WEBVTT 00:00:12.920 --> 00:00:13.680 I'm going to do that. 00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:14.139 I encourage questions. 00:00:14.139 --> 00:00:18.710 I may not be able to answer all your questions either because, A, I don't know or, B, I cannot 00:00:18.710 --> 00:00:18.960 say. 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:22.960 I am going to leave it to you to figure out which one is which. 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:25.949 [LAUGHTER] I would like to say a few things before I start. 00:00:25.949 --> 00:00:31.130 One is I'm not a historian so I'm not here to give a history of the military and the 00:00:31.130 --> 00:00:31.380 Shuttle. 00:00:31.249 --> 00:00:35.670 I am here to give you my experiences with it which is a very select data slice, I think, 00:00:35.670 --> 00:00:37.530 as you will see. 00:00:37.530 --> 00:00:44.530 Second, the things I say here, although we're going to tape them, I have to [NOISE OBSCURES] 00:00:44.539 --> 00:00:45.160 very carefully. 00:00:45.160 --> 00:00:48.719 And, third, I really speak from a different era. 00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:53.920 I speak from an area of the '70s and early '80s when the political situation was a lot 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:55.219 different than it is today. 00:00:55.219 --> 00:00:58.289 When a Cold War was hot. 00:00:58.289 --> 00:01:03.350 When there was a real threat of a massive land war, plus worse, in Northern Europe. 00:01:03.350 --> 00:01:07.850 When there were real threats of nuclear exchanges between the super powers. 00:01:07.850 --> 00:01:10.620 Things which are not true today, thank goodness. 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:15.640 We have now been overcome by other threats and challenges, but I speak really from an 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:17.579 era of the '70s and '80s. 00:01:17.579 --> 00:01:21.110 So, with that, I would like to start. 00:01:21.110 --> 00:01:23.240 Again, I encourage questions. 00:01:23.240 --> 00:01:26.509 Here is what I would like to do today. 00:01:26.509 --> 00:01:29.439 I would like to give you a little bit of intro and background. 00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:31.810 Talk about DoD and Air Force space missions. 00:01:31.810 --> 00:01:33.439 There is a difference which I shall highlight. 00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:39.539 I will talk about military system requirements and impacts on the Space Shuttle as a system. 00:01:39.539 --> 00:01:43.770 I will talk about facility impacts because that is easy to do, but there are impacts 00:01:43.770 --> 00:01:45.658 that are far more far reaching than that. 00:01:45.658 --> 00:01:49.399 I will close a little bit on national space policy and then I will show you a ten minute 00:01:49.399 --> 00:01:49.649 video. For the video I would like Tom to turn off the recording and we will just watch it kind 00:01:54.310 --> 00:01:56.689 of in silence. 00:01:56.689 --> 00:01:57.789 OK. 00:01:57.789 --> 00:01:59.990 Any questions? 00:01:59.990 --> 00:02:02.159 My background is I served 29 years in the Air Force. 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:05.729 As you folks know, you can retire up to 20, so I couldn't count. 00:02:05.729 --> 00:02:07.939 I stayed far longer than I should have. 00:02:07.939 --> 00:02:11.770 The reason I stayed was because the Air Force gave me assignments I could not turn down. 00:02:11.770 --> 00:02:18.760 I have had lots of experience from a program office payload user perspective on Shuttle, 00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:21.930 Titans off both coasts, MX, Pegasus XL. 00:02:21.930 --> 00:02:28.930 Last January I gave a talk, which I will repeat this year, on my activities on two accident 00:02:28.930 --> 00:02:30.390 investigations. 00:02:30.390 --> 00:02:32.280 One on Titan IV and one on Pegasus. 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:33.239 I do that at one time. 00:02:33.239 --> 00:02:35.140 It takes about an hour and a half. 00:02:35.140 --> 00:02:37.500 If any of you are on campus in January, please come by. 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:40.010 It's an interesting story. 00:02:40.010 --> 00:02:44.650 I served in multiple program offices in programs A and B. 00:02:44.650 --> 00:02:48.190 Programs A and B are subsets of the NRO. 00:02:48.190 --> 00:02:53.129 I won't say any more about that, but Program A is the Air Force element. 00:02:53.129 --> 00:02:58.159 Program A not only built Air Force satellites for the intelligence community, they also 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:00.980 provided all the launch services for the intelligence community. 00:03:00.980 --> 00:03:03.769 I have been director of two major programs. 00:03:03.769 --> 00:03:05.599 The first one Space-Based Infrared Low. 00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:09.080 The second one was the DoD Space Test Program. 00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:13.450 I have also been the NRO Director of Safety. 00:03:13.450 --> 00:03:18.959 In general, Air Force and DoD space missions fall into this laundry list. 00:03:18.959 --> 00:03:25.959 The first one is Navigation which you know from GPS Communication which has many satellites 00:03:28.310 --> 00:03:33.220 of which Nelstar and DSCS are the ones you recognize. 00:03:33.220 --> 00:03:37.799 DSCS was launched on the Space Shuttle I believe twice, I'm not sure. 00:03:37.799 --> 00:03:43.540 Meteorology, the Air Force launches the DMSP which is the polar orbiting weather satellite 00:03:43.540 --> 00:03:46.980 now replaced now by the NPOESS system. 00:03:46.980 --> 00:03:53.980 For missile launch detection, the intelligence community and the Air Force have either operated 00:03:54.099 --> 00:04:01.099 the DSP satellite system or else proposed SVRS which is suffering tremendous programmatic 00:04:01.720 --> 00:04:04.930 problems currently. 00:04:04.930 --> 00:04:10.180 For arms free verification, it is terribly important to have complied at one time with 00:04:10.180 --> 00:04:10.870 [UNINTELLIGIBLE] limitations. 00:04:10.870 --> 00:04:15.610 That is an interesting slice of history where at one time the total number of warheads, 00:04:15.610 --> 00:04:21.170 total number of bombers, submarines, ships, this sort of thing was limited by international 00:04:21.170 --> 00:04:26.370 agreement but it was the responsibility of the other side to verify compliance. 00:04:26.370 --> 00:04:29.390 There is also nuclear weapons test detection on Vela. 00:04:29.390 --> 00:04:36.390 And then a whole handful of what I call intelligence community or IC programs. 00:04:39.080 --> 00:04:44.330 Bob Siemens, a retired professor emeritus is planning to drop by today for the Q&A. 00:04:44.330 --> 00:04:49.730 His position, his role in this story is really very central. 00:04:49.730 --> 00:04:54.190 His influence is woven throughout the whole story of the DoD and the Space Shuttle, and 00:04:54.190 --> 00:04:56.650 I hope you will get a chance to talk to him. 00:04:56.650 --> 00:04:59.640 An extremely interesting and very pivotal guy. 00:04:59.640 --> 00:05:04.380 I would like to concentrate on Vandenberg Air Force Base right up on the Eastern Range 00:05:04.380 --> 00:05:09.290 for the Space Shuttle because the Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site was really built 00:05:09.290 --> 00:05:15.480 up for sun synchronous polar orbits, for really one payload, and that was the fellow here 00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:21.540 depicted in the late 1970s, launching out of the Western Range. 00:05:21.540 --> 00:05:24.360 This is a Titan IIID. 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:28.070 I have helped launched, I think, eight of these off the West Coast. 00:05:28.070 --> 00:05:29.380 This is a heavy lift machine. 00:05:29.380 --> 00:05:33.690 It is roughly 30,000 pounds in low earth orbit, 27,000 to 30,000. 00:05:33.690 --> 00:05:35.090 It has two solid strap-ons. 00:05:35.090 --> 00:05:42.090 I saw the first one go in 1970 and subsequently was able to transition into the Program Office 00:05:43.690 --> 00:05:47.400 to launch several times out of there. 00:05:47.400 --> 00:05:53.780 As some of you are aware because I have talked to you out of class, I served for many years 00:05:53.780 --> 00:05:57.280 not in what we call the regular Air Force but what is called the Office of Special Projects. 00:05:57.280 --> 00:05:59.659 It is called an Air Force Element. 00:05:59.659 --> 00:06:03.190 We did not report for the usual chain of command through the Air Force chains. 00:06:03.190 --> 00:06:08.910 We went straight up to the secdef of the JCS. 00:06:08.910 --> 00:06:15.280 We were given the responsibility to launch things quickly, quietly, with great national 00:06:15.280 --> 00:06:16.300 pressure. 00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:17.180 And we did that. 00:06:17.180 --> 00:06:23.380 And the machines we used to launch, payloads included, are Titans of various kinds, Atlases, 00:06:23.380 --> 00:06:26.940 as well as the Space Shuttle. 00:06:26.940 --> 00:06:32.120 The story I am going to tell you is really the special projects utilization of the Shuttle. 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:34.670 More so than what I call the regular Air Force missions. 00:06:34.670 --> 00:06:41.670 In any case, when I joined SAFSP in the late 1970s, life was really exciting. 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:48.770 We were in the midst of phasing out all the expendables for the Space Shuttle. 00:06:48.770 --> 00:06:53.620 And when I went in there, I found within the first week they said the Space Shuttle is 00:06:53.620 --> 00:06:57.770 designed for our program, because we were flying on a regular basis out of the Western 00:06:57.770 --> 00:06:58.550 Range. 00:06:58.550 --> 00:07:04.100 So, the payload that sits inside here is a form, fit and function drop-in in the Space 00:07:04.100 --> 00:07:05.190 Shuttle bay. 00:07:05.190 --> 00:07:10.710 At the time, there were no Space Shuttle payloads of that size yet on the drawing boards. 00:07:10.710 --> 00:07:15.630 The intent was to have a seamless transition from Titans into Space Shuttle, first for 00:07:15.630 --> 00:07:18.170 our program and then for others. 00:07:18.170 --> 00:07:23.930 We drove the payload bay size, as you've heard from Professor Hoffman and Aaron Cohen, 15 00:07:23.930 --> 00:07:25.050 x 60. 00:07:25.050 --> 00:07:29.330 The cross-range requirement dictated the configuration of the vehicle plus the wing size because 00:07:29.330 --> 00:07:35.010 the Air Force and the DoD was very, very insistent on having a return to launch base capability. 00:07:35.010 --> 00:07:39.220 First orbit deploy, come back cross-range, land back at Vandenberg, recycle, be ready 00:07:39.220 --> 00:07:42.120 to go hopefully in a matter of days. 00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:47.570 It is interesting to note the evolution of the Titan space launch family. 00:07:47.570 --> 00:07:51.360 In the 1970s we pick it up with the Titan IIID we see here. 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:55.940 The 3E was a Transtage version used for basically out-of-space missions. 00:07:55.940 --> 00:07:57.740 This is a commercial version. 00:07:57.740 --> 00:08:04.740 But the DoD use went from the 34B, 3C, 34D through this family here, and now we see the 00:08:08.680 --> 00:08:11.900 4A and the 4B which are the heavy lift guys. 00:08:11.900 --> 00:08:15.620 These guys basically were the follow-on to Shuttle. 00:08:15.620 --> 00:08:19.080 They lifted the Shuttle payloads that the Shuttle could not carry. 00:08:19.080 --> 00:08:23.030 And I will explain that in a few minutes. 00:08:23.030 --> 00:08:27.310 Very large, expensive, complex machines, complex programs. 00:08:27.310 --> 00:08:33.338 At Vandenberg, it turns out that back in the '60s there was a program called the Manned 00:08:33.338 --> 00:08:35.529 Orbiting Laboratory, MOL. 00:08:35.529 --> 00:08:39.549 Many of the original Space Shuttle Mercury astronauts were part of that. 00:08:39.549 --> 00:08:45.250 They built up a space lodge complex up there called Slick-6 to launch the MOL. 00:08:45.250 --> 00:08:50.060 It was going to be a space capsule with military officers onboard to do recognizance and surveillance 00:08:50.060 --> 00:08:53.400 flying off a rather large Titan IIIC. 00:08:53.400 --> 00:08:57.200 To do that, again, back in the '60s, they built a launch pad. 00:08:57.200 --> 00:08:58.700 I'm sorry. 00:08:58.700 --> 00:09:02.330 As we got ready for the Shuttle, they took the MOL things and did all these things to 00:09:02.330 --> 00:09:03.930 it to make it shuttle-ized. 00:09:03.930 --> 00:09:05.440 They operated a launch pad. 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:07.640 They put in a Mobile Service Tower. 00:09:07.640 --> 00:09:12.140 As you know, at the Cape, what they do is kind embrace the Shuttle and its stack with 00:09:12.140 --> 00:09:12.760 a gantry. 00:09:12.760 --> 00:09:14.510 And they pull back a little bit and then they launch. 00:09:14.510 --> 00:09:20.580 The Mobile Service Tower is a large, almost like a skyscraper complex that completely 00:09:20.580 --> 00:09:26.820 encloses the rocket during processing and then rolls back several hundred yards to expose 00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:31.060 the vehicle for launch, a totally different OPS concept. 00:09:31.060 --> 00:09:36.560 This facility here, the OMCF is similar to the KSC Orbiter Processing Facility. 00:09:36.560 --> 00:09:38.000 Then they have other facilities here. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:42.400 The payload preparation room where the payloads are received from transportation put together 00:09:42.400 --> 00:09:43.440 and tested. 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:46.910 The PCRs were the payloads actually put into the shuttle bay. 00:09:46.910 --> 00:09:50.370 The Vandenberg runway was almost doubled in length. 00:09:50.370 --> 00:09:54.140 And then all this infrastructure is put in here, including crew quarters for the astronauts. 00:09:54.140 --> 00:09:57.360 And they were able to reuse the MOL facilities. 00:09:57.360 --> 00:09:58.440 A lot of [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:04.210 But what you see here is the buildup of a complex very similar to Cape Kennedy only 00:10:04.210 --> 00:10:05.580 on a California coast. 00:10:05.580 --> 00:10:10.650 Very, very elaborate, very, very complicated, very expensive, and taking a tremendous amount 00:10:10.650 --> 00:10:15.970 of budget to go do it. 00:10:15.970 --> 00:10:22.110 Back in the '70s by law or by policy, which is perhaps even more powerful, the Space Shuttle 00:10:22.110 --> 00:10:26.970 was going to be the only launch system for all military, civil and commercial payloads. 00:10:26.970 --> 00:10:31.590 This is somewhat of a forgotten fact, but at one time the cry went out from the advocates 00:10:31.590 --> 00:10:37.440 that said by having a reusable spacecraft that can launch 25, 30 times a year from both 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:41.360 coasts, so that is times two, we can do great things. 00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:45.750 And certainly, coming from the folks that gave us Apollo, this did not seem that farfetched. 00:10:45.750 --> 00:10:51.820 The idea of launching a spacecraft like an airliner, as we know, did not happen in our 00:10:51.820 --> 00:10:52.070 generation. 00:10:51.950 --> 00:10:56.710 I think in your generation, if you can make that happen, that would be extremely wonderful. 00:10:56.710 --> 00:11:03.070 But at one time there was going to be a phase out, a shutdown of all the launch vehicles. 00:11:03.070 --> 00:11:08.060 All the launch vehicle folks were told fly out what you have, close up business, break 00:11:08.060 --> 00:11:12.480 up your tool and dies, send your people home, we are going to go with Shuttle. 00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:18.190 And to do that there was extensive redesign of payloads to fit the payload bay, the width, 00:11:18.190 --> 00:11:21.570 the length, to fit the safety requirements. 00:11:21.570 --> 00:11:22.590 All these things changed. 00:11:22.590 --> 00:11:27.980 So, it was not just a matter of just taking your existing payloads for these guys and 00:11:27.980 --> 00:11:31.440 dropping them into the shuttle payload bay. 00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:33.310 It was a huge engineering effort. 00:11:33.310 --> 00:11:36.860 And we thought at one time this is the way it is going to be forever. 00:11:36.860 --> 00:11:42.150 The things that are unique about this is, first of all, liftoff and flight loads are 00:11:42.150 --> 00:11:47.440 much different because of not only the main events, everything from the SRBs, the staging, 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:52.040 but also being able to survive safely, things like slap down on landing if you had to come 00:11:52.040 --> 00:11:55.440 back home with a payload. 00:11:55.440 --> 00:11:59.750 Many of the heavy payloads require, as you know, upper stages. 00:11:59.750 --> 00:12:04.500 The PAMs are the small payload assist module, small [UNINTELLIGIBLE] upper stages. 00:12:04.500 --> 00:12:09.240 The IUSs, as you probably heard, are much, much more elaborate solid fuel devices. 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:14.500 The Shuttle Center, Cryo Center was going to be a cryogenic upper stage that was going 00:12:14.500 --> 00:12:17.430 to take our biggest payloads up to GEO. 00:12:17.430 --> 00:12:22.840 That never got through the safety process but they worked it hard. 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:27.160 The safety requirements, to make sure that the crew was not endangered at any time by 00:12:27.160 --> 00:12:32.340 anything, either accidental or inadvertent or a mishap, were huge. 00:12:32.340 --> 00:12:36.570 That is a whole separate discussion in itself, which I will be glad to have with you, but 00:12:36.570 --> 00:12:42.800 basically everything was looked at in terms of being dual fault tolerant so that in no 00:12:42.800 --> 00:12:49.660 case could any two events link up to cause hazard to the crew, even including accommodation 00:12:49.660 --> 00:12:52.110 of hardware and software errors. 00:12:52.110 --> 00:12:59.110 This was huge and caused, in many cases, extensive retests and redesign of payload systems. 00:13:00.020 --> 00:13:03.170 National Space Policy, back in the '70s and '80s. 00:13:03.170 --> 00:13:08.840 First of all, in '78 there was "strong endorsement for the Space Shuttle to be the prime mover 00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:11.010 for national security and civil missions". 00:13:11.010 --> 00:13:13.730 What is missing from this lineup here? 00:13:13.730 --> 00:13:14.630 Commercial. 00:13:14.630 --> 00:13:19.360 There were very few, almost no commercial missions at the time. 00:13:19.360 --> 00:13:20.470 Civil means NASA. 00:13:20.470 --> 00:13:26.500 The launch business of that time was dominated by the government, NASA and the DoD. 00:13:26.500 --> 00:13:29.850 1982 the position was strengthened. 00:13:29.850 --> 00:13:34.890 And, by the way, I suggest if you haven't already to look up these documents. 00:13:34.890 --> 00:13:38.500 National Space Policy is voiced in these documents. 00:13:38.500 --> 00:13:40.320 It is extremely powerful. 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:41.750 It is the basis for programs. 00:13:41.750 --> 00:13:43.170 It is the basis for legislation. 00:13:43.170 --> 00:13:45.020 It is the basis for budgets. 00:13:45.020 --> 00:13:46.520 It is huge. 00:13:46.520 --> 00:13:52.060 Every word in these documents is worked over at great length by all the competing stakeholders, 00:13:52.060 --> 00:13:53.910 and it is big. 00:13:53.910 --> 00:13:59.990 But in '82, SCS was going to be the primary launch for national security in civil missions. 00:13:59.990 --> 00:14:05.390 What that really meant was anybody else with a rocket was told you're in the wrong list, 00:14:05.390 --> 00:14:07.080 don't come back. 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:08.910 Then we had Challenger. 00:14:08.910 --> 00:14:12.980 And in 1988 there was now a directive. 00:14:12.980 --> 00:14:18.570 A 1988 PD that said we shall have a mix between man and unmanned launch systems. 00:14:18.570 --> 00:14:21.570 This is in contradiction to this I'm sure as you notice. 00:14:21.570 --> 00:14:28.570 An NSPD4 in 1981 now gave us the words "assured access to space." Code words. 00:14:29.860 --> 00:14:36.260 Anybody here care to tell me what that really means in plain English, anybody? 00:14:36.260 --> 00:14:36.650 Yes. 00:14:36.650 --> 00:14:41.720 Even if the Space Shuttle won't fly they want to have some alternatives. 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:42.500 That's right. 00:14:42.500 --> 00:14:47.610 It says don't put all your eggs in one basket. 00:14:47.610 --> 00:14:51.080 Have two ways to get to space for your heavy payloads. 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:54.360 This is authorization for what we now know as the EELV. 00:14:54.360 --> 00:15:01.360 But also at the time shortly after Challenger, Pete Aldridge who was Secretary of the Air 00:15:02.820 --> 00:15:08.180 Force at the time, now an executive of the Aerospace Corporation, previously the director 00:15:08.180 --> 00:15:14.420 of the NRO, prior to Challenger in the '84, '85 time period started getting a little bit 00:15:14.420 --> 00:15:18.860 antsy about access to space because of all the delays in the Shuttle Launch Manifest. 00:15:18.860 --> 00:15:25.240 And so he authorized, on his own authority, a start-up of the Titan fleet again. 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:31.710 This led to huge problems with NASA because what they saw that as, correctly, was a loss 00:15:31.710 --> 00:15:35.210 of support for the Space Shuttle Program. 00:15:35.210 --> 00:15:36.130 But he did that. 00:15:36.130 --> 00:15:42.990 And when the Challenger disaster occurred in '86, the Air Force was about 18 to 24 months 00:15:42.990 --> 00:15:44.110 ahead of where they would have been. 00:15:44.110 --> 00:15:45.020 Here is Dr. 00:15:45.020 --> 00:15:45.320 Siemens. 00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:45.930 Hi, Bob? 00:15:45.930 --> 00:15:46.540 Hi, Pete. 00:15:46.540 --> 00:15:48.360 You want to sit over here? 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:50.779 I would like to have you meet Dr. 00:15:50.779 --> 00:15:51.390 Bob Siemens. 00:15:51.390 --> 00:15:55.380 And he will be here for the Q&A afterwards. 00:15:55.380 --> 00:16:02.180 Bob, I'm just going over some of the National Space Policy. 00:16:02.180 --> 00:16:04.940 Write-ups that kind of led to where we are today. 00:16:04.940 --> 00:16:07.730 This was NSC37. 00:16:07.730 --> 00:16:11.380 This was NSC42, the primary launch. 00:16:11.380 --> 00:16:14.850 This was the post-Challenger mix between the manned and unmanned systems. 00:16:14.850 --> 00:16:21.850 And then this was the assured access to space presidential declaration. 00:16:23.330 --> 00:16:28.860 From a user perspective, the security requirements to fly on Shuttle were huge. 00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:33.880 What was required to be protected was any information on the mission type and details. 00:16:33.880 --> 00:16:38.649 LEO, GEO, HEO, you name it, that could not leak out. 00:16:38.649 --> 00:16:43.800 Any information on the spacecraft, who made it, where it was supposed to go, of course 00:16:43.800 --> 00:16:47.210 what the payload did had to be protected. 00:16:47.210 --> 00:16:51.060 Also protected was the Program Office and the prime contractors because often you can 00:16:51.060 --> 00:16:53.339 tell from that who does what. 00:16:53.339 --> 00:16:57.820 And during operations the deployment time location and the final payload orbit had to 00:16:57.820 --> 00:16:58.960 be protected. 00:16:58.960 --> 00:16:59.510 This is huge. 00:16:59.510 --> 00:17:04.398 As you know, thousands of people participate in getting a mission together for the Shuttle. 00:17:04.398 --> 00:17:08.630 It starts with a mission planning template that is roughly two to three years prior to 00:17:08.630 --> 00:17:09.029 flight. 00:17:09.029 --> 00:17:13.959 It goes all the way through preparation of the flight plans, the mission rules, the launch 00:17:13.959 --> 00:17:19.550 constraint documents, the processing, and finally the on orbit ops. 00:17:19.550 --> 00:17:20.959 All that had to be protected. 00:17:20.959 --> 00:17:22.740 And that was big. 00:17:22.740 --> 00:17:25.709 It was a huge and expensive philosophy. 00:17:25.709 --> 00:17:30.380 It was called the Control Mode Security System. 00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:33.190 It took a lot of effort from all parts and was almost airtight. 00:17:33.190 --> 00:17:34.200 Yes, a question. 00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:37.570 Was this for every shuttle mission or just DoD payloads? 00:17:37.570 --> 00:17:40.640 No, this is for what I call the intelligence community DoD missions. 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:47.640 If you go back and look on the Shuttle Manifest, and I am not going to do it for you but you 00:17:48.770 --> 00:17:54.350 can do it if you want, you will see a number of missions where they will say DoD mission 00:17:54.350 --> 00:18:01.120 payload type, not unknown, but not available, NA. 00:18:01.120 --> 00:18:07.470 Also, the DoD/Air Force missions were all military astronauts. 00:18:07.470 --> 00:18:12.679 That is felt to be a safe thing to do. 00:18:12.679 --> 00:18:18.160 For implementation of encrypted voice data and commanding links starting, really, with 00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:22.720 the testing at the launch sites but also going through the flight ops. 00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:27.890 I mention all these things having been involved in the safety certifications. 00:18:27.890 --> 00:18:30.290 I will say that was long and arduous. 00:18:30.290 --> 00:18:36.730 The safety review process has to be extremely, extremely thorough starting early on. 00:18:36.730 --> 00:18:41.540 It is not just a whitewash of what the hardware is that comes with the pad. 00:18:41.540 --> 00:18:48.330 In many cases, it changed the design of the spacecraft, the design of its deployment systems 00:18:48.330 --> 00:18:51.600 and things like that. 00:18:51.600 --> 00:18:56.410 To protect classified information there also had to be need-to-know access to program details. 00:18:56.410 --> 00:19:02.090 This was a major, major set of impacts to the Space Shuttle system and payload mission. 00:19:02.090 --> 00:19:05.910 All these areas, which I can talk to you about at great length afterwards. 00:19:05.910 --> 00:19:12.480 I will say, thought, that when I do get back to JSC or when I talk to my NASA friends, 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:15.200 they all say they were proud to have been on those missions. 00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:19.480 They were all hooked together on missions of great national importance. 00:19:19.480 --> 00:19:23.910 To the best of my knowledge, security has held tight over all those years, despite all 00:19:23.910 --> 00:19:26.260 the people who were cleared of the programs. 00:19:26.260 --> 00:19:29.240 And the programs were extremely successful as a result. 00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:29.700 Yes. 00:19:29.700 --> 00:19:31.270 You said all military crews. 00:19:31.270 --> 00:19:36.309 Does that mean active military or people who have been transitioned to the regular astronaut 00:19:36.309 --> 00:19:36.600 corp. 00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:37.450 from the military? 00:19:37.450 --> 00:19:42.970 These are military folks who transitioned to the astronaut corp., yes. 00:19:42.970 --> 00:19:47.000 There were also impacts of the Air Force Satellite Communication Networks. 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.890 As you know, these are the worldwide set of tracking stations that were going to be replaced 00:19:51.890 --> 00:19:52.809 by TDRS. 00:19:52.809 --> 00:19:53.960 That is an interesting story. 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:58.010 The selling point for TDRS was they would shut down the AFSCNs which were getting old 00:19:58.010 --> 00:19:58.960 and were very labor intensive. 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:01.740 Well, we still have them both today. 00:20:01.740 --> 00:20:06.970 Worldwide network scattered around the world, but to provide secure Shuttle communication 00:20:06.970 --> 00:20:12.170 there had to be extensive upgrades because working with the Shuttle with a complicated 00:20:12.170 --> 00:20:17.470 payload in orbit, getting it initialized, tested and deployed was something new for 00:20:17.470 --> 00:20:18.340 the SCN. 00:20:18.340 --> 00:20:24.650 The SCN ordinarily just did space-to-ground data transfers through orbiting satellites, 00:20:24.650 --> 00:20:30.580 so to be working with a human crew and human system, to have all the contingencies in place 00:20:30.580 --> 00:20:31.740 was big. 00:20:31.740 --> 00:20:36.330 The SCNs were involved in the all the prelaunch testing and commanding, health and status 00:20:36.330 --> 00:20:39.910 checks, as well as all the deployment and post-deployment payload communications. 00:20:39.910 --> 00:20:44.670 I wish I could show you the contingencies, all the workarounds, the plan As, the plans 00:20:44.670 --> 00:20:47.040 Bs required for a complicated mission. 00:20:47.040 --> 00:20:47.790 It is immense. 00:20:47.790 --> 00:20:49.880 It takes a long time to do it right. 00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:54.980 The point is that when you're ready to fly, you should be ready for all know contingencies, 00:20:54.980 --> 00:20:59.910 even up to loss of communication, failure of critical computer systems and that sort 00:20:59.910 --> 00:21:00.160 of thing. 00:21:00.120 --> 00:21:06.160 You never want to fly and have to scratch your head and say what should we do next? 00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:08.870 Pre first flight issue was an STS1. 00:21:08.870 --> 00:21:13.620 Another MIT professor, Gene Covert who is also here and someone you should really talk 00:21:13.620 --> 00:21:18.179 to at some point in time, was part of our panel that reviewed Space Shuttle main engine 00:21:18.179 --> 00:21:20.350 quality testing. 00:21:20.350 --> 00:21:23.880 And they were the folks that really came to grips with this new and emerging issue called 00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:24.760 turbine micro-cracks. 00:21:24.760 --> 00:21:31.760 The turbine blades in the SSME were found to be developing very small cycle dependent 00:21:33.140 --> 00:21:33.970 micro-cracks. 00:21:33.970 --> 00:21:36.690 The question came up what is the ultimate failure mode? 00:21:36.690 --> 00:21:39.820 How many cycles can they stand? 00:21:39.820 --> 00:21:41.370 How good are they good for? 00:21:41.370 --> 00:21:45.840 The original intent, as you know, was to be able to re-fly the SSMEs with zero maintenance 00:21:45.840 --> 00:21:47.940 between flights many times. 00:21:47.940 --> 00:21:49.299 That hasn't happened. 00:21:49.299 --> 00:21:54.030 But even the question of would it be good even for one mission was a big, big question. 00:21:54.030 --> 00:22:00.110 And Gene, who is an extremely thorough manager and engineer, a lot of common sense, a lot 00:22:00.110 --> 00:22:01.980 of smarts, worked that very, very hard. 00:22:01.980 --> 00:22:05.220 There were also issues, of course, about thermal tile loss. 00:22:05.220 --> 00:22:07.820 There were questions about whether those would fall off. 00:22:07.820 --> 00:22:08.530 This is not ice now. 00:22:08.530 --> 00:22:09.520 This is thermal tiles. 00:22:09.520 --> 00:22:16.520 And, at the same time, there were huge costs growing in the development of the IUS, the 00:22:17.080 --> 00:22:20.420 Shuttle Centaur upper stage and also Vandenberg facilities. 00:22:20.420 --> 00:22:23.929 Everything was either late and/or over cost. 00:22:23.929 --> 00:22:27.500 Many folks thought that the IUS would never fly because the development problems were 00:22:27.500 --> 00:22:28.880 so huge. 00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:33.270 The fact that it has flown as many times as it has, on a variety of launch platforms, 00:22:33.270 --> 00:22:37.360 is truly amazing from my sight. 00:22:37.360 --> 00:22:43.390 And we also saw, prior to first flight, several delays, two and a half years is about right. 00:22:43.390 --> 00:22:45.179 And then more delays ensued. 00:22:45.179 --> 00:22:51.950 And so, from a user perspective, all these delays really added up to lost opportunities, 00:22:51.950 --> 00:22:57.040 extensive cost growth and things like that, really a heartbreaking story. 00:22:57.040 --> 00:23:01.340 This is a picture of a Defense Satellite Program, DSP. 00:23:01.340 --> 00:23:05.070 A machine lifting out of the shuttle bay. 00:23:05.070 --> 00:23:05.790 I think you have seen this. 00:23:05.790 --> 00:23:11.250 This is the IUS turntable that rotates the vehicle up and pushes it out with springs. 00:23:11.250 --> 00:23:16.929 This is a two-stage solid misconfiguration that takes the beast out to geosynch. 00:23:16.929 --> 00:23:22.390 Post-Challenger, the space policy was changed. 00:23:22.390 --> 00:23:27.100 The Shuttle was not to be used anymore for lifting all satellites but only for mission 00:23:27.100 --> 00:23:28.590 where human presence was required. 00:23:28.590 --> 00:23:30.470 But there was a problem. 00:23:30.470 --> 00:23:36.820 Because of the backup of missions, the SCS had to fly out the existing DoD payloads. 00:23:36.820 --> 00:23:39.890 We looked very hard at converting them back to the Titans. 00:23:39.890 --> 00:23:43.679 Since we were taking steps to shut down the Titan line, the Titans weren't ready at that 00:23:43.679 --> 00:23:45.210 time. 00:23:45.210 --> 00:23:52.210 But what we saw afterwards was increased use of, a restart, really, of these efforts, modernizations. 00:23:52.750 --> 00:23:57.230 And that was interesting because there was always the chance the Shuttle could come back 00:23:57.230 --> 00:24:00.660 and launch, hopefully, 15, 20 times a year. 00:24:00.660 --> 00:24:03.490 And we hoped it would happen but it never did. 00:24:03.490 --> 00:24:08.460 Steven Dorfman from Hughes was here as a visiting professor several years ago. 00:24:08.460 --> 00:24:13.000 He was extremely bitter about the fact that, from a satellite manufacturing point of view, 00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:17.990 he had to eat the cost to switch back to extendables from Shuttle. 00:24:17.990 --> 00:24:22.390 First he was told by National Space Policy, "Thou shalt fly on Space Shuttle." Then he 00:24:22.390 --> 00:24:27.950 was told, "You are now bared from flying that Space Shuttle." A huge lost to him. 00:24:27.950 --> 00:24:29.530 And I think Hughes is still contesting it. 00:24:29.530 --> 00:24:32.169 I don't think it will ever win that in court. 00:24:32.169 --> 00:24:37.919 And kind of most importantly, from a Central California point of view, the Vandenberg shuttle 00:24:37.919 --> 00:24:40.679 facilities were shut down completely. 00:24:40.679 --> 00:24:47.530 My DoD SCS mission involvement personally was I worked on the very first DoD sponsored 00:24:47.530 --> 00:24:48.880 mission STS4. 00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:55.880 It was Columbia launched in late June of '84 flown by Ken Mattingly and Hank Hartsfield. 00:24:57.100 --> 00:24:59.910 This was a pathfinder for the DoD. 00:24:59.910 --> 00:25:06.790 It was a test not only of the security procedures but also the ability to do launch operations, 00:25:06.790 --> 00:25:09.130 orbital operations in a classified way. 00:25:09.130 --> 00:25:10.419 It came out truly successfully. 00:25:10.419 --> 00:25:11.980 We learned a lot. 00:25:11.980 --> 00:25:14.309 It was not easy. 00:25:14.309 --> 00:25:19.080 Getting any complicated mission to fly on the Shuttle is a very, very difficult process. 00:25:19.080 --> 00:25:23.440 To do it under the cloak of security makes it even harder. 00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:28.320 I was a primary DoD launch integrator, the interface between the Program Office and the 00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:31.360 Air Force, for two primary missions. 00:25:31.360 --> 00:25:32.820 I shadowed three others. 00:25:32.820 --> 00:25:36.600 I was also member of the NASA DoD Safety Review Team. 00:25:36.600 --> 00:25:37.780 This was interesting. 00:25:37.780 --> 00:25:44.780 The Safety Review Team or SRT was a very small, streamlined, fast-moving team that basically 00:25:45.370 --> 00:25:47.900 reviewed and bought off on the payload. 00:25:47.900 --> 00:25:54.059 As opposed to having the figurative casts of thousands, we had a cast of just a very 00:25:54.059 --> 00:25:57.679 small number of people both from the DoD and the NASA side. 00:25:57.679 --> 00:26:01.940 And we moved as quickly as we could to get these missions approved and bought off. 00:26:01.940 --> 00:26:08.630 And, lastly, in the mid '90s, I was a program manager for the DoD space test program. 00:26:08.630 --> 00:26:11.320 STP is in existence today. 00:26:11.320 --> 00:26:15.990 Their charter is to be the sponsor for space experiments with military relevant. 00:26:15.990 --> 00:26:20.840 They flew, among other things, the first atomic clocks that led to GPS as we know it today. 00:26:20.840 --> 00:26:26.830 They continue to fly numerous secondary and piggyback missions not just on Shuttle but 00:26:26.830 --> 00:26:31.290 also on Ariens, Russian vehicles, Korean vehicles, Indian vehicles. 00:26:31.290 --> 00:26:33.520 When I was the manager of the program it was great. 00:26:33.520 --> 00:26:38.210 It was like you were running a big used car lot and you were offering rides to everybody. 00:26:38.210 --> 00:26:39.140 It was terrific. 00:26:39.140 --> 00:26:45.190 The emphasis here is to use excess launch capacity to fly space experiments that you 00:26:45.190 --> 00:26:47.480 would screen every year. 00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:53.230 And then, on rare occasions, you would build a dedicated satellite and launch vehicle about 00:26:53.230 --> 00:26:57.650 every four years to launch the bigger satellites. 00:26:57.650 --> 00:27:04.309 My summary is that the DoD had requirements that really went back to the first years, 00:27:04.309 --> 00:27:06.510 the first days of the Shuttle Program. 00:27:06.510 --> 00:27:11.580 They were extremely demanding and dramatically affected the architecture of the Space Shuttle 00:27:11.580 --> 00:27:12.150 system. 00:27:12.150 --> 00:27:17.650 The heartbreak, of course, as we know, is that we never were able to achieve the launch 00:27:17.650 --> 00:27:20.760 rates and the low recurring costs that were promised. 00:27:20.760 --> 00:27:26.520 That really when we realized it was slipping away, those were truly sad days. 00:27:26.520 --> 00:27:33.320 I don't think anyone ever anticipated the one-time expenses and effort required to redesign 00:27:33.320 --> 00:27:34.380 payloads. 00:27:34.380 --> 00:27:38.280 Not just for mechanical form-fit function but also for safety. 00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:45.280 No one realized the extensive work required to certify the payloads for manned operations. 00:27:45.490 --> 00:27:51.210 The mission integration at the Cape was very complicated, and security, as you can tell, 00:27:51.210 --> 00:27:52.480 permeated everything. 00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:59.480 And, lastly, the sad thing is that MOL and SCS at Vandenberg all suffered from the curse 00:28:00.260 --> 00:28:06.240 of Slick-6, which was that both programs were cancelled despite millions of dollars put 00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:10.830 into refurbishing the facilities. 00:28:10.830 --> 00:28:13.650 I have here a list of references. 00:28:13.650 --> 00:28:16.500 Heppenheimer's book "Development of the Space Shuttle" I found was quite good. 00:28:16.500 --> 00:28:18.669 It talks a lot about the programmatics of the Space Shuttle. 00:28:18.669 --> 00:28:21.100 I hope you've had a chance to read it. 00:28:21.100 --> 00:28:23.410 I took some information from here. 00:28:23.410 --> 00:28:26.510 The Federation of America Scientists, the FAS site is interesting. 00:28:26.510 --> 00:28:29.110 I think it is still current on the Space Shuttle. 00:28:29.110 --> 00:28:34.350 And there are these books here which I point you to give you a little bit more insight 00:28:34.350 --> 00:28:40.030 into the missions, the roles of the intelligence community doing things such as flying and 00:28:40.030 --> 00:28:41.530 operating satellites in space. 00:28:41.530 --> 00:28:47.750 If there are any questions, I will be glad to take them now and then I will show a short 00:28:47.750 --> 00:28:48.600 ten-minute video. 00:28:48.600 --> 00:28:51.160 How am I doing on time? 00:28:51.160 --> 00:28:52.440 I'm moving fast. 00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:53.289 Yes, question. 00:28:53.289 --> 00:28:56.280 How many times was the [UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE]? 00:28:56.280 --> 00:28:59.690 Was it even used to launch the Shuttle? 00:28:59.690 --> 00:29:03.640 Slick-6 never saw anything launched out of there until they launched a Lockheed low-cost 00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:08.539 machine called the Athena in about 1996. 00:29:08.539 --> 00:29:13.539 Presently, the Delta 4, remember the big machine that flew out of the Cape about nine months 00:29:13.539 --> 00:29:18.820 ago, is stacked there at Slick-6 ready to go with an operational payload. 00:29:18.820 --> 00:29:23.760 They are having big concerns, though, about fuselage so their launch date, which was going 00:29:23.760 --> 00:29:27.010 to be last week, has been rolled off to the right several months. 00:29:27.010 --> 00:29:32.150 They had a problem on the first flight of basically fuel cavitatation. 00:29:32.150 --> 00:29:34.380 And they are not happy with it yet. 00:29:34.380 --> 00:29:35.429 It is ready to go. 00:29:35.429 --> 00:29:41.690 When the Delta 4 launches out of Slick-6, it will be the first large payload system 00:29:41.690 --> 00:29:44.990 to go out of there for the first time. 00:29:44.990 --> 00:29:45.240 Question. Yes. I don't know if it is really fair, but in hindsight, was it worth it for the military 00:29:55.210 --> 00:29:56.990 to get onboard with the Shuttle from the military's perspective? 00:29:56.990 --> 00:29:59.799 Well, if the promises had been kept it certainly would have been worthwhile. 00:29:59.799 --> 00:30:04.620 With the way things have turned out, was it worth it? 00:30:04.620 --> 00:30:06.820 We were kind of driven into it. 00:30:06.820 --> 00:30:10.990 Can you say was it worth it from a cost point of view, from a schedule point of view? 00:30:10.990 --> 00:30:11.890 The answer is no. 00:30:11.890 --> 00:30:18.890 I think from the perspective of having people do extremely difficult tasks under very pressing 00:30:21.080 --> 00:30:27.559 circumstances, it showed us what NASA and the Air Force could do, although at a great 00:30:27.559 --> 00:30:28.100 cost. 00:30:28.100 --> 00:30:34.169 It was certainly one of the more, I will say, exciting times. 00:30:34.169 --> 00:30:37.190 It was one of the more exciting times for NASA. 00:30:37.190 --> 00:30:38.190 Questions? 00:30:38.190 --> 00:30:39.190 Yes. 00:30:39.190 --> 00:30:45.960 When you talked about safety certifying these payloads, was it mainly an issue of the fuel 00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:47.390 supplies for the payloads? 00:30:47.390 --> 00:30:50.510 Well, I will just give you one example. 00:30:50.510 --> 00:30:56.270 To get a payload into the bay and withstand launch loads, you have to have very large 00:30:56.270 --> 00:31:01.870 structural members, steel rods, for example, that had to take all of the launch loads and 00:31:01.870 --> 00:31:06.330 not have the satellite break away inside the payload bay in the worst case either during 00:31:06.330 --> 00:31:09.909 liftoff or in the worst case on landing. 00:31:09.909 --> 00:31:15.710 You could have as many as 18 to 24 steel bolts that all had to be fractured simultaneously 00:31:15.710 --> 00:31:19.630 within seconds by pyrotechnics to get them out. 00:31:19.630 --> 00:31:24.270 You had to prove by analysis and by test that you could have these simultaneous events for 00:31:24.270 --> 00:31:26.030 which you could not have any redundancy. 00:31:26.030 --> 00:31:27.720 You just couldn't do it. 00:31:27.720 --> 00:31:30.070 These were must-work devices. 00:31:30.070 --> 00:31:35.659 As probably Professor Hoffman has told you, on every Shuttle launch there is a large number 00:31:35.659 --> 00:31:39.260 of must-work category-one issues and items. 00:31:39.260 --> 00:31:44.350 Like the bolts that free the external tank from the vehicle, if those don't work you've 00:31:44.350 --> 00:31:46.049 got a big problem. 00:31:46.049 --> 00:31:50.090 From a safety certification point of view on the Shuttle, we had to make sure that in 00:31:50.090 --> 00:31:57.090 no case could the payloads pose any hazard to the crew under any circumstances, including 00:31:57.220 --> 00:32:03.409 the ones that are the most farfetched such as landing overseas in Spain or Morocco. 00:32:03.409 --> 00:32:09.289 But the things we were worried about was having a payload hung up during deployment so the 00:32:09.289 --> 00:32:16.070 Shuttle couldn't return or a payload damaging the Shuttle at any time and causing obviously 00:32:16.070 --> 00:32:18.419 big problems there and things like that. 00:32:18.419 --> 00:32:22.640 Plus things such as propulsion systems accidentally activating. 00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:26.990 Liquid solids, it didn't matter, all extremely hazardous. 00:32:26.990 --> 00:32:31.470 And we found out a lot, because it is one thing to design a payload for launching an 00:32:31.470 --> 00:32:31.770 expendable. 00:32:31.770 --> 00:32:34.429 There are certain things that you can or should not do. 00:32:34.429 --> 00:32:38.890 But when you go to a Shuttle context, we have a lot of commanding going into the vehicle. 00:32:38.890 --> 00:32:45.890 Pre-flight, during assent and ops, it becomes a much more tough a problem. 00:32:46.120 --> 00:32:48.230 For example, I will just give one example. 00:32:48.230 --> 00:32:52.980 If you have a very complicated payload which consists of a spacecraft bus, all the housekeeping 00:32:52.980 --> 00:32:58.460 and the payload front-end which may have all kinds of hazards associated with it like antenna 00:32:58.460 --> 00:33:04.049 booms that come out on command, how do you verify final configuration before you liftoff? 00:33:04.049 --> 00:33:10.230 How do you know every system is in the state that you think it is? 00:33:10.230 --> 00:33:10.940 How do you verify that? 00:33:10.940 --> 00:33:12.990 That is very hard. 00:33:12.990 --> 00:33:16.490 Because you can go in there with test equipment, but test equipment has subtleties all its 00:33:16.490 --> 00:33:16.990 own. 00:33:16.990 --> 00:33:17.480 OK. 00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:17.980 Questions? 00:33:17.980 --> 00:33:24.980 Do you think it would be possible to do the one orbit and return to base type mission? 00:33:27.900 --> 00:33:31.240 It sounds very difficult to do. 00:33:31.240 --> 00:33:33.490 It is not that hard. 00:33:33.490 --> 00:33:37.280 First orbit deploys were not easy but they were done. 00:33:37.280 --> 00:33:41.669 Coming back, I think the big problem is that it really forces the timelines. 00:33:41.669 --> 00:33:47.360 Because, as you know, to do a de-orbit burn and return to earth, it requires quite a bit 00:33:47.360 --> 00:33:52.549 of mission planning, real-time updates to verify you're on the right track, plus making 00:33:52.549 --> 00:33:55.360 sure that you have everything right so when you do the de-boost you're going to be within 00:33:55.360 --> 00:33:56.030 your corridors. 00:33:56.030 --> 00:34:01.539 To the best of my knowledge, NASA has never done a first orbit return. 00:34:01.539 --> 00:34:02.750 And I don't think they would want to. 00:34:02.750 --> 00:34:07.809 It's very stressing because in 90 minutes you have to not only get the spacecraft out, 00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:12.989 but then the vehicle re-safed and buttoned up and planned out to land back either at 00:34:12.989 --> 00:34:16.049 the primary or an alternate landing site. 00:34:16.049 --> 00:34:19.139 That's a lot of work to do in 90 minutes. 00:34:19.139 --> 00:34:20.518 Any other questions? 00:34:20.518 --> 00:34:20.978 Yes. 00:34:20.978 --> 00:34:27.978 Is there any way to give a ballpark figure of how many DoD payloads can be put in space 00:34:29.478 --> 00:34:30.339 by the Shuttle? 00:34:30.339 --> 00:34:30.719 Ten or hundreds? 00:34:30.719 --> 00:34:31.379 Oh, not, it's not hundreds. 00:34:31.379 --> 00:34:35.498 The NASA Manifest is published. 00:34:35.498 --> 00:34:39.849 From what they call a regular Air Force site, they launched a whole series of communication 00:34:39.849 --> 00:34:42.168 satellites, DSCS, DSP. 00:34:42.168 --> 00:34:48.339 In fact, the very last DSP satellites are still Shuttle compatible and could be launched 00:34:48.339 --> 00:34:49.779 if there was a problem with the Titans. 00:34:49.779 --> 00:34:53.569 They are up there in storage in Southern California. 00:34:53.569 --> 00:34:57.349 And then there are a fairly large number of what are called Intelligence Community Missions 00:34:57.349 --> 00:34:58.869 that are flown. 00:34:58.869 --> 00:35:04.690 And all the manifest will say is that these were just DoD missions. 00:35:04.690 --> 00:35:06.170 Let's see. 00:35:06.170 --> 00:35:13.170 What I would like to do is ask Tom to shut off the videotape and I will give you a little 00:35:13.630 --> 00:35:17.200 introduction to my video which I hope will run. 00:35:17.200 --> 00:35:23.529 We are ready to start her, folks. 00:35:23.529 --> 00:35:29.410 Bob Siemens is really a very pivotal person, not only in the Space Shuttle story, but also 00:35:29.410 --> 00:35:33.009 in the Apollo Program, which he can probably talk to you at a separate time. 00:35:33.009 --> 00:35:36.150 But I think he will like to spend ten or fifteen minutes talking about his role in the Space 00:35:36.150 --> 00:35:37.680 Shuttle story. 00:35:37.680 --> 00:35:38.660 OK. 00:35:38.660 --> 00:35:40.180 Here we go. 00:35:40.180 --> 00:35:44.410 I'm just wondering where to go to get comfortable. 00:35:44.410 --> 00:35:48.359 Can we turn that off? 00:35:48.359 --> 00:35:49.940 We cannot. 00:35:49.940 --> 00:35:51.519 All right. 00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:54.989 I would just like to get comfortable here. 00:35:54.989 --> 00:36:01.989 You know, as Pete said -- First of all, I thought that was a great summary of actually 00:36:03.930 --> 00:36:09.979 a very difficult subject to discuss. 00:36:09.979 --> 00:36:16.249 Let me just take you back, first of all, to the early '60s. 00:36:16.249 --> 00:36:23.249 I know that is going awful far back, but that was when I joined NASA as a general manager. 00:36:23.690 --> 00:36:29.940 And, before we knew it, we had gone from a billion dollar a year operation with the Mercury 00:36:29.940 --> 00:36:36.940 Program to a situation where we were given the assignment of putting men on the moon. 00:36:37.099 --> 00:36:44.099 And that was a gigantic shift in our responsibility. 00:36:44.119 --> 00:36:51.119 And in all of the planning and the discussions and so on, and we did work very closely with 00:36:54.759 --> 00:37:01.690 the Department of Defense, the Department of Defense had all kinds of assets that were 00:37:01.690 --> 00:37:04.880 going to be required in the Space Program. 00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:07.819 The Navy, for example, to pick up the astronauts. 00:37:07.819 --> 00:37:14.819 One example, a major example most people never heard of, was we had to construct very large 00:37:16.339 --> 00:37:17.460 facilities. 00:37:17.460 --> 00:37:23.289 The most famous and obvious is the Vertical Assembly Building and the large facility down 00:37:23.289 --> 00:37:24.420 at the Cape. 00:37:24.420 --> 00:37:29.569 You just saw the Shuttle taking off from that facility. 00:37:29.569 --> 00:37:35.769 And, in operating down there at the Cape, there already was Cape Canaveral. 00:37:35.769 --> 00:37:40.849 And there was not room for what we were going to do to fit on Cape Canaveral. 00:37:40.849 --> 00:37:46.190 We looked at seven different world sites and finally decided to camp on Merritt Island 00:37:46.190 --> 00:37:53.190 which is just across the river from Cape Canaveral because, again, the Department of Defense 00:37:54.430 --> 00:37:58.710 had all kinds of facilities down there with a tracking range and so on. 00:37:58.710 --> 00:38:03.219 But the biggest support that we got was in the building of those facilities. 00:38:03.219 --> 00:38:10.219 There was absolutely no confidence in NASA to build the largest structure in the world, 00:38:12.729 --> 00:38:18.410 the VAB, or many other facilities for assembly and for tests and so on. 00:38:18.410 --> 00:38:22.680 The Corp of Engineers was a major part of the operation. 00:38:22.680 --> 00:38:29.680 I am bringing this out because we had to figure out how far we were going to go with our launch 00:38:31.400 --> 00:38:35.219 vehicles on a shared basis. 00:38:35.219 --> 00:38:42.219 This is before anybody thought of a manned shuttle that would carry stuff up and stick 00:38:43.390 --> 00:38:45.869 it into orbit. 00:38:45.869 --> 00:38:52.869 But we put together a planning organization that actually operated for over a year's time. 00:38:55.380 --> 00:39:02.380 A fellow named Golivan for NASA, a fellow named Cavanaugh for the Department of Defense 00:39:02.519 --> 00:39:04.869 put this together. 00:39:04.869 --> 00:39:09.130 One of the big emphases was the use of the Titan. 00:39:09.130 --> 00:39:15.809 The Titan was coming along to the point where we thought that the earliest version would 00:39:15.809 --> 00:39:19.589 be suitable for the Mercury Program. 00:39:19.589 --> 00:39:26.589 And, at that time, in 1961, we were thinking that Mercury only weighed 3,000 pounds. 00:39:29.190 --> 00:39:30.249 You could put one man in it. 00:39:30.249 --> 00:39:32.279 You couldn't do much with it. 00:39:32.279 --> 00:39:38.599 But if we could, in effect, just enlarge it and have a more powerful vehicle, an Atlas, 00:39:38.599 --> 00:39:45.599 namely the Titan, we could really have a vehicle that would have some capability to run through 00:39:47.739 --> 00:39:52.789 a lot of the orbital operation and so on that we're going to ultimately be required for 00:39:52.789 --> 00:39:54.630 going to the moon. 00:39:54.630 --> 00:40:01.630 And out of that came the planning for the Titan III, the Titan IV and vehicles that 00:40:04.339 --> 00:40:11.339 proved right off the bat, and over time, they still are very important to our defense capability. 00:40:13.749 --> 00:40:17.339 Well, I don't think that is quite true. 00:40:17.339 --> 00:40:23.969 I don't think we are using any of those assets today within NASA. 00:40:23.969 --> 00:40:30.969 And if you then go forward in time, in 1968, I have been down there in NASA for 7.5 years. 00:40:35.349 --> 00:40:37.329 I planned to go down for two. 00:40:37.329 --> 00:40:38.190 I came back. 00:40:38.190 --> 00:40:45.190 MIT was nice enough to invite me back, and I came back right here as a Hunsaker professor. 00:40:45.799 --> 00:40:52.799 To my very great amazement, I got a call one day from somebody I had never met, a man named 00:40:54.930 --> 00:40:56.209 Mel Laird. 00:40:56.209 --> 00:41:03.209 I just barely knew that he had been designated by Nixon to be the next Secretary of Defense. 00:41:05.009 --> 00:41:07.999 He said are you going to be down here in Washington the next day or two? 00:41:07.999 --> 00:41:13.880 As a matter of fact, I was because I was going to go down the next day to get on a plan and 00:41:13.880 --> 00:41:20.880 fly down and see the launch of Apollo 8 which was going to fly around the moon. 00:41:21.900 --> 00:41:23.700 And he said come on for lunch. 00:41:23.700 --> 00:41:29.119 That is when he asked if I would be the willing to be the Secretary of the Air Force. 00:41:29.119 --> 00:41:31.079 I told him that was absolutely impossible. 00:41:31.079 --> 00:41:33.410 We just moved our family back here. 00:41:33.410 --> 00:41:36.539 My wife is in the hospital, which she was. 00:41:36.539 --> 00:41:38.239 But he was very persistent. 00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:45.239 And after about ten days I agreed to go back down in the government, but that is a long 00:41:45.529 --> 00:41:50.569 story you don't want to hear the details of getting my wife well and getting a house and 00:41:50.569 --> 00:41:53.160 all that stuff. 00:41:53.160 --> 00:41:57.569 One thing that I inherited right off the bat was the Manned Orbital Laboratory. 00:41:57.569 --> 00:42:04.569 And, even then, it was clearly in some jeopardy. 00:42:05.200 --> 00:42:10.529 When programs start getting a ceiling built in where they say we're going to keep it going 00:42:10.529 --> 00:42:16.549 but it is going to be kept going at a level of, and I forget what the level was for MOL, 00:42:16.549 --> 00:42:22.890 something like $500 million or something like that. 00:42:22.890 --> 00:42:28.609 Because any large program over time there is always opposition to it and there is more 00:42:28.609 --> 00:42:34.069 time for it to be shot down and ultimately eliminated. 00:42:34.069 --> 00:42:41.069 I realize that it was in deep trouble when I was over in the Bureau of the Budget talking 00:42:42.109 --> 00:42:48.420 to a junior member of the Bureau of the Budget and he said I hope you realize that the Shuttle 00:42:48.420 --> 00:42:55.420 is in deep trouble from a standpoint of support here in the White House. 00:42:55.559 --> 00:43:02.299 And so I went back to Mel Laird and said, look, one thing I want to do is to have one 00:43:02.299 --> 00:43:09.299 shot with the President to be sure he fully understands what the capability of the MOL 00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:10.269 will be. 00:43:10.269 --> 00:43:14.749 It was far along. 00:43:14.749 --> 00:43:21.749 Lots of expense had gone into it, including major facility construction out of Vandenberg. 00:43:26.079 --> 00:43:27.079 I had my day in court. 00:43:27.079 --> 00:43:28.890 It was a sunny afternoon. 00:43:28.890 --> 00:43:34.190 I got General Stewart, who was very involved in the MOL, to join me and Mel Laird. 00:43:34.190 --> 00:43:34.890 And we went over there. 00:43:34.890 --> 00:43:40.420 It was just Kissinger and the President. 00:43:40.420 --> 00:43:46.390 And I had a few simple-minded charts that showed what we were going to do from a resolution 00:43:46.390 --> 00:43:53.390 standpoint if we kept going with the MOL and what that would mean in terms of understanding 00:43:54.509 --> 00:44:01.509 more clearly what was going on in a given situation. 00:44:02.239 --> 00:44:03.700 I had my half-hour in court. 00:44:03.700 --> 00:44:08.029 I could see a band outside getting ready to play so I knew that the President was about 00:44:08.029 --> 00:44:12.469 to be rushed out for some kind of a ceremony. 00:44:12.469 --> 00:44:13.650 That was a Saturday. 00:44:13.650 --> 00:44:15.450 Monday morning I got a call from Kissinger. 00:44:15.450 --> 00:44:21.729 And he said Bob, and I cannot really imitate his German accent, that was a very, very fine 00:44:21.729 --> 00:44:22.849 presentation. 00:44:22.849 --> 00:44:28.959 And a day later I found out that MOL was cancelled. 00:44:28.959 --> 00:44:31.359 That was with President Nixon. 00:44:31.359 --> 00:44:32.339 He sat there the whole time. 00:44:32.339 --> 00:44:37.529 He had a yellow foolscap and took prodigious notes of everything I was saying, which was 00:44:37.529 --> 00:44:43.059 sort of nerve-racking, the President of the United States bothering with what I am saying. 00:44:43.059 --> 00:44:50.059 Anyway, that was sort of where I came from, from the MOL. 00:44:52.140 --> 00:44:59.140 The next step along the way was after Apollo, what was going to happen in space? 00:44:59.680 --> 00:45:06.440 There were to be eight launches of the Apollo Lunar Program. 00:45:06.440 --> 00:45:11.019 Nixon cut that back to two sort of arbitrarily. 00:45:11.019 --> 00:45:15.140 And there were no plans for using those assets. 00:45:15.140 --> 00:45:19.869 Jim Webb was my boss in NASA. 00:45:19.869 --> 00:45:22.930 And I used to see him. 00:45:22.930 --> 00:45:25.739 He was very, very ill the latter part of his life. 00:45:25.739 --> 00:45:29.849 And I would drop by. 00:45:29.849 --> 00:45:36.749 And he would ask me strange questions like what do you plan to do with your life before 00:45:36.749 --> 00:45:39.479 you kick the bucket kind of questions like that. 00:45:39.479 --> 00:45:41.869 And he said I haven't got long to live. 00:45:41.869 --> 00:45:44.589 And I would say you're doing fine, Jim. 00:45:44.589 --> 00:45:49.950 And I am just going to work along and see what I can do to help out here and there. 00:45:49.950 --> 00:45:56.950 Anyway, his big thrust was we felt we were building a major capability for the country 00:45:57.380 --> 00:46:01.390 and now it is all being washed away. 00:46:01.390 --> 00:46:08.390 And what is going to replace it? 00:46:11.029 --> 00:46:15.609 The Shuttle came up as an option. 00:46:15.609 --> 00:46:22.609 Actually, to say on the surface, it makes an awful lot of sense to recover something. 00:46:23.569 --> 00:46:30.569 We could easily visualize a transportation system for the country where every time a 00:46:35.599 --> 00:46:40.489 747 went across the country with a payload everybody jumped out and then you threw it 00:46:40.489 --> 00:46:41.509 in the ocean. 00:46:41.509 --> 00:46:43.809 It didn't seem to make much sense. 00:46:43.809 --> 00:46:48.209 You just knew it had to be more efficient to reuse something. 00:46:48.209 --> 00:46:52.279 Although, with Gemini, we had looked into that possibility. 00:46:52.279 --> 00:46:56.650 We were recovering the Gemini's, why didn't we use them again? 00:46:56.650 --> 00:47:03.650 And we found that we are going to have to put probably 75% of the original cost into 00:47:04.109 --> 00:47:06.440 reactivating the Gemini's. 00:47:06.440 --> 00:47:11.680 So, actually, I had a hunch that it wasn't going to be quite as simple as landing an 00:47:11.680 --> 00:47:18.459 airplane and then taking off again. 00:47:18.459 --> 00:47:22.430 The Air Force was going to be one of the prime users of the Shuttle. 00:47:22.430 --> 00:47:29.430 And the question was how large did the bomb bay -- Not the bomb bay. 00:47:29.839 --> 00:47:36.839 [LAUGHTER] How large did the experimental bay have to be for the missions that were 00:47:36.949 --> 00:47:38.599 going to be carried out? 00:47:38.599 --> 00:47:44.359 There was no thought, let me just quickly say, of putting armament aboard the Shuttle. 00:47:44.359 --> 00:47:47.999 I misspoke. 00:47:47.999 --> 00:47:54.999 And then one of the questions was how rapidly did you have to recover it if something happened 00:47:57.289 --> 00:48:04.130 and you wanted to bring something back in a hurry? 00:48:04.130 --> 00:48:11.130 And to bring it back you had to make up a co-planer change, and that was going to take 00:48:12.749 --> 00:48:18.009 a certain amount of energy, to put it mildly. 00:48:18.009 --> 00:48:21.219 Anyway, those are many of the issues. 00:48:21.219 --> 00:48:27.759 And I think, as I remember it, my friends in NASA thought the Air Force was being pretty 00:48:27.759 --> 00:48:31.180 tough on them. 00:48:31.180 --> 00:48:37.400 But if we were going to accept the use of a vehicle, in all seriousness, as you've just 00:48:37.400 --> 00:48:44.400 heard, it had to have ability to carry out the missions. 00:48:45.380 --> 00:48:48.319 And so that was sort of the next step along the way. 00:48:48.319 --> 00:48:55.319 And then, after I got through in the government, I ended up some years later out at Aerospace 00:48:57.509 --> 00:49:00.640 and ended up as the chairman of the corporation. 00:49:00.640 --> 00:49:05.829 And they worked closely with that element in the Air Force that was so much involved 00:49:05.829 --> 00:49:11.930 in these type programs that you've just been hearing about. 00:49:11.930 --> 00:49:18.930 And we were beginning to go into shock, at least those in the nucleus who were sort of running 00:49:27.949 --> 00:49:29.489 the aerospace. 00:49:29.489 --> 00:49:32.739 [UNINTELLIGIBLE] and myself. 00:49:32.739 --> 00:49:37.920 More and more it appeared that we were going to not be allowed to put anything in space 00:49:37.920 --> 00:49:40.579 except through the Shuttle. 00:49:40.579 --> 00:49:41.999 And that seemed to be imminently wrong. 00:49:41.999 --> 00:49:46.019 To think that you're going to have to risk the life of astronauts every time you wanted 00:49:46.019 --> 00:49:49.150 to put any kind of a satellite in orbit. 00:49:49.150 --> 00:49:56.150 From the standpoint of a paperclip individual who is looking at cost, to just have the one 00:49:58.729 --> 00:50:05.729 vehicle and use it and use it and use it and thereby supposedly cutting the cost, had a 00:50:06.529 --> 00:50:09.499 lot of charm. 00:50:09.499 --> 00:50:16.499 And it reached the point where he and I decided we had to try to do something about it. 00:50:20.349 --> 00:50:26.479 And we made an appointment with the then Secretary of the Air Force and said you've just going 00:50:26.479 --> 00:50:33.479 to be stashing away Titan somewhere so that if we run into trouble with the Shuttle we 00:50:34.109 --> 00:50:41.109 are going to be able to move over and put these very important payloads into orbit. 00:50:43.039 --> 00:50:47.829 And then they had the Challenger accident. 00:50:47.829 --> 00:50:54.829 At that point this, I think, major fallacy in policy was changed back where it should 00:50:57.479 --> 00:50:59.479 have been. 00:50:59.479 --> 00:51:02.719 You just shouldn't rely on a single vehicle. 00:51:02.719 --> 00:51:05.359 And that is my introduction. 00:51:05.359 --> 00:51:06.119 Yes. 00:51:06.119 --> 00:51:11.969 You wanted reusability, but some people also didn't want to risk the lives of astronauts. 00:51:11.969 --> 00:51:17.180 Why not make a reusable unmanned vehicle? 00:51:17.180 --> 00:51:23.130 That's a very good question. 00:51:23.130 --> 00:51:25.019 Why couldn't we do it? 00:51:25.019 --> 00:51:31.559 That might be a good design challenge for you guys here in this class to investigate 00:51:31.559 --> 00:51:34.359 that possibility. 00:51:34.359 --> 00:51:36.949 Unmanned. 00:51:36.949 --> 00:51:43.949 We've gone partway in that direction by, say, recovering the Shuttle casings, obviously 00:51:48.759 --> 00:51:50.589 the Shuttle itself. 00:51:50.589 --> 00:51:57.589 But, trying to recover at least elements of the unmanned launch vehicles, I'm not prepared 00:52:02.670 --> 00:52:04.670 to really give you a definitive answer on that. 00:52:04.670 --> 00:52:07.579 That's a good question and we will talk about it later. 00:52:07.579 --> 00:52:07.849 Yes. 00:52:07.849 --> 00:52:14.849 Before the Shuttle concept was finalized and military requirements were finalized for the 00:52:24.599 --> 00:52:31.599 Shuttle, the military had been launching their satellites and their missions using Titan's 00:52:31.739 --> 00:52:33.390 and Atlas's, correct? 00:52:33.390 --> 00:52:39.539 So why this requirement of the Shuttle having to be able to bring back a satellite using 00:52:39.539 --> 00:52:44.959 really a military satellite when that wasn't being done or required beforehand? 00:52:44.959 --> 00:52:47.259 Like why was that created? 00:52:47.259 --> 00:52:50.009 What was so special about it? 00:52:50.009 --> 00:52:57.009 We worked very hard on proposals to bring back satellites that were out of fuel or needed 00:52:58.009 --> 00:53:02.509 refurbishment, but when I was referring to landing with the Shuttle with payloads in 00:53:02.509 --> 00:53:04.279 the bay that is for a failed mission. 00:53:04.279 --> 00:53:06.869 And for some reason the payload could not get ejected. 00:53:06.869 --> 00:53:11.819 You still had to be able to land back what was now a very heavy spacecraft and glide 00:53:11.819 --> 00:53:13.459 on it and land safely. 00:53:13.459 --> 00:53:16.660 That turns out to be a really hard thing to do, especially if you're carrying solids and 00:53:16.660 --> 00:53:22.959 liquids onboard that were close to being ready to ignite, so to speak. 00:53:22.959 --> 00:53:25.009 But there is talk of retrieving satellites. 00:53:25.009 --> 00:53:30.749 And, as you know, NASA did bring back some small satellites, the Palapa one from Hughes. 00:53:30.749 --> 00:53:33.799 And also did a lot of very innovative repairs in space. 00:53:33.799 --> 00:53:37.920 But when we looked at it from a customer point of view, it turns out there is a lot that 00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:40.630 wears out in satellites, not just using a propellant. 00:53:40.630 --> 00:53:47.630 But the processors degrade due to radiation, solar panels degrade just due to micro dust 00:53:47.819 --> 00:53:48.989 and things like that. 00:53:48.989 --> 00:53:54.640 And so bringing back a satellite for reuse was never felt, at the time we looked at it, 00:53:54.640 --> 00:53:56.219 to be a worthwhile thing to do. 00:53:56.219 --> 00:54:01.160 And that ties in directly with what I was saying about recovering a Gemini. 00:54:01.160 --> 00:54:07.880 And, of course, on top of that with a Gemini is the fact you are landing them in the water 00:54:07.880 --> 00:54:12.140 so they got a good dousing of salt. 00:54:12.140 --> 00:54:19.140 And so the degradation of the Gemini's were such that we just didn't think it made any 00:54:22.289 --> 00:54:25.779 sense to try to refurbish them. 00:54:25.779 --> 00:54:26.880 Yes. 00:54:26.880 --> 00:54:33.880 The military was only really looking to capture and service in space, then release, not necessarily 00:54:34.359 --> 00:54:36.359 capture and bring back? 00:54:36.359 --> 00:54:39.699 They never seriously went after the capture and refurbish and release. 00:54:39.699 --> 00:54:43.839 They really went after launch and deployment. 00:54:43.839 --> 00:54:48.880 But I would say that in that theme the most successful story actually of refurbishment 00:54:48.880 --> 00:54:50.699 is the Hubble Space Telescope. 00:54:50.699 --> 00:54:52.299 And not for the reasons that you think of. 00:54:52.299 --> 00:54:55.719 When you think about stories of the Hubble Space Telescope you hear about Jeff Hoffman 00:54:55.719 --> 00:54:59.199 going up there and changing processors and fixing the optics. 00:54:59.199 --> 00:55:05.239 Also on those missions they replaced solar panels that were causing huge problems due 00:55:05.239 --> 00:55:09.650 to thermal warpage and shrinkage and what they call oil canning due to thermal stresses. 00:55:09.650 --> 00:55:16.160 And so the replacement of those solar panels, which turned out to be not very good as initially 00:55:16.160 --> 00:55:20.559 designed, is one of the really true success stories of man in space. 00:55:20.559 --> 00:55:26.729 And there is actually a very nice video which maybe you have seen of the lady astronaut 00:55:26.729 --> 00:55:33.599 who did the replacement of the solar panels on Hubble pushing out and releasing the solar 00:55:33.599 --> 00:55:35.150 panels. 00:55:35.150 --> 00:55:39.329 Things fly away in the sunshine looking like giant butterfly wings reflecting all the colors 00:55:39.329 --> 00:55:40.880 and then finally fall into the atmosphere. 00:55:40.880 --> 00:55:44.119 It is almost poetic, I tell you. 00:55:44.119 --> 00:55:45.239 It's amazing. 00:55:45.239 --> 00:55:52.239 On the Hubble, one of the considerations right from the beginning was that it should be a 00:55:54.900 --> 00:55:57.199 serviceable satellite. 00:55:57.199 --> 00:56:03.809 It was designed so that you could get inside of it relatively easily and so on. 00:56:03.809 --> 00:56:09.939 Frankly, I don't know of any other satellite that was really designed quite that way. 00:56:09.939 --> 00:56:11.930 Maybe I'm wrong. 00:56:11.930 --> 00:56:14.589 I believe you're right. 00:56:14.589 --> 00:56:15.249 Yes. 00:56:15.249 --> 00:56:20.249 On the solar panel, it wasn't designed to replace the panel. 00:56:20.249 --> 00:56:27.249 But you can go back to SkyLab, which was the next to last launching of the Apollo. 00:56:29.859 --> 00:56:35.640 On that one, I guess, we decided to take what was the third stage of a Saturn and just gut 00:56:35.640 --> 00:56:42.640 it, not have any propulsion in it and fit it out to be a spacecraft, namely a space 00:56:43.910 --> 00:56:45.099 station. 00:56:45.099 --> 00:56:51.019 And, when they got up there, the solar panels got fouled up. 00:56:51.019 --> 00:56:57.749 And one of the real tricks when the astronauts first got to it because it was not launched 00:56:57.749 --> 00:57:04.749 manned was to unravel some wires that got caught on it so actually the panels could 00:57:05.150 --> 00:57:10.329 spread out and it could start to operate again. 00:57:10.329 --> 00:57:17.029 Colonial Siemens, I don't know if either of you would know, but what are the duties involved 00:57:17.029 --> 00:57:23.069 in like the heavy payload aspect of the new CEV project? 00:57:23.069 --> 00:57:26.900 Delta 4 going out of Vandenberg was carrying classified payload. 00:57:26.900 --> 00:57:29.079 It's not a dummy either. 00:57:29.079 --> 00:57:30.400 It is real. 00:57:30.400 --> 00:57:35.219 They have standing requirements for these types of things. 00:57:35.219 --> 00:57:37.069 The national needs go on. 00:57:37.069 --> 00:57:40.739 The international stage, as we know, is filled with new actors and new threats. 00:57:40.739 --> 00:57:46.130 We have what is called unsymmetrical warfare, things that are hard to counter by conventional 00:57:46.130 --> 00:57:47.359 means. 00:57:47.359 --> 00:57:51.209 Back in the '70s and '80s we had symmetrical warfare, submarines versus submarines, missiles 00:57:51.209 --> 00:57:51.969 versus missiles. 00:57:51.969 --> 00:57:54.660 Now, as we know, it is much harder, much tougher, but the needs are still there. 00:57:54.660 --> 00:57:59.969 But is the collaboration between NASA and the military still pretty active? 00:57:59.969 --> 00:58:01.439 It is not in terms of payloads. 00:58:01.439 --> 00:58:07.059 It is there in exchange of technologies, things like development of more efficient sensors, 00:58:07.059 --> 00:58:08.569 processors, that sort of thing. 00:58:08.569 --> 00:58:12.660 It is everybody's benefit, for example, to have more powerful, faster, rad-hard space 00:58:12.660 --> 00:58:13.269 processors. 00:58:13.269 --> 00:58:17.579 Everybody wins in that type of situation. 00:58:17.579 --> 00:58:19.739 Back to your question on reusability. 00:58:19.739 --> 00:58:24.349 You will notice that one of the real strong pluses or the calling cards of the Space Shuttle 00:58:24.349 --> 00:58:28.199 Program was the fact that it was a reusable launch vehicle. 00:58:28.199 --> 00:58:33.279 In this current environment of the CEVs and new launch vehicles, what do you hear today 00:58:33.279 --> 00:58:34.999 about reusable launch vehicles? 00:58:34.999 --> 00:58:35.559 Nothing. 00:58:35.559 --> 00:58:42.099 Isn't it amazing how things have changed just in a matter of 25 years? 00:58:42.099 --> 00:58:46.759 One thing I just sort of forgot to mention with regard to the Manned Orbital Laboratory. 00:58:46.759 --> 00:58:53.759 It was thought, at that time, that by having men there and their ability to inspect a fairly 00:58:56.180 --> 00:59:03.170 wide swath that they would have time in flying over that swath to do some searching. 00:59:03.170 --> 00:59:10.170 And could do a better job of detecting possible items of tremendous interest from a military 00:59:13.029 --> 00:59:15.729 standpoint than trying to do it all automatically. 00:59:15.729 --> 00:59:22.729 And, of course, what finally washed out that argument was the ability to have satellites 00:59:25.079 --> 00:59:30.529 that had almost instantaneous transmission of information back home. 00:59:30.529 --> 00:59:37.529 What was the design for the MOL for crew transportation? 00:59:38.079 --> 00:59:45.079 They were going to take off on a Titan, they were going to aboard a Gemini, and they were 00:59:46.189 --> 00:59:53.189 going to have a laboratory of sorts which would have the necessary reconnaissance and 00:59:55.289 --> 00:59:56.180 other equipment aboard. 00:59:56.180 --> 01:00:03.180 So it was similar to SkyLab in that you had a non-reusable capsule as the crew transfer? 01:00:04.410 --> 01:00:09.359 It had a Gemini type return vehicle, but it was definitely going to be very small and 01:00:09.359 --> 01:00:10.369 cramped compared to Shuttle. 01:00:10.369 --> 01:00:15.969 There was no thought of having another Gemini come up and make use of it. 01:00:15.969 --> 01:00:16.719 Yes. 01:00:16.719 --> 01:00:23.719 Why did Gemini, Apollo and Mercury all land on water, because that is very expensive, 01:00:29.959 --> 01:00:31.089 and the Russians landed on land? 01:00:31.089 --> 01:00:31.339 Well, very simple. If you take a look at where the launch sites were for the Soviets, if they aborted they 01:00:36.799 --> 01:00:43.119 had to have the capability of coming down on land, any kind of abort mission. 01:00:43.119 --> 01:00:50.119 Similarly, operating out of the Cape Canaveral area, if you abort, you have to come down 01:00:50.699 --> 01:00:51.849 on the water. 01:00:51.849 --> 01:00:56.369 The question was then was it worthwhile to have the capability of doing both? 01:00:56.369 --> 01:00:58.019 Well, that just added weight. 01:00:58.019 --> 01:01:01.559 And so we stuck with the water and they stuck with the land. 01:01:01.559 --> 01:01:08.559 Do any of the new defense payloads require human intervention in their deployment or 01:01:13.829 --> 01:01:15.199 are they all completely [OVERLAPPING VOICES]? 01:01:15.199 --> 01:01:18.739 They are all Titan IV EELV compatible. 01:01:18.739 --> 01:01:20.180 Anything else? 01:01:20.180 --> 01:01:24.479 I think we wore everybody out. 01:01:24.479 --> 01:01:30.199 Well, you know, Bob and I will stick around, but we're not going to hold you down here 01:01:30.199 --> 01:01:31.839 if there are no questions. 01:01:31.839 --> 01:01:33.779 I guess we will call the class. 01:01:33.779 --> 01:01:36.499 And we will stick around if anybody wants to ask any more detailed questions or have 01:01:36.499 --> 01:01:36.900 follow-ups. 01:01:36.900 --> 01:01:39.150 My phone number and email is up there. 01:01:39.150 --> 01:01:42.549 I will be glad to talk to any of you one-on-one about any of this. 01:01:42.549 --> 01:01:45.979 There is quite a lot more detail we can provide, either Bob or myself. 01:01:45.979 --> 01:01:50.819 And, if I have to, I will write Bob a note asking for further information. 01:01:50.819 --> 01:01:51.579 OK? 01:01:51.579 --> 01:01:53.400 Well, thanks a lot. 01:01:53.400 --> 01:01:53.690 [APPLAUSE]