118
01:41:34,290 --> 01:41:40,909
And one of the great things about the recovery
is not just the economic impact of being able

1119
01:41:40,909 --> 01:41:47,270
to recover and reuse the solid booster, but
you get to examine how it performed.

1120
01:41:47,270 --> 01:41:52,400
And that makes a huge difference in terms
of flying safely.

1121
01:41:52,400 --> 01:41:57,590
Because, if you look back at the history of
the Challenger accident, we knew for many

1122
01:41:57,590 --> 01:42:02,030
years that we had a problem with blow by around
the O ring seal.

1123
01:42:02,030 --> 01:42:10,639
Unfortunately, for various reasons, management
chose to ignore that and fly anyway.

1124
01:42:10,639 --> 01:42:16,010
But if you can recover your rocket after you
use it and actually see how it performed and

1125
01:42:16,010 --> 01:42:26,309
look and see if there are any critical failures
which are suggesting that there are problems,

1126
01:42:26,309 --> 01:42:28,520
that also improves your reliability.

1127
01:42:28,520 --> 01:42:33,369
So, we have a lot of experience with four-segment
solid rocket boosters.

1128
01:42:33,369 --> 01:42:40,290
And, by choosing not to use this new and improved
five segment booster for the human launches,

1129
01:42:40,290 --> 01:42:45,469
we're basically saying we're going to go with
what we have experience with and what we understand.

1130
01:42:45,469 --> 01:42:47,090
Well, besides that, we don't have it now.

1131
01:42:47,090 --> 01:42:56,130
It will be developed, but when we develop
it and use it for this, some day, after we

1132
01:42:56,130 --> 01:43:00,710
get a lot of experience with it, we may decide
to -- Well, it says can be certified for [OVERLAPPING

1133
01:43:00,710 --> 01:43:00,900
VOICES].

1134
01:43:00,900 --> 01:43:03,469
Now, this is the heavy lift thing.

1135
01:43:03,469 --> 01:43:07,619
Right, but you're going to want to fly it
many times before we decide to [OVERLAPPING

1136
01:43:07,619 --> 01:43:07,679
VOICES].

1137
01:43:07,679 --> 01:43:12,380
And the intent is not to human rate this from
the start.

1138
01:43:12,380 --> 01:43:16,520
Without the upper stage, you can get 100 tons,
106 tons to low earth orbit just with the

1139
01:43:16,520 --> 01:43:29,500
first stage and 55 metric tons to, well, you
can read, I think.

1140
01:43:29,500 --> 01:43:35,400
That's a new development, obviously.

1141
01:43:35,400 --> 01:43:41,949
This is Marsha Ivins who presented this yesterday,
one of Jeff's former colleagues.

1142
01:43:41,949 --> 01:43:47,199
This really isn't what it's going to look
like, the Lunar Lander.

1143
01:43:47,199 --> 01:43:51,750
What's interesting is, in addition to carrying
the crew down, the idea is that you can carry

1144
01:43:51,750 --> 01:43:57,429
a fairly significant cargo load down to the
lunar surface and leave it there.

1145
01:43:57,429 --> 01:44:03,929
And that enables the fairly early buildup
of a lunar base capability.

1146
01:44:03,929 --> 01:44:08,559
And, again, this ascent stage will use a liquid
methane propulsion.

1147
01:44:08,559 --> 01:44:16,000
Any sense of scale on the habitat?

1148
01:44:16,000 --> 01:44:20,599
Well, this is enough for four people so it's
not super big.

1149
01:44:20,599 --> 01:44:31,199
I've seen dimensions on it, but this is just
a nominal design anyway.

1150
01:44:31,199 --> 01:44:35,920
This design, with all the tanks down here,
is not very good for carrying cargo down.

1151
01:44:35,920 --> 01:44:41,199
They added the cargo capability and didn't
change the picture.

1152
01:44:41,199 --> 01:44:47,909
Here is what NASA says are the commercial
opportunities in this initiative.

1153
01:44:47,909 --> 01:44:54,820
It's interesting.

1154
01:44:54,820 --> 01:45:00,969
There were some other ones that have gone
away from earlier briefings.

1155
01:45:00,969 --> 01:45:03,510
Here are the international opportunities.

1156
01:45:03,510 --> 01:45:10,309
And they are focused in the longer run on
lunar surface systems.

1157
01:45:10,309 --> 01:45:17,610
And the reality is that without international
contributions you cannot do a lunar base because,

1158
01:45:17,610 --> 01:45:20,460
on the budget available, you cannot afford
to build this stuff.

1159
01:45:20,460 --> 01:45:29,219
I am looking at this hard for the first time.

1160
01:45:29,219 --> 01:45:32,829
I saw a version of this in July, and there
have been some significant changes.

1161
01:45:32,829 --> 01:45:39,619
The July version said opportunities for non-US
astronauts going to the moon, and it's not

1162
01:45:39,619 --> 01:45:51,510
here in this final briefing.

1163
01:45:51,510 --> 01:45:53,650
Committed long-term lunar effort is needed.

1164
01:45:53,650 --> 01:46:00,040
You can show mars up here, but this is really
a plan for getting back to the moon.

1165
01:46:00,040 --> 01:46:07,920
And to reach for mars we must first reach
for the moon.

1166
01:46:07,920 --> 01:46:19,750
A Griffin quote, Mike and I have talked about
this, he believes that the spread of the human

1167
01:46:19,750 --> 01:46:26,150
species into the solar system is inevitable,
and the United States should lead so we carry

1168
01:46:26,150 --> 01:46:31,730
the principles and values of Western philosophy
and culture.

1169
01:46:31,730 --> 01:46:36,110
You can make a judgment whether you think
that's a good rationale for doing this or

1170
01:46:36,110 --> 01:46:46,860
not, but he means it.

1171
01:46:46,860 --> 01:46:48,699
Great nations do great and ambitious things.

1172
01:46:48,699 --> 01:46:50,270
We must continue to be great.

1173
01:46:50,270 --> 01:46:53,040
Cue the music now.

1174
01:46:53,040 --> 01:46:55,469
[LAUGHTER]

1175
01:46:55,469 --> 01:46:56,630
This is interesting.

1176
01:46:56,630 --> 01:47:01,210
This was a presentation that was given yesterday.

1177
01:47:01,210 --> 01:47:07,000
And it is different than the presentation
that was presented to industry yesterday.

1178
01:47:07,000 --> 01:47:18,219
And the biggest difference is
the industry presentation had a budget.

1179
01:47:18,219 --> 01:47:20,469
[LAUGHTER]

1180
01:47:20,469 --> 01:47:35,070
And the budget shows that within the next
five years all of this fits within the plan

1181
01:47:35,070 --> 01:47:44,520
budget curve and then stops in terms of the
affordability downstream.

1182
01:47:44,520 --> 01:47:53,380
And it also shows no mars research and technology
until fiscal 1917.

1183
01:47:53,380 --> 01:47:57,320
And a fairly big wedge for lunar outpost.

1184
01:47:57,320 --> 01:48:00,940
This is a US-only scenario.

1185
01:48:00,940 --> 01:48:05,230
Any relief from this is going to come from
international contributions.

1186
01:48:05,230 --> 01:48:13,920
And one of the things that changed over the
past week or so is now the phrase is go as

1187
01:48:13,920 --> 01:48:15,340
you can pay.

1188
01:48:15,340 --> 01:48:22,599
In the trade between performance requirements,
cost and schedule, what you're going to trade

1189
01:48:22,599 --> 01:48:25,320
is schedule.

1190
01:48:25,320 --> 01:48:30,889
And NASA is very nervous of announcing this
thing in the middle of the Katrina recovery

1191
01:48:30,889 --> 01:48:35,130
saying we're going to spend $100 billion going
back to the moon.

1192
01:48:35,130 --> 01:48:40,980
Actually, that was the first question that
Griffin got at the press conference.

1193
01:48:40,980 --> 01:48:41,429
Right.

1194
01:48:41,429 --> 01:48:46,550
I talked with some media yesterday, and this
is the same sort of thing.

1195
01:48:46,550 --> 01:48:57,510
It's interesting that the budget chart is
not in the presentation I was given.

1196
01:48:57,510 --> 01:48:58,989
The budget said that you cannot do it?

1197
01:48:58,989 --> 01:49:01,369
The budget says that they can get started.

1198
01:49:01,369 --> 01:49:07,639
[LAUGHTER]

1199
01:49:07,639 --> 01:49:16,179
What the budget is going to support and the
hardware that we will be building, over the

1200
01:49:16,179 --> 01:49:19,770
next few years it's just the crew exploration
vehicle.

1201
01:49:19,770 --> 01:49:21,760
And the launch vehicle.

1202
01:49:21,760 --> 01:49:23,980
The upper stage in the launch vehicle.

1203
01:49:23,980 --> 01:49:26,099
Right, this.

1204
01:49:26,099 --> 01:49:28,760
We will retire the shuttle.

1205
01:49:28,760 --> 01:49:34,750
We will use that to support the space station,
if we're doing the space station at that point.

1206
01:49:34,750 --> 01:49:41,659
And not until the shuttle is retired will
then the money that is now used to support

1207
01:49:41,659 --> 01:49:44,630
shuttle flights can start going into building
this.

1208
01:49:44,630 --> 01:49:47,099
That's the way I understand it.

1209
01:49:47,099 --> 01:49:50,710
And that's the schedule which means you cannot
get to the moon until near the end of the

1210
01:49:50,710 --> 01:49:52,030
next decade.

1211
01:49:52,030 --> 01:49:54,900
2018 is the target date.

1212
01:49:54,900 --> 01:50:00,750
And that doesn't support any extra equipment
once you get to the surface of the moon.

1213
01:50:00,750 --> 01:50:05,349
So, we don't have a long-term habitat, we
don't have rovers, we don't have NC2 resources.

1214
01:50:05,349 --> 01:50:12,420
All the stuff that we'd like to do on the
moon, that's over and above this.

1215
01:50:12,420 --> 01:50:13,659
I think that's fair to say, isn't it?

1216
01:50:13,659 --> 01:50:23,219
I think it's fair to say except that, as I
say, in this budget curve it's in the budget.

1217
01:50:23,219 --> 01:50:30,480
But the only way to do the rest of it is to
get that green part, the lunar base buildup

1218
01:50:30,480 --> 01:50:36,659
to be paid for by somebody else.

1219
01:50:36,659 --> 01:50:37,349
So, we will see.

1220
01:50:37,349 --> 01:50:38,730
This is your future, I think.

1221
01:50:38,730 --> 01:50:44,559
If you're going into aerospace engineering,
this is at least the NASA project for the

1222
01:50:44,559 --> 01:50:46,530
next 15 years.

1223
01:50:46,530 --> 01:50:51,429
And maybe 20 years from now there will be
a class here talking about the systems engineering

1224
01:50:51,429 --> 01:50:56,159
of the Lunar Exploration Program.

1225
01:50:56,159 --> 01:50:58,380
So, you're kids can attend that class.

1226
01:50:58,380 --> 01:50:59,309
[LAUGHTER]

1227
01:50:59,309 --> 01:51:01,260
Then it was typewritten memos.

1228
01:51:01,260 --> 01:51:05,630
Now it's PowerPoint.

1229
01:51:05,630 --> 01:51:12,750
For you engineering junkies, there is a thousand
page report coming next month that has all

1230
01:51:12,750 --> 01:51:16,159
the information of the trade studies and everything
underpinning all this.

1231
01:51:16,159 --> 01:51:17,610
This is the output of a study.

1232
01:51:17,610 --> 01:51:19,099
The study report is coming.

1233
01:51:19,099 --> 01:51:26,760
OK, just briefly, from most of you I've gotten
an indication of what you want to do for your

1234
01:51:26,760 --> 01:51:27,320
projects.

1235
01:51:27,320 --> 01:51:29,860
I'll have a look at those.

1236
01:51:29,860 --> 01:51:32,699
If you haven't sent them to me, please make
sure I get them by Thursday.

1237
01:51:32,699 --> 01:51:40,489
One or two of you have said you want to come
and talk with me about it, that's fine.

1238
01:51:40,489 --> 01:51:42,949
Let's see, that's on the reports.

1239
01:51:42,949 --> 01:51:50,420
The last thing, just to remind you, is this
really is the last of the kind of introductory

1240
01:51:50,420 --> 01:51:55,440
policy, how did the shuttle program get started.

1241
01:51:55,440 --> 01:52:02,070
For the next six weeks or so we'll be going
deep into the nitty-gritty of some of the

1242
01:52:02,070 --> 01:52:02,449
systems.

1243
01:52:02,449 --> 01:52:07,690
Tom Moser will be here, and he will be talking
about shuttle structures and the thermal protection

1244
01:52:07,690 --> 01:52:09,219
system on Thursday.

1245
01:52:09,219 --> 01:52:09,660
See you then.