WEBVTT 00:00:09.190 --> 00:00:14.059 You probably noticed Professor Cohen is a little bit more formal and wears a tie. 00:00:14.059 --> 00:00:15.779 And so, when he's here, I also wear a tie. 00:00:15.779 --> 00:00:15.990 [LAUGHTER] 00:00:15.990 --> 00:00:20.340 But today we're a little bit less formal and so no ties. 00:00:20.340 --> 00:00:23.529 But I'll probably have one on, on Thursday, again. 00:00:23.529 --> 00:00:25.899 Just so that you knew what the code was. 00:00:25.899 --> 00:00:31.340 Tom Moser is coming. 00:00:31.340 --> 00:00:34.789 You know, that was the generation where everybody wore ties. 00:00:34.789 --> 00:00:39.710 So, I'll wear a tie, too. 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 00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:47.350 informality. 00:00:47.350 --> 00:00:56.219 We are actually, I think, very fortunate that Professor John Logsdon, who is the Director 00:00:56.219 --> 00:01:02.260 of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University which is part of their Elliott 00:01:02.260 --> 00:01:06.930 School of International Affairs -- And we have a recent graduate of that program. 00:01:06.930 --> 00:01:09.570 He is going to talk to us today. 00:01:09.570 --> 00:01:18.370 And this is really going to be the last in the looks at kind of the policy which led 00:01:18.370 --> 00:01:21.000 to the original requirements on the Space Shuttle. 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:27.640 And, as we've pointed out on numerous occasions, when you're looking at systems engineering 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:31.220 of any scale project -- Well, anything really. 00:01:31.220 --> 00:01:35.670 It is absolutely critical to get the requirements straight. 00:01:35.670 --> 00:01:41.380 And we cannot really understand a lot of the technical issues with the Space Shuttle and 00:01:41.380 --> 00:01:48.160 the challenges that we had to face without understanding how it got to be that way. 00:01:48.160 --> 00:01:54.490 Professor Logsdon has written numerous articles about the shuttle. 00:01:54.490 --> 00:01:59.240 And do you have an electronic version of your science article? 00:01:59.240 --> 00:01:59.670 You don't. 00:01:59.670 --> 00:02:01.830 We'll have to dig that up. 00:02:01.830 --> 00:02:05.070 We'll give you a version of that. 00:02:05.070 --> 00:02:18.510 But before that, actually, I guess the work where he really achieved a national recognition 00:02:18.510 --> 00:02:24.310 was his book on the Apollo program, "The Decision To Go To The Moon," which was a history of 00:02:24.310 --> 00:02:29.110 the Apollo program. 00:02:29.110 --> 00:02:36.069 Professor Logsdon is a recognized expert is space policy. 00:02:36.069 --> 00:02:41.000 You will see numerous articles by him in Space News. 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:47.020 And he is often the first person who gets called by the New York Times or National Public 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:53.920 Radio or one of the other media for comments on various developments in space. 00:02:53.920 --> 00:03:00.240 And actually, depending on how the talk today goes on the shuttle in terms of time, if there 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:07.670 is some time left over he's brought some information about the new exploration architecture which 00:03:07.670 --> 00:03:11.010 was just announced formally yesterday. 00:03:11.010 --> 00:03:17.079 And, given that we're setting out on another large space project where a lot of the same 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 00:03:22.390 --> 00:03:28.599 be interesting for people in the class to start following what's going on in this new 00:03:28.599 --> 00:03:30.099 space system. 00:03:30.099 --> 00:03:31.930 So, that's enough from me. 00:03:31.930 --> 00:03:33.060 John, I'll turn it over to you. 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:36.670 And take it away. 00:03:36.670 --> 00:03:38.900 Good morning. 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 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 00:03:54.660 --> 00:04:00.840 as much as the political history of the shuttle and how the requirements interacted with that 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:01.780 political history. 00:04:01.780 --> 00:04:04.290 So, it may be the same thing. 00:04:04.290 --> 00:04:08.709 But I'm not a technical person. 00:04:08.709 --> 00:04:15.640 Although, you have a bachelor's degree in physics which is a well-hidden fact. 00:04:15.640 --> 00:04:16.870 Yes. 00:04:16.870 --> 00:04:24.410 Next Tuesday is the 100th anniversary of the publication of the equation E equals MC squared. 00:04:24.410 --> 00:04:28.970 And my degree in physics is almost before that, not quite. 00:04:28.970 --> 00:04:33.100 [LAUGHTER] 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:38.280 One of the things that we've been doing at George Washington University, seemingly forever, 00:04:38.280 --> 00:04:48.130 and close to it, it started in 1990, is a project to collect the seminal documents that 00:04:48.130 --> 00:04:51.530 define the evolution of the US Space Program. 00:04:51.530 --> 00:04:57.010 There are now six volumes of this size printed, we're working on seven and there is one more 00:04:57.010 --> 00:05:00.720 to follow called "Exploring the Unknown". 00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:04.270 Jeff thinks that it's in your library. 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 00:05:10.350 --> 00:05:12.960 put on your class website. 00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:16.680 Volume four, which Dr. 00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:21.620 Hoffman has at his home, not in his office, deals with access to space. 00:05:21.620 --> 00:05:25.110 And one section of volume four deals with the shuttle. 00:05:25.110 --> 00:05:28.960 And that's what I'm going to try to get an electronic copy of for you. 00:05:28.960 --> 00:05:38.790 What I've done is built this talk around the original documents that trace the policy history 00:05:38.790 --> 00:05:39.320 of the shuttle. 00:05:39.320 --> 00:05:45.770 And I'll use them kind of as backdrop. 00:05:45.770 --> 00:05:53.760 As NASA approached the end of the Apollo program, its leaders, or at least some of them were 00:05:53.760 --> 00:05:56.350 thinking about what followed Apollo. 00:05:56.350 --> 00:06:04.550 And, at that time, the head of I'll say Manned Spaceflight and apologize for the gender-specific 00:06:04.550 --> 00:06:05.090 language. 00:06:05.090 --> 00:06:11.560 But that indeed was the Office of Manned Spaceflight in the late `60s. 00:06:11.560 --> 00:06:19.490 Its head was a very creative character named George Miller who is still active. 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 00:06:24.509 --> 00:06:28.800 to provide alternative commercial access to space. 00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:32.909 Miller gave this talk, as you see, August of 1968. 00:06:32.909 --> 00:06:41.820 As far as anyone can tell, it's the first use of the term "efficient earth to orbit 00:06:41.820 --> 00:06:47.870 space transportation system and economical space shuttle". 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, 00:06:53.610 --> 00:06:59.580 was rather grandiose in character. 00:06:59.580 --> 00:07:07.590 Especially the notion that the shuttle would operate in a mode similar to large commercial 00:07:07.590 --> 00:07:18.630 air transports and work in and out of major airports. 00:07:18.630 --> 00:07:24.070 Landing would be completely automated with prime dependence on spacecraft guidance with 00:07:24.070 --> 00:07:29.389 ground control backup. 00:07:29.389 --> 00:07:31.680 And this is a long talk. 00:07:31.680 --> 00:07:37.449 It's in the book I just mentioned. 00:07:37.449 --> 00:07:42.830 Then its basic design could be applied to point-to-point transport. 00:07:42.830 --> 00:07:47.949 If the Space Shuttle were used as a global transport, safety and comfort standards could 00:07:47.949 --> 00:07:50.690 be comparable to those of a large transport jet. 00:07:50.690 --> 00:07:54.630 It was probably not like business class in a 747. 00:07:54.630 --> 00:07:56.080 [LAUGHTER] 00:07:56.080 --> 00:07:58.680 Maybe like the Concorde. 00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:02.380 But that's certainly what they were talking about with the National Aerospace plane. 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. 00:08:09.740 --> 00:08:14.580 And you remember, when we talked about the rocket equation, we tried to make it clear 00:08:14.580 --> 00:08:16.310 why that is such a difficult thing to do. 00:08:16.310 --> 00:08:20.280 But, if you could do it, then you don't have to go all the way to orbit. 00:08:20.280 --> 00:08:24.960 You can just go halfway to orbit and land in Tokyo after you take off from London or 00:08:24.960 --> 00:08:25.960 New York. 00:08:25.960 --> 00:08:26.460 Right. 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 00:08:33.740 --> 00:08:40.769 set of the guy who I would call at least the policy father of the Space Shuttle, is that 00:08:40.769 --> 00:08:47.459 you could have an aircraft-like operations, two orders of magnitude of a level of safety 00:08:47.459 --> 00:08:53.040 and reliability and operability that it could even be used for commercial transport. 00:08:53.040 --> 00:09:05.420 As you know, NASA was successful in carrying out its mission of getting humans to the moon 00:09:05.420 --> 00:09:07.890 in July of 1969. 00:09:07.890 --> 00:09:16.510 When Nixon came into office in January of 1969, he had a transition taskforce on space. 00:09:16.510 --> 00:09:22.330 And that taskforce told him that there was a need for some decisions on what to do after 00:09:22.330 --> 00:09:24.000 Apollo. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:30.490 With the focus on getting Apollo done, the then head of NASA Jim Webb didn't like long-range 00:09:30.490 --> 00:09:30.790 planning. 00:09:30.790 --> 00:09:37.270 He wanted the politicians to tell NASA what to do, rather than the other way around. 00:09:37.270 --> 00:09:44.100 NASA was woefully unprepared for what it wanted to do after Apollo. 00:09:44.100 --> 00:09:46.770 And the country hadn't discussed it at all. 00:09:46.770 --> 00:09:53.870 Nixon appointed a so-called space task force, Space Task Group and asked it for definitive 00:09:53.870 --> 00:09:57.520 recommendations on the post-Apollo space program. 00:09:57.520 --> 00:10:05.100 That task group was chaired by the vice president who traditionally has had the space portfolio 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:06.830 in most administrations. 00:10:06.830 --> 00:10:10.769 At that time was a well-known space expert named Spiro Agnew. 00:10:10.769 --> 00:10:15.050 You're all too young for that to even be a joke. 00:10:15.050 --> 00:10:19.769 He was later caught taking bribes in the White House and resigned in shame. 00:10:19.769 --> 00:10:23.980 He was a typical Maryland politician, which means corrupt. 00:10:23.980 --> 00:10:24.700 [LAUGHTER] 00:10:24.700 --> 00:10:27.940 That's my home state. 00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:34.740 The Space Task Group was captured by NASA, by its then administrator Tom Paine who was 00:10:34.740 --> 00:10:37.160 a very bravado character. 00:10:37.160 --> 00:10:40.990 He told NASA that they should be swashbuckling. 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:46.330 And by Miller, who had developed a long-range plan for NASA. 00:10:46.330 --> 00:10:51.600 And, ultimately, by Wernher von Braun who was brought up to Washington to add the charisma 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:53.360 to the plan. 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 00:10:58.830 --> 00:11:11.959 Apollo 11 had these recommendations -- -- for what NASA should do. 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 00:11:20.089 --> 00:11:23.170 in the mid '80s. 00:11:23.170 --> 00:11:29.930 The program that was recommended ultimately was Program 2 which had mars in '86. 00:11:29.930 --> 00:11:33.320 And you see these comparative accomplishments. 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. 00:11:40.709 --> 00:11:48.029 That's where the shuttle entered into national policy, was in Nixon's reaction, or in the 00:11:48.029 --> 00:11:52.540 country's reaction to NASA's post-Apollo proposal. 00:11:52.540 --> 00:11:59.990 Again, just to give you a sense of this kind of thinking at that point, I'm not sure where 00:11:59.990 --> 00:12:01.649 this came from, to be frank. 00:12:01.649 --> 00:12:10.339 But you take the station, the space based and other stuff in this maximum program and 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, 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. 00:12:27.930 --> 00:12:31.339 So, these truly grandiose ideas of what might be done. 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 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:39.399 to maintain a six-man base either. 00:12:39.399 --> 00:12:42.019 [LAUGHTER] 00:12:42.019 --> 00:12:47.940 No, I think it was not every other week. 00:12:47.940 --> 00:12:50.300 Thirty flights a year. 00:12:50.300 --> 00:12:54.000 I think it was a three month rotation of a crew. 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:56.370 But they've got 30, 40 flights a year. 00:12:56.370 --> 00:12:58.110 Maybe logistics flights, I don't know. 00:12:58.110 --> 00:12:58.350 Logistics. 00:12:58.350 --> 00:12:59.709 And you're doing two things. 00:12:59.709 --> 00:13:03.690 You've got a six person station in orbit around the moon. 00:13:03.690 --> 00:13:03.690 Why? I don't know. 00:13:05.920 --> 00:13:08.029 And a six person base. 00:13:08.029 --> 00:13:13.860 The architecture, it was announced yesterday, culminates in the buildup of a four or more 00:13:13.860 --> 00:13:22.220 person lunar base with a passing mention that, oh yeah, we might go to mars. 00:13:22.220 --> 00:13:26.250 By the way, if anybody has comments or questions, interrupt me. 00:13:26.250 --> 00:13:28.480 Otherwise, I'll just drone on. 00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:28.910 Yeah, Larry. 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? 00:13:36.750 --> 00:13:39.480 It was the reason for its existence. 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 00:13:45.260 --> 00:13:52.180 station, period, at least in the core NASA planner's ideas. 00:13:52.180 --> 00:13:58.720 You had people like Miller who left the agency in September of '69 with these very grandiose 00:13:58.720 --> 00:13:59.290 ideas. 00:13:59.290 --> 00:14:03.440 He was succeeded by Dale Myers, who I understand has already talked to you. 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:11.360 And Myers was very instrumental in the negotiations that led ultimately to the decision to go 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:14.420 forward with the station. 00:14:14.420 --> 00:14:17.310 I remember the first time I heard the word space shuttle. 00:14:17.310 --> 00:14:22.339 As Jeff said, I've been at this a long time. 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 00:14:27.430 --> 00:14:31.880 of print, in late 1968. 00:14:31.880 --> 00:14:35.070 We tried to market it as a paperback. 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 00:14:39.269 --> 00:14:40.170 sent us to the moon. 00:14:40.170 --> 00:14:41.660 It didn't work. 00:14:41.660 --> 00:14:49.040 It had footnotes and all because it was a PhD dissertation. 00:14:49.040 --> 00:14:50.680 [LAUGHTER] 00:14:50.680 --> 00:14:57.720 Talking to an audience like this, they understand what a PhD dissertation looks like. 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 00:15:04.550 --> 00:15:10.790 rented a car so I was figuring on hitching a ride from Orlando to Coco Beach. 00:15:10.790 --> 00:15:15.760 And the person that I ended up driving to was a man named Leroy Day. 00:15:15.760 --> 00:15:17.350 Did you know Roy Day? 00:15:17.350 --> 00:15:22.889 Roy was, at that time, running the Phase A studies of the Space Shuttle. 00:15:22.889 --> 00:15:24.980 And he told me what he was doing. 00:15:24.980 --> 00:15:27.990 It was the first time I had heard of the concept. 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 00:15:35.389 --> 00:15:35.570 this. 00:15:35.570 --> 00:15:38.839 So, to go to your point, Larry. 00:15:38.839 --> 00:15:48.889 When NASA first presented its post-Apollo plans to the Congress in the spring of 1970, 00:15:48.889 --> 00:15:52.050 the program was called Station Shuttle. 00:15:52.050 --> 00:15:56.220 And they were coupled at the hip. 00:15:56.220 --> 00:16:02.440 And so it was the integral justification from the NASA side. 00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:08.160 Although, people like Dale Myers were already negotiating with their counterparts in the 00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:13.410 Department of Defense for potential military use of the system. 00:16:13.410 --> 00:16:18.500 Although, almost clearly this is before any military involvement or really commercial 00:16:18.500 --> 00:16:22.889 involvement came in because, when you look, there are only two unmanned satellites per 00:16:22.889 --> 00:16:26.660 year. 00:16:26.660 --> 00:16:28.470 This is the manifest to implement this. 00:16:28.470 --> 00:16:33.560 And that was purely as NASA program. 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:40.720 There was not much consideration of other users of the shuttle at this point because 00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:47.510 this was enough to justify the investment in a new vehicle. 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 00:16:53.750 --> 00:16:58.019 the logistics costs would drive you crazy if you were doing it with expendables. 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 00:17:06.019 --> 00:17:08.949 in the supply system, in the transportation system. 00:17:08.949 --> 00:17:11.909 That was, in essence, the number one requirement. 00:17:11.909 --> 00:17:18.419 Unfortunately, well, I don't know whether it was unfortunate but in reality the Nixon 00:17:18.419 --> 00:17:22.329 administration was not having any of this. 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 00:17:27.849 --> 00:17:29.049 of 1970. 00:17:29.049 --> 00:17:32.279 So, it took him six months to respond to the report. 00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:35.649 Meanwhile, NASA's budget was getting chopped to pieces. 00:17:35.649 --> 00:17:44.679 But it was essentially a fundamental 180 degree change in policy from Apollo. 00:17:44.679 --> 00:17:50.379 Now, Apollo was separate leaps requiring a massive concentration of energy. 00:17:50.379 --> 00:17:55.830 Space must take their proper place within a rigorous system of national priorities, 00:17:55.830 --> 00:17:59.279 must be planned in conjunction with all the other undertakings. 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 00:18:05.429 --> 00:18:07.470 federal budget. 00:18:07.470 --> 00:18:14.210 And at least for the Nixon administration, but in reality for every administration since, 00:18:14.210 --> 00:18:21.519 the answer has been essentially the same. 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 00:18:26.840 --> 00:18:35.019 89% the first year, 101% the second year, 38% the third year. 00:18:35.019 --> 00:18:38.889 And it's like a rollercoaster that gets to the top of the first hill. 00:18:38.889 --> 00:18:42.669 And the program has been living on that momentum every since. 00:18:42.669 --> 00:18:46.549 And you came down that hill very quickly. 00:18:46.549 --> 00:18:57.759 You see by '73 or '74, this value was percent of the federal budget, so it's kind of a constant 00:18:57.759 --> 00:18:58.119 measure. 00:18:58.119 --> 00:19:04.619 As the budget goes up, NASA gets essentially the same share of the federal budget. 00:19:04.619 --> 00:19:07.389 About seven-tenths or eight-tenths of one percent. 00:19:07.389 --> 00:19:11.869 And has gotten that share for 35 years. 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 00:19:21.779 --> 00:19:23.539 budget allocations. 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 00:19:29.619 --> 00:19:35.899 where space ranks in the scheme of national priorities according to the political leadership 00:19:35.899 --> 00:19:38.729 in the White House and Congress. 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 00:19:48.549 --> 00:19:54.090 is that NASA will stay at this level of expenditures. 00:19:54.090 --> 00:19:58.570 And that everything you want to do, going back to the moon, eventually to mars, has 00:19:58.570 --> 00:20:02.759 to be within that budget envelope, which means you have to design to that. 00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:07.669 And remember the fundamental systems engineering triad we talked about on several occasions, 00:20:07.669 --> 00:20:10.840 cost, schedule, performance. 00:20:10.840 --> 00:20:14.909 That clearly demonstrates cost is a fixed parameter. 00:20:14.909 --> 00:20:16.210 We don't have the freedom. 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. 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 00:20:31.340 --> 00:20:33.769 after the 1986 shuttle accident. 00:20:33.769 --> 00:20:38.039 It's a one-time cost of building another orbiter. 00:20:38.039 --> 00:20:48.710 And this was Bush 41, you may remember, or no, who announced a space exploration initiative 00:20:48.710 --> 00:20:51.179 on the 20th anniversary of Apollo. 00:20:51.179 --> 00:20:57.999 And he provided an increase in budget resources to carry out that initiative which, when Bill 00:20:57.999 --> 00:21:01.210 Clinton was elected, quickly got undone. 00:21:01.210 --> 00:21:10.090 And you see the result in the past few years. 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 00:21:18.519 --> 00:21:22.840 has had multiple impacts over 35 years. 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 00:21:27.609 --> 00:21:30.440 has resources. 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 00:21:35.239 --> 00:21:37.879 Investigation Board after the last accident. 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 00:21:42.899 --> 00:21:44.889 to do too much with too little. 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 00:21:51.119 --> 00:22:02.220 sloppiness that was at least a contributing factor in the Columbia accident. 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 00:22:10.929 --> 00:22:12.919 near its ambitions. 00:22:12.919 --> 00:22:21.559 And so NASA had to reinvent its program from what it had proposed in 1969. 00:22:21.559 --> 00:22:29.389 And, by the end of 1970, this is how budgets get done. 00:22:29.389 --> 00:22:35.609 This is a letter from the then head of NASA, Jim Fletcher, transmitting NASA's recommendations 00:22:35.609 --> 00:22:37.779 for the next year's budget. 00:22:37.779 --> 00:22:44.609 This happened last Monday, September the 12th this year, NASA submitted its formal budget 00:22:44.609 --> 00:22:46.549 proposal to the White House. 00:22:46.549 --> 00:22:48.759 Every year this starts the process. 00:22:48.759 --> 00:23:09.289 Well, you can read all this rhetoric later. 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 00:23:14.919 --> 00:23:17.489 by now but the Space Shuttle. 00:23:17.489 --> 00:23:24.399 It supports the last four of the presidents' six objectives, these four. 00:23:24.399 --> 00:23:37.789 And reflecting that decision, NASA announced, "We have made a major decision to defer development 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 00:23:44.409 --> 00:23:50.509 systems that can be launched, as well as serviced by the space shuttle." Again, a fundamental 00:23:50.509 --> 00:23:52.119 change in plans. 00:23:52.119 --> 00:23:58.799 The station that NASA was planning in 1969 would have been launched by the Saturn 5. 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 00:24:06.179 --> 00:24:10.919 building up to 50 person, maybe eventually 100 person outpost. 00:24:10.919 --> 00:24:16.619 This represented a major shift that said, number one, the shuttle becomes our number 00:24:16.619 --> 00:24:22.789 one priority, not the station, and the shuttle has to be designed to launch space station 00:24:22.789 --> 00:24:24.059 modules. 00:24:24.059 --> 00:24:26.619 That was the overriding NASA goal. 00:24:26.619 --> 00:24:39.830 And so I would argue or suggest that this decision made in late 1970 only separated 00:24:39.830 --> 00:24:51.119 in time shuttle and station that the intimate link between the two programs remained. 00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:54.859 It was just going to do them in sequence, rather than at the same time. 00:24:54.859 --> 00:24:58.509 And here we are 35 years later. 00:24:58.509 --> 00:25:07.019 And the major issue in getting started on exploration remains, what do you do with the 00:25:07.019 --> 00:25:08.940 shuttle, what do you do with the station? 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 00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:22.169 however you want to characterize. 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 00:25:31.969 --> 00:25:39.499 launches to space stations and lunar bases that you saw was no longer operative. 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 00:25:47.349 --> 00:25:52.929 decision process, the Office of Management and Budget kept saying well, how do you justify 00:25:52.929 --> 00:25:55.879 this investment? 00:25:55.879 --> 00:26:00.279 You're talking about a multi-billion dollar investment in the future. 00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:03.359 What is the justification for it? 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 00:26:10.320 --> 00:26:18.219 Management and Budget, used cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-benefit analysis as a tool 00:26:18.219 --> 00:26:19.499 in budget allocations. 00:26:19.499 --> 00:26:24.299 It had not been done, certainly not been done in the space program of the `60s. 00:26:24.299 --> 00:26:34.940 But OMB insisted that NASA show an economic justification for this investment. 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 00:26:42.249 --> 00:26:48.379 was no justification, how much economics do any of you get in this environment? 00:26:48.379 --> 00:26:55.489 I have never had an economics course, except at Jesuit undergraduate college called Christian 00:26:55.489 --> 00:26:59.219 economics, which may be a contradiction. 00:26:59.219 --> 00:26:59.749 Never mind. 00:26:59.749 --> 00:27:00.619 [LAUGHTER] 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 00:27:08.139 --> 00:27:16.769 insisted that NASA use a 10% discount rate, which is the future value of current money. 00:27:16.769 --> 00:27:23.659 And that's much higher than the discount rate applied to many other investments, because 00:27:23.659 --> 00:27:27.469 this was a long-term and risky investment. 00:27:27.469 --> 00:27:35.039 And so that meant the economic justification for the shuttle had to be very strong. 00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:43.940 And, throughout this process, there was this constant pressure on one hand to justify the 00:27:43.940 --> 00:27:45.609 shuttle economically. 00:27:45.609 --> 00:27:52.029 The only way that could be done, absent a space station or an ambitious NASA program, 00:27:52.029 --> 00:27:54.349 was finding other users. 00:27:54.349 --> 00:27:56.779 And this goes back to your comment earlier. 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 00:28:06.169 --> 00:28:10.889 economic justification for going ahead with the shuttle became totally dependent on the 00:28:10.889 --> 00:28:15.549 military willingness to use the vehicle. 00:28:15.549 --> 00:28:19.619 And military is a euphemism. 00:28:19.619 --> 00:28:25.729 Many of the payloads that were being discussed there were intelligence payloads operated 00:28:25.729 --> 00:28:31.479 by the organization called the National Reconnaissance Office which, at that time, the existence 00:28:31.479 --> 00:28:36.039 of the National Reconnaissance Office itself was classified. 00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:38.769 So, you could not say NRO satellites. 00:28:38.769 --> 00:28:39.419 You can say it now. 00:28:39.419 --> 00:28:44.899 NRO's existence was declassified in 1992. 00:28:44.899 --> 00:28:55.469 But, at that point, was all called Air Force or DOD satellite, many of which, including 00:28:55.469 --> 00:29:05.229 the most demanding were intelligence satellites. 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 00:29:15.450 --> 00:29:17.309 to launch space station modules. 00:29:17.309 --> 00:29:21.889 Professor Young may be able to comment. 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 00:29:26.789 --> 00:29:32.960 would be unwilling to live in tubes less than 14 feet across for long durations. 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:40.509 And so the shuttle had to be able to accommodate a 14 foot wide module. 00:29:40.509 --> 00:29:43.039 The length could be adjusted. 00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:54.859 But the military payloads, I think Hubble pointed down rather than pointed up. 00:29:54.859 --> 00:30:03.649 I think there's been enough discussion of it that I'm not revealing classified material. 00:30:03.649 --> 00:30:09.479 The reconnaissance equivalent of Hubble was the next generation reconnaissance satellite. 00:30:09.479 --> 00:30:13.639 And that was basically 55 feet long. 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 00:30:21.509 --> 00:30:25.119 many military and reconnaissance payloads. 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 00:30:31.839 --> 00:30:36.830 of the shuttle. 00:30:36.830 --> 00:30:41.649 The other military requirement was the desire, well, there were two. 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. 00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:54.450 You cannot launch into polar orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or Kennedy Space 00:30:54.450 --> 00:30:58.710 Center without flying over Boston. 00:30:58.710 --> 00:31:03.969 Actually, I guess you'd launch south flying over Miami and Cuba which, for range safety, 00:31:03.969 --> 00:31:05.169 is not a great idea. 00:31:05.169 --> 00:31:10.109 If you launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base out in California, you've got several thousands 00:31:10.109 --> 00:31:13.059 of miles of open ocean in front of you. 00:31:13.059 --> 00:31:20.739 The Air Force was in a nice position here because it could make up any requirements 00:31:20.739 --> 00:31:21.169 it wanted. 00:31:21.169 --> 00:31:25.919 We've actually talked about the cross-range. 00:31:25.919 --> 00:31:26.950 OK, you've talked about it. 00:31:26.950 --> 00:31:28.820 That's where the cross-range came from. 00:31:28.820 --> 00:31:35.440 And so you've talked about cross-range leading to delta wings, leading to heavier orbiter 00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:42.899 because of more thermal protection, but all of that came from the requirement of getting 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 00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:52.139 the economists the large upfront investment. 00:31:52.139 --> 00:32:07.679 Have you looked at anything like this? 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. 00:32:15.089 --> 00:32:20.099 As you see, Phase B proposals, a bunch of studies. 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 00:32:28.320 --> 00:32:33.169 to what was finally built. 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 00:32:37.389 --> 00:32:45.899 the difference between the preferred shuttle of Johnson Space Center and its chief designer 00:32:45.899 --> 00:32:54.179 Max Faget, which was a straight wing minimal cross-range shuttle, probably technically 00:32:54.179 --> 00:33:04.029 simpler to build and less expensive to build into a delta wing configuration that matched 00:33:04.029 --> 00:33:09.700 the Air Force cross-range requirement. 00:33:09.700 --> 00:33:15.039 What happened in June of 1971 was critical to this whole process. 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 00:33:23.909 --> 00:33:31.330 that would match the cross-range requirement and the big enough to launch space station 00:33:31.330 --> 00:33:36.669 modules it would cost in the order of $10 billion to $14 billion in investment cost 00:33:36.669 --> 00:33:40.200 with a peaks funding of $2 billion a year during the `70s. 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 00:33:49.700 --> 00:33:51.539 of $1 billion a year. 00:33:51.539 --> 00:33:57.629 If you want a shuttle at all, it has to fit within that budget curve. 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 00:34:03.979 --> 00:34:12.379 got from a fully reusable shuttle to first moving the liquid hydrogen tanks outside the 00:34:12.379 --> 00:34:15.750 orbiter air frame and throwing them away. 00:34:15.750 --> 00:34:21.469 Then coming up with the idea that you could put both the external oxygen and hydrogen 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 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 00:34:35.668 --> 00:34:41.510 used as part of the take-off thrust to the final configuration. 00:34:41.510 --> 00:34:51.440 At that point, June to December 1971, there were not zillions but hundreds of different 00:34:51.440 --> 00:34:58.460 variations of shuttle design being floated around and other designs to do something that 00:34:58.460 --> 00:35:10.700 was approximating but not totally -- What's the right word I want to say? 00:35:10.700 --> 00:35:15.160 Totally meeting all of the payload requirements that had been laid out. 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 00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:24.900 in this. 00:35:24.900 --> 00:35:27.180 And I'm not capable of talking about them. 00:35:27.180 --> 00:35:35.039 But as apprentice young system engineers, the notion that you could go from here, totally 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 00:35:39.940 --> 00:35:42.450 nervous. 00:35:42.450 --> 00:35:48.049 Why was the shuttle ultimately approved? 00:35:48.049 --> 00:35:55.450 OMB, the Office of Management and Budget was on one spectrum of the participants in this 00:35:55.450 --> 00:35:56.470 debate. 00:35:56.470 --> 00:36:02.470 It really didn't believe, its staff, in the value of human spaceflight. 00:36:02.470 --> 00:36:09.760 Its staff was, and is, the guardian of the federal budget, believed it was under the 00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:17.730 policy guidance of the Nixon administration to cut federal expenditures dramatically across 00:36:17.730 --> 00:36:18.799 the board. 00:36:18.799 --> 00:36:27.440 And so OMB, through this whole process, through a variety of interventions and changing demands 00:36:27.440 --> 00:36:36.240 on NASA and political interventions, getting leaked information from the aerospace industry 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, 00:36:47.289 --> 00:36:51.160 they say, in retrospect, went too far in trying to kill the shuttle. 00:36:51.160 --> 00:36:54.740 So they were at one end of the spectrum. 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 00:37:04.079 --> 00:37:11.700 for NASA as it viewed itself as a large organization built around human spaceflight and developing 00:37:11.700 --> 00:37:14.000 new large scale systems. 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:14.970 Yeah, Larry? 00:37:14.970 --> 00:37:15.940 [AUDIENCE QUESTION] 00:37:15.940 --> 00:37:25.309 OMB, not Congress, is what I'm talking about. 00:37:25.309 --> 00:37:26.700 Well, ask your question. 00:37:26.700 --> 00:37:33.269 Well, the fact that non-elected AUDIENCE: staffers, I was thinking of congressional 00:37:33.269 --> 00:37:33.299 staffers?. 00:37:33.299 --> 00:37:33.539 LOGSDON: Yeah, but OMB is the same thing. 00:37:33.539 --> 00:37:34.109 AUDIENCE: Have enormous influence over not only implementing but making policy. 00:37:34.109 --> 00:37:38.609 And they stay long after their term [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. 00:37:38.609 --> 00:37:46.839 LONGSDON: Any of you heard of Paul Shawcross? 00:37:46.839 --> 00:37:48.940 I wouldn't think so. 00:37:48.940 --> 00:37:51.400 Paul is an MIT graduate. 00:37:51.400 --> 00:37:56.319 He's the Examiner for Human Spaceflight in OMB right now. 00:37:56.319 --> 00:38:01.710 He did a TPP masters up here ten years ago or so. 00:38:01.710 --> 00:38:04.910 And he is leading the fight to ground the shuttle. 00:38:04.910 --> 00:38:12.170 Now, nobody knows his name unless you're inside the beltway. 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 00:38:20.690 --> 00:38:25.150 staff on the Hill are relatively accessible. 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 00:38:32.549 --> 00:38:33.510 them. 00:38:33.510 --> 00:38:38.430 Particularly back in this period 35 years ago, the OMB staff operated under a cloak 00:38:38.430 --> 00:38:43.140 of anonymity, weren't open to talking to industry people. 00:38:43.140 --> 00:38:45.170 It's changed a lot over the years. 00:38:45.170 --> 00:38:53.849 And were able to operate behind a wall of secrecy and push their agenda into national 00:38:53.849 --> 00:38:55.099 policy. 00:38:55.099 --> 00:39:01.700 It is my belief, after starting my 40th year in Washington. 00:39:01.700 --> 00:39:08.880 God, that's a long time. 00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:14.589 Most people outside of Washington think that Congress matters, but almost all the decisions 00:39:14.589 --> 00:39:20.240 that matter are made in the Executive Branch and Congress just snips at the margins, 2% 00:39:20.240 --> 00:39:21.359 or 3%. 00:39:21.359 --> 00:39:22.490 Yes, sir. 00:39:22.490 --> 00:39:28.680 How much did industry lobbying affect the design of the shuttle? 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, 00:39:35.089 --> 00:39:36.609 they were getting money from it. 00:39:36.609 --> 00:39:41.730 I assume they also were probably lobbying their senators for places like [OVERLAPPING 00:39:41.730 --> 00:39:42.480 VOICES]. 00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:48.460 I mean how much did industry [OVERLAPPING VOICES]? 00:39:48.460 --> 00:39:56.910 Well, if you look at this, all of industry had study contracts. 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. 00:40:03.190 --> 00:40:09.460 And Boeing, before it bought Rockwell, this was North American Rockwell that had built 00:40:09.460 --> 00:40:11.970 the Apollo Command Module. 00:40:11.970 --> 00:40:15.660 This was McDonnell Douglas. 00:40:15.660 --> 00:40:19.539 So, the major aerospace companies each had a concept. 00:40:19.539 --> 00:40:28.420 And they were lobbying or contending for the adoption of their concept rather than what 00:40:28.420 --> 00:40:33.180 you see now which is work shares of a single concept. 00:40:33.180 --> 00:40:38.490 But this was a decision totally inside the Executive Branch at this point. 00:40:38.490 --> 00:40:45.470 Congress was more or less supportive with the exception of one senator, Fritz Mondale, 00:40:45.470 --> 00:40:49.309 Walter Mondale who kept asking some difficult questions. 00:40:49.309 --> 00:40:53.170 And NASA had its preferred concept. 00:40:53.170 --> 00:41:00.900 MSC is Manned Space Craft Center, what's now Johnson Space Center. 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 00:41:08.910 --> 00:41:19.420 the side, at that point they weren't necessarily solid rockets, to enable a cheaper configuration. 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 00:41:26.319 --> 00:41:30.460 Orbiter after all these design requirements. 00:41:30.460 --> 00:41:41.480 With the Grumman McDonnell Douglas concept of an expendable external tank and recoverable 00:41:41.480 --> 00:41:42.200 strap-ons. 00:41:42.200 --> 00:41:44.710 I don't want to say solids. 00:41:44.710 --> 00:41:52.109 What came out of this was an amalgamation of everybody's ideas. 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 00:41:59.450 --> 00:42:06.940 points to North American, had a relationship with the OMB that was feeding OMB questions 00:42:06.940 --> 00:42:10.730 that would embarrass their competitors. 00:42:10.730 --> 00:42:17.440 Or, result in not doing the shuttle at all and continuing on with the existing systems 00:42:17.440 --> 00:42:25.750 where North American was building at least the Apollo Command Module. 00:42:25.750 --> 00:42:30.529 Players in this included the economic analysis. 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 00:42:40.119 --> 00:42:51.119 by a company called Mathematica, which was founded by Oscar Morgenstern, an economist 00:42:51.119 --> 00:42:56.740 at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. 00:42:56.740 --> 00:43:03.529 And his young colleague, Klaus Heiss, was and is an Austrian somewhat crazy economist. 00:43:03.529 --> 00:43:10.369 Again, that may be the same thing, crazy and economist. 00:43:10.369 --> 00:43:17.220 And they had the contract to do the external economic analysis for the shuttle. 00:43:17.220 --> 00:43:28.990 And they came up, through their analysis, with the conclusion that a reusable system 00:43:28.990 --> 00:43:32.299 is economically feasible at the current level of activity. 00:43:32.299 --> 00:43:41.960 And that a thrust-assisted, that's the strap-ons, shuttle is the economically preferred choice. 00:43:41.960 --> 00:43:51.910 This is economists designing technical systems, another thing that would make me nervous. 00:43:51.910 --> 00:43:57.049 And this goes back to your comment earlier, the demand for space transportation by NASA, 00:43:57.049 --> 00:44:01.890 the Department of Defense, but particularly by commercial and other users is the basis 00:44:01.890 --> 00:44:06.039 for economic justification. 00:44:06.039 --> 00:44:15.220 The economic analysis had, as an input, a demand model that was totally unconstrained. 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 00:44:21.890 --> 00:44:24.490 next 15 years. 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 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 00:44:38.319 --> 00:44:46.619 Aerospace Corporation given to Mathematica to play with in its economic analysis. 00:44:46.619 --> 00:44:54.430 It's not clear how influential this set of recommendations was in the final decision 00:44:54.430 --> 00:44:56.339 to proceed. 00:44:56.339 --> 00:45:01.759 Klaus Heiss, who is still very active, claims it was very influential. 00:45:01.759 --> 00:45:07.069 I tend to think, well, you'll see my explanation why the shuttle was chosen. 00:45:07.069 --> 00:45:18.880 These are the kind of economic comparisons that were talked about. 00:45:18.880 --> 00:45:28.259 The launch vehicle investment costs, nonrecurrent, were clearly much greater for the new shuttle 00:45:28.259 --> 00:45:37.289 system, but the recurring costs of operations were much less than using the current system. 00:45:37.289 --> 00:45:37.779 What is that? 00:45:37.779 --> 00:45:41.680 Almost $6 billion. 00:45:41.680 --> 00:45:48.539 This is 514 space shuttle flights over a twelve year or eleven year period. 00:45:48.539 --> 00:45:51.009 Eleven, I guess. 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. 00:46:00.390 --> 00:46:06.099 It always interests me when people do modeling like that. 00:46:06.099 --> 00:46:11.480 You notice they chose the number 514, not 513 or 515. 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. 00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:16.809 [AUDIENCE QUESTION] 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. 00:46:23.750 --> 00:46:28.670 But that's the number that will make it work, I suppose. 00:46:28.670 --> 00:46:28.670 [LAUGHTER] Now, that would be rigging the analysis, wouldn't it? 00:46:31.680 --> 00:46:35.319 Look at how round the numbers are at the bottom, too. 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. 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 00:46:51.329 --> 00:46:57.339 of the shuttle you could make the payloads much less expensive. 00:46:57.339 --> 00:47:02.839 You didn't have to design them to space program standards if you want. 00:47:02.839 --> 00:47:04.329 Here are the payloads. 00:47:04.329 --> 00:47:11.990 Instead of costing $18 billion over this period, we're going to cost $12 billion. 00:47:11.990 --> 00:47:17.750 That's a $6 billion savings in payload. 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 00:47:26.279 --> 00:47:32.849 advantage in the economic argument for going ahead with the shuttle. 00:47:32.849 --> 00:47:37.980 Bush 41 later used the term, which I think is properly applied to this analysis, calling 00:47:37.980 --> 00:47:41.690 it voodoo economics. 00:47:41.690 --> 00:47:49.089 And I think most of the people involved in this decision recognize that. 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 00:47:58.740 --> 00:48:05.440 of Science and Technology, now called OSTP, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and 00:48:05.440 --> 00:48:10.200 its President Science Advisory Committee called PSAC. 00:48:10.200 --> 00:48:15.630 What does PSAC mean? 00:48:15.630 --> 00:48:19.769 President Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. 00:48:19.769 --> 00:48:27.630 And so the science advisor who was actually an engineer, not a scientist, named Ed David, 00:48:27.630 --> 00:48:39.420 commissioned a PSAC, President Science Advisory Committee study to look at NASA's proposals 00:48:39.420 --> 00:48:43.039 as a basis for the position he would take in White House debates. 00:48:43.039 --> 00:48:58.230 Head chair of that study was Alexander Flax who was President of the Institute for Defense 00:48:58.230 --> 00:49:01.789 Analyses, a think-tank in Washington. 00:49:01.789 --> 00:49:08.490 And this was a kind of summary report that Flax sent in about the panel. 00:49:08.490 --> 00:49:13.329 Doubt that a viable shuttle program can be undertaken without a degree of national commitment 00:49:13.329 --> 00:49:18.289 over the long-term analogous to that which sustained the Apollo program. 00:49:18.289 --> 00:49:22.930 It may be attainable but is certainly not apparent at this time. 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. 00:49:27.170 --> 00:49:36.099 In retrospect, I think this advice was sound advice that was provided. 00:49:36.099 --> 00:49:41.839 Maintaining the program is large and risky with the long-term prospect of fixed budget 00:49:41.839 --> 00:49:49.029 ceilings does not bode well for the future of the program. 00:49:49.029 --> 00:49:53.869 Some decisions had been taken which introduce additional hazards to the success of the program 00:49:53.869 --> 00:49:59.339 technically, operationally and economically in order to reduce projected peak-year funding 00:49:59.339 --> 00:50:04.990 requirements. 00:50:04.990 --> 00:50:12.119 At that point, I think the strap-ons, firing the main engines at liftoff. 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. 00:50:21.289 --> 00:50:29.859 And basically what the PSAC panel recommended was postponing the decision for a year or 00:50:29.859 --> 00:50:33.769 more while some of the uncertainties were studied. 00:50:33.769 --> 00:50:35.849 General view. 00:50:35.849 --> 00:50:42.950 No significant role for manned spaceflight in military and civilian or science. 00:50:42.950 --> 00:50:48.039 Didn't believe NASA's suggestion that the shuttle would allow experimenters to conduct 00:50:48.039 --> 00:50:50.579 their activities in spaceflight. 00:50:50.579 --> 00:50:53.089 Evoke no enthusiasm from the scientists. 00:50:53.089 --> 00:50:54.880 You can counter that obviously. 00:50:54.880 --> 00:51:00.220 The shuttle was not a wonderful laboratory for most applications. 00:51:00.220 --> 00:51:18.740 The scientific community in large doubts the potential benefits of the space shuttle. 00:51:18.740 --> 00:51:25.049 Manned spaceflight should be considered contributions in terms of national prestige, international 00:51:25.049 --> 00:51:32.079 cooperation, exploration and unforeseen future needs. 00:51:32.079 --> 00:51:38.319 Basically, the justification was really kind of arm-waving intangibles, some of which I 00:51:38.319 --> 00:51:41.490 think are very real like prestige and cooperation. 00:51:41.490 --> 00:51:59.880 [Jump back a little bit to the?] 00:51:59.880 --> 00:52:11.259 science enthusiasm or lack of it, because I think there was a clear division in the 00:52:11.259 --> 00:52:18.499 science community then between the "real space scientist" and [OVERLAPPING VOICES] 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 00:52:20.049 --> 00:52:20.220 to be happening. 00:52:20.220 --> 00:52:21.890 But without any real data Skylab was the first long duration exposure. 00:52:21.890 --> 00:52:26.150 And the life science community did not have the high step in the space science community 00:52:26.150 --> 00:52:26.710 at that point. 00:52:26.710 --> 00:52:28.890 Space science was dominated by physicists. 00:52:28.890 --> 00:52:41.089 And, in fact, even within the NASA hierarchy. 00:52:41.089 --> 00:52:44.529 I think at that point it was still part of space medicine. 00:52:44.529 --> 00:52:45.569 Right, crew medicine. 00:52:45.569 --> 00:52:46.720 So, yes, that split was there. 00:52:46.720 --> 00:52:51.499 It must be noted that new approaches have often not been recognized or appreciated by 00:52:51.499 --> 00:52:56.579 the putative users until after they've been demonstrated. 00:52:56.579 --> 00:52:56.940 Yeah, Mark. 00:52:56.940 --> 00:53:03.529 Didn't Hubble then conveniently make scientists excited about the shuttle? 00:53:03.529 --> 00:53:04.779 Some. 00:53:04.779 --> 00:53:08.849 But, again, only after. 00:53:08.849 --> 00:53:12.579 We don't want to talk about why. 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 00:53:19.130 --> 00:53:25.400 to it being serviced was a good tradeoff compared to where you want a telescope. 00:53:25.400 --> 00:53:29.779 If you would have been designing this large space telescope in 1970, would you have made 00:53:29.779 --> 00:53:30.499 it shuttle launched? 00:53:30.499 --> 00:53:33.650 Well, everything had to be shuttle launched then. 00:53:33.650 --> 00:53:41.730 I mean given the history of Hubble, obviously, had it been put in an inaccessible orbit, 00:53:41.730 --> 00:53:44.329 we wouldn't have a space telescope now. 00:53:44.329 --> 00:53:50.059 So what can you say? 00:53:50.059 --> 00:53:54.380 Again, the shuttle cannot be justified on a purely economic basis for the unmanned portion 00:53:54.380 --> 00:53:59.190 of the program so it's a position directly opposite the thing I showed you before. 00:53:59.190 --> 00:54:05.299 It must be justified on the basis of new capability, contribution to leadership and prestige, its 00:54:05.299 --> 00:54:10.220 unique value if we're going to have intensity of infrequent manned spaceflight. 00:54:10.220 --> 00:54:19.210 And you have to postulate expanding rather than level space budgets over the next ten 00:54:19.210 --> 00:54:19.599 years. 00:54:19.599 --> 00:54:24.269 And the Nixon administration said that wasn't going to happen. 00:54:24.269 --> 00:54:42.930 Again, the somewhat bottom line of the PSAC position -- -- led to the conclusion that 00:54:42.930 --> 00:54:46.619 if you had to make a choice in 1971, you had two choices. 00:54:46.619 --> 00:54:53.980 Either proceed with the shuttle program now or soon or drop manned spaceflight after Skylab. 00:54:53.980 --> 00:54:57.779 And nobody likes binomial choices like that. 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 00:55:06.880 --> 00:55:09.880 head towards the end of 1971. 00:55:09.880 --> 00:55:14.289 Actually, that brings into sharp relief. 00:55:14.289 --> 00:55:18.989 Remember the comment that Professor Cohen made when he was talking about what should 00:55:18.989 --> 00:55:24.880 a systems engineer do when presented with requirements that you're not really happy 00:55:24.880 --> 00:55:28.880 with and don't know if you can meet? 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 00:55:34.700 --> 00:55:39.799 the shuttle that was being specified they probably were going to end up with nothing 00:55:39.799 --> 00:55:40.279 at all. 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 00:55:48.170 --> 00:55:48.749 at the time. 00:55:48.749 --> 00:55:52.769 It wasn't the shuttle or something else. 00:55:52.769 --> 00:55:54.509 It was the shuttle or nothing. 00:55:54.509 --> 00:56:01.339 Well, except at the end people like PSAC and OMB kept suggesting alternatives. 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 00:56:08.579 --> 00:56:16.319 and kind of the technical strength in this thing, showing the investment costs versus, 00:56:16.319 --> 00:56:22.359 this is in billions, this is in millions, the cost of operations for various things. 00:56:22.359 --> 00:56:27.960 The two-stage fully reusable, $10 billion investment, low operating cost. 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. 00:56:34.299 --> 00:56:37.309 Within three weeks it was $5 billion. 00:56:37.309 --> 00:56:46.789 A phase development, develop a simpler one first and then a more complex orbiter later 00:56:46.789 --> 00:56:59.039 with the large payload bay and various rocket assists developing a smaller one, smaller 00:56:59.039 --> 00:57:07.480 payload, smaller bay, or developing a Titan 3 launched glider sort of thing. 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 00:57:12.950 --> 00:57:20.210 knee and the curve on that basis. 00:57:20.210 --> 00:57:31.640 NASA made its last best case in a memo to the White House. 00:57:31.640 --> 00:57:33.739 This is dated November the 22nd. 00:57:33.739 --> 00:57:38.619 I think it shows up at the top. 00:57:38.619 --> 00:57:40.430 And look at these reasonings. 00:57:40.430 --> 00:57:43.190 This is really NASA's best case. 00:57:43.190 --> 00:57:52.910 Number one, the US has to stay in the human spaceflight business. 00:57:52.910 --> 00:57:55.940 That's not subject to analysis. 00:57:55.940 --> 00:57:57.749 That's a belief. 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 00:58:09.499 --> 00:58:10.440 humans in space. 00:58:10.440 --> 00:58:16.589 And the shuttle is the only meaningful new manned space program, the operative word being 00:58:16.589 --> 00:58:17.680 "new". 00:58:17.680 --> 00:58:23.759 You could have kept launching Apollo capsules and Saturn 1bs or something. 00:58:23.759 --> 00:58:25.980 Saturn 5 had been cancelled by then. 00:58:25.980 --> 00:58:34.999 The shuttle is a necessary next step for science applications, military position in international 00:58:34.999 --> 00:58:37.489 competition and cooperation. 00:58:37.489 --> 00:58:41.809 The cost and complexity is one-half of what it was six months ago. 00:58:41.809 --> 00:58:46.579 Again, as engineers, that statement ought to be very nervous that in six months you 00:58:46.579 --> 00:58:51.519 can cut cost and complexity in half. 00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:57.529 And starting the shuttle now will have a significant positive effect in aerospace employment. 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. 00:59:03.230 --> 00:59:07.029 Let me talk about that last one. 00:59:07.029 --> 00:59:12.759 Those, I think, were NASA's five best reasons for going ahead. 00:59:12.759 --> 00:59:15.829 Employment impact was one of them. 00:59:15.829 --> 00:59:22.619 This is an undated memorandum from somebody within OMB. 00:59:22.619 --> 00:59:30.089 Peter Flanagan was Nixon's top person right at the intersection of policy and politics 00:59:30.089 --> 00:59:34.319 who was overseeing the space program. 00:59:34.319 --> 00:59:40.749 And Flanagan had asked for impact of the shuttle on the aerospace industry. 00:59:40.749 --> 00:59:45.650 And this is what came back. 00:59:45.650 --> 00:59:54.499 What the program is. 00:59:54.499 --> 01:00:03.140 Here is the additional employment impact on the engine program space shuttle. 01:00:03.140 --> 01:00:04.779 Main engine. 01:00:04.779 --> 01:00:06.829 Not very much in early '70. 01:00:06.829 --> 01:00:08.749 This is '71. 01:00:08.749 --> 01:00:18.440 But in '72 fairly significant employment impacts in either California or Florida. 01:00:18.440 --> 01:00:29.589 And on the airframe, 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 01:00:39.190 --> 01:00:42.470 not very big, but big enough. 01:00:42.470 --> 01:00:46.539 Peak of 70,000 jobs might ultimately result. 01:00:46.539 --> 01:00:52.460 The number of actual jobs by the end of 1972 would be relatively small. 01:00:52.460 --> 01:00:56.519 Why do you think 1972? 01:00:56.519 --> 01:01:02.920 You have to recreate the environment of the time. 01:01:02.920 --> 01:01:04.960 This was 1971. 01:01:04.960 --> 01:01:09.049 The supersonic transport had been cancelled. 01:01:09.049 --> 01:01:13.630 Defense spending on Vietnam was ramping down. 01:01:13.630 --> 01:01:16.460 NASA had no new program. 01:01:16.460 --> 01:01:23.730 And, in doing the article that Jeff mentioned on the space shuttle decision, I ended up 01:01:23.730 --> 01:01:28.950 one afternoon in, of all places, Santa Fe, New Mexico talking to John Ehrlich, one of 01:01:28.950 --> 01:01:29.819 Nixon's top guys. 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 01:01:39.660 --> 01:01:47.480 said if we want to win the 1972 election, again this is political history well before 01:01:47.480 --> 01:01:47.859 your time. 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 01:01:53.019 --> 01:01:54.900 candidate. 01:01:54.900 --> 01:02:00.999 It wasn't George McGovern who was, for better or for worse, not a serious opponent. 01:02:00.999 --> 01:02:08.019 So that the political people were worried about winning places like California and Florida 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 01:02:17.299 --> 01:02:18.700 states. 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 01:02:23.579 --> 01:02:28.809 levels of the White House, that was the major reason for going ahead with this program. 01:02:28.809 --> 01:02:33.960 Was in order to have aerospace employment impacts for the '72 election. 01:02:33.960 --> 01:02:40.069 You can judge whether that's a good reason or not. 01:02:40.069 --> 01:02:44.309 The decision kept getting postponed until very late in the budget process. 01:02:44.309 --> 01:02:48.999 OMB kept asking for more studies. 01:02:48.999 --> 01:02:56.210 This was a letter to the Deputy Director of OMB, Caspar Weinberger, later Secretary of 01:02:56.210 --> 01:03:03.329 Defense, which NASA said we've concluded the full capability still represents a best buy. 01:03:03.329 --> 01:03:10.960 But, in recognition of budget problems, we are recommending a smaller vehicle, 14 x 45, 01:03:10.960 --> 01:03:17.309 because that is the smallest that will still be useful for manned spaceflight, Reid Space 01:03:17.309 --> 01:03:19.049 Station. 01:03:19.049 --> 01:03:28.089 It won't accommodate many DOD payloads and some planetary payloads. 01:03:28.089 --> 01:03:29.538 And here are the numbers. 01:03:29.538 --> 01:03:32.380 I don't know whether you've seen these numbers yet. 01:03:32.380 --> 01:03:39.710 Attached to this letter, this is what NASA was telling the White House last business 01:03:39.710 --> 01:03:48.769 day of 1971 what the cost of various shuttle configurations would be. 01:03:48.769 --> 01:03:56.299 You notice very little difference in the development cost of the configurations, eight-tenths of 01:03:56.299 --> 01:04:05.819 a billion dollars between a very small and less capable and the full size fully capable. 01:04:05.819 --> 01:04:13.680 And the operating cost relatively low across the board. 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. 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 01:04:31.299 --> 01:04:36.749 where these numbers came from and where they ever possible? 01:04:36.749 --> 01:04:37.710 I shouldn't bias the answer. 01:04:37.710 --> 01:04:39.900 Were they ever a possible realization? 01:04:39.900 --> 01:04:47.180 I mean here are the heads of the leading technical organization in the US government presenting 01:04:47.180 --> 01:04:49.609 these figures to the White House. 01:04:49.609 --> 01:04:56.519 Did NASA lose its technical integrity in this process, was there any foundation for these 01:04:56.519 --> 01:05:04.839 numbers or where these total salesmanship, are all, I think, valid questions. 01:05:04.839 --> 01:05:08.640 You said you took a two-minute stretch break. 01:05:08.640 --> 01:05:10.339 Yeah. 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 01:05:16.150 --> 01:05:16.720 with the shuttle. 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 01:05:51.650 --> 01:06:04.220 of this last six months or so of 1971 back and forth when it occurred. 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 01:06:14.430 --> 01:06:24.288 Shultz, by Cap Weinberger to the President in which he is talking about the staff proposals 01:06:24.288 --> 01:06:31.450 for reducing the NASA budget, which included eliminating the last two Apollo flights and 01:06:31.450 --> 01:06:33.670 eliminating Manned Spaceflight. 01:06:33.670 --> 01:06:39.509 And Weinberger said in this memo to the President, I believe this would be a mistake. 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 01:06:45.839 --> 01:06:48.329 not doing a thing. 01:06:48.329 --> 01:06:54.920 That the uncontrollable programs that offer no real hope for the future, this is remember 01:06:54.920 --> 01:07:01.339 a republican administration, are eating up the budget. 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. 01:07:11.450 --> 01:07:16.529 There is real merit in the future of NASA. 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. 01:07:24.220 --> 01:07:32.869 And he says stopping Apollo and not starting new programs would be confirming a belief, 01:07:32.869 --> 01:07:35.700 I fear, is gaining credence at home and abroad. 01:07:35.700 --> 01:07:37.799 Our best years are behind us. 01:07:37.799 --> 01:07:42.979 We are turning inward, reducing our defense commitments, involuntarily starting to give 01:07:42.979 --> 01:07:47.910 up our superpower status and our desire to maintain our world's superiority. 01:07:47.910 --> 01:07:49.660 [LAUGHTER] 01:07:49.660 --> 01:07:55.089 America should be able to afford something besides increased welfare. 01:07:55.089 --> 01:07:55.979 Notice the underlining. 01:07:55.979 --> 01:08:04.079 And this came back with a handwritten note, I agree with Cap. 01:08:04.079 --> 01:08:07.059 That's Nixon. 01:08:07.059 --> 01:08:12.829 My view, the decision was made with those four words. 01:08:12.829 --> 01:08:13.089 Yeah? 01:08:13.089 --> 01:08:15.210 Just out of ignorance, who is Weinberger? 01:08:15.210 --> 01:08:21.299 Weinberger at that time was the number two person in the office of Management and Budget, 01:08:21.299 --> 01:08:29.549 long-time California associate of Nixon, became Secretary of Defense under Reagan. 01:08:29.549 --> 01:08:37.068 Who he is, in a sense, irrelevant, except he was a political appointee and a trusted 01:08:37.068 --> 01:08:41.059 associate of the President. 01:08:41.059 --> 01:08:49.630 And basically he was telling Nixon that the reason for continuing the space program was 01:08:49.630 --> 01:08:51.540 image. 01:08:51.540 --> 01:08:54.920 I mean, again, read those words because they're interesting words. 01:08:54.920 --> 01:09:02.198 Not having the strongest space program would confirm our lack of desire to maintain our 01:09:02.198 --> 01:09:08.599 world's superiority. 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 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 01:09:21.830 --> 01:09:22.359 45. 01:09:22.359 --> 01:09:28.549 That was a Friday, the 29th of December, or maybe earlier in the week. 01:09:28.549 --> 01:09:36.690 Anyway, over that New Year's weekend, '71, '72, somehow somewhere Nixon and his inner 01:09:36.690 --> 01:09:41.460 circle decided to approve the shuttle and approve the full-size shuttle. 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 01:09:44.599 --> 01:09:47.690 NASA thinks is best. 01:09:47.690 --> 01:09:55.920 And there was a meeting scheduled between NASA leadership and the President in the San 01:09:55.920 --> 01:10:02.760 Clemente on January the 5th. 01:10:02.760 --> 01:10:05.409 This is written by George Low. 01:10:05.409 --> 01:10:06.820 For a historian, Dr. 01:10:06.820 --> 01:10:08.340 Low was wonderful. 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 01:10:14.460 --> 01:10:16.940 documents. 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. 01:10:21.750 --> 01:10:23.520 Met for 40 minutes. 01:10:23.520 --> 01:10:26.889 Here's what the President had to say. 01:10:26.889 --> 01:10:30.580 We should not hesitate to mention the military applications. 01:10:30.580 --> 01:10:31.650 Routine operations. 01:10:31.650 --> 01:10:36.159 Quick reaction times. 01:10:36.159 --> 01:10:38.210 Solar power satellites. 01:10:38.210 --> 01:10:41.800 These kinds of things tend to happen more quickly than we expect. 01:10:41.800 --> 01:10:44.320 Nuclear waste disposal. 01:10:44.320 --> 01:10:50.090 He liked the fact that ordinary people would be able to fly in the shuttle. 01:10:50.090 --> 01:10:53.730 Preserve the skills of the people in the aerospace industry. 01:10:53.730 --> 01:10:57.820 In summary, we do not know of the things the shuttle will be able to do. 01:10:57.820 --> 01:10:59.820 It will open up entirely new fields. 01:10:59.820 --> 01:11:05.449 Did we think it was a good investment? 01:11:05.449 --> 01:11:08.030 We, the top two leaders of NASA. 01:11:08.030 --> 01:11:10.650 It's not a $7 billion toy. 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 01:11:15.449 --> 01:11:17.530 because spaceflight is here to stay. 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, 01:11:24.010 --> 01:11:28.590 which was essentially what Weinberger had said six months earlier. 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 01:11:36.650 --> 01:11:38.800 and Ehrlichman and others around that. 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 01:11:48.070 --> 01:11:53.070 impacts in the '72 election that were the fundamental reasons for going ahead with the 01:11:53.070 --> 01:11:55.719 shuttle. 01:11:55.719 --> 01:12:01.949 You may make a judgment that those aren't great reasons, but there they were. 01:12:01.949 --> 01:12:10.719 Finally, the decision was made, say, January 3rd, we would develop a shuttle with the big 01:12:10.719 --> 01:12:11.900 shuttle. 01:12:11.900 --> 01:12:16.980 And the only major open issue was whether to use a liquid or solid strap-on. 01:12:16.980 --> 01:12:30.139 And that was studied for three months. 01:12:30.139 --> 01:12:33.230 Trade-off between future benefits and earlier savings. 01:12:33.230 --> 01:12:46.639 Liquid boosters have lower operating cost, solid boosters have lower development cost. 01:12:46.639 --> 01:12:51.659 Conclusions here are heavily dependent on the mission model. 01:12:51.659 --> 01:13:00.080 The basic concern was keeping within the development cost of the shuttle and somebody else worry 01:13:00.080 --> 01:13:07.420 later about operating costs. 01:13:07.420 --> 01:13:20.330 All of that argument led to a decision in favor of the solid booster. 01:13:20.330 --> 01:13:27.489 The rest of this is kind of irrelevant to that. 01:13:27.489 --> 01:13:33.869 Basically with the OMB acceptance of this letter and the choice of the solids, the configuration 01:13:33.869 --> 01:13:34.739 was frozen. 01:13:34.739 --> 01:13:39.510 There were some things in it that I'm sure you'll talk about later. 01:13:39.510 --> 01:13:43.360 There was at that point it had abort capability on the solids. 01:13:43.360 --> 01:13:47.330 I'm not quite sure how that would have worked. 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 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. 01:14:00.320 --> 01:14:01.790 And those were taken out. 01:14:01.790 --> 01:14:14.880 And I think it was after this, but I'm not sure. 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 01:14:26.800 --> 01:14:27.550 differently. 01:14:27.550 --> 01:14:34.489 The reason for approving the shuttle had very little to do with the specific technical characteristics 01:14:34.489 --> 01:14:38.000 of the system. 01:14:38.000 --> 01:14:43.580 If my argument that the main reasons were national prestige, national image, aerospace 01:14:43.580 --> 01:14:50.179 employment rather than the actual performance characteristics of a particular configuration. 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 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 01:15:08.420 --> 01:15:11.869 useful to both civilian and military users. 01:15:11.869 --> 01:15:17.020 Those were the drivers of the shuttle decision. 01:15:17.020 --> 01:15:22.639 And the technology was derivative of that rather than the other way around. 01:15:22.639 --> 01:15:29.520 That presented challenges, as I'm sure Aaron Cohen or Jeff have talked about, of developing 01:15:29.520 --> 01:15:35.639 thermal protection, developing a main engine, developing a vehicle that could operate in 01:15:35.639 --> 01:15:37.320 multiple flight regimes. 01:15:37.320 --> 01:15:44.080 But those were secondary to the policy decision that the country should go ahead with this 01:15:44.080 --> 01:15:44.619 capability. 01:15:44.619 --> 01:15:49.530 Questions? 01:15:49.530 --> 01:15:50.380 Comments? 01:15:50.380 --> 01:15:51.010 Reactions? 01:15:51.010 --> 01:15:51.540 Yes, sir. 01:15:51.540 --> 01:15:52.300 One quick question. 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 01:15:58.139 --> 01:16:00.750 about first flight was '77 and fully operational by '79. 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 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 01:16:11.690 --> 01:16:12.559 let's take our time. 01:16:12.559 --> 01:16:12.750 Because there wasn't the race anymore. 01:16:12.750 --> 01:16:12.989 I mean we had done the Apollo. 01:16:12.989 --> 01:16:13.159 We had beaten the Russians. 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 01:16:23.239 --> 01:16:30.860 finish it by the late `70s and why not say let's launch it mid `80s? 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 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 01:16:47.830 --> 01:16:49.260 acceptable. 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 01:16:57.219 --> 01:17:02.000 were three flights to the Skylab Space Station in 1973. 01:17:02.000 --> 01:17:09.309 The thing that followed that, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, had not yet been agreed on. 01:17:09.309 --> 01:17:12.800 That wasn't agreed until May of '72. 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 01:17:19.670 --> 01:17:20.070 space. 01:17:20.070 --> 01:17:24.610 And I think the general sense was that that was not acceptable. 01:17:24.610 --> 01:17:36.360 Also, you had a workforce issue of maintaining the workforce with something to do at Johnson, 01:17:36.360 --> 01:17:43.290 by then not yet Johnson, but Manned Spacecraft Center, Marshall Spaceflight Center and Kennedy. 01:17:43.290 --> 01:17:50.520 And so you needed a relatively rapid development program so that you didn't either disassemble 01:17:50.520 --> 01:17:52.530 the teams and have to reassemble them later. 01:17:52.530 --> 01:17:58.969 And the same for the capability inside the industry. 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 01:18:07.469 --> 01:18:12.210 industrial base in a reasonable timeframe. 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 01:18:19.750 --> 01:18:22.949 earliest we can do it on this budget profile. 01:18:22.949 --> 01:18:23.420 Yes, sir. 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 01:18:28.989 --> 01:18:31.639 costs as opposed to the operating costs. 01:18:31.639 --> 01:18:44.400 And now, in this new architecture, the plan is to use the solid rocket booster. 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 01:18:55.929 --> 01:18:56.040 along those lines. 01:18:56.040 --> 01:18:56.110 It's true. 01:18:56.110 --> 01:18:56.909 You've launched 228 of them with one failure. 01:18:56.909 --> 01:18:58.360 I agree. 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 01:19:08.199 --> 01:19:11.820 development costs and sacrificing operating costs. 01:19:11.820 --> 01:19:19.210 Is sticking with solids in the same configuration now kind of repeating the same possible mistake? 01:19:19.210 --> 01:19:20.960 Well, I don't know. 01:19:20.960 --> 01:19:27.360 First you seem to assume that going with solids in the first place was a mistake. 01:19:27.360 --> 01:19:30.840 That a liquid strap-on solution would have been a better solution. 01:19:30.840 --> 01:19:34.280 I'm not necessarily assuming that. 01:19:34.280 --> 01:19:35.760 Many have argued that. 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. 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 01:19:46.130 --> 01:19:48.320 it, and what happens when that lands in the ocean? 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 01:19:55.070 --> 01:19:56.809 it's been exposed to salt water? 01:19:56.809 --> 01:20:01.300 And we don't know the answer to that. 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 01:20:06.699 --> 01:20:14.730 as it was presented yesterday, which is being driven heavily, the choices are being driven 01:20:14.730 --> 01:20:15.969 by budget ceilings again. 01:20:15.969 --> 01:20:38.219 An interesting question, Mark, is whether you would be making the same choices now if 01:20:38.219 --> 01:20:52.550 you weren't constrained by budget, once again. 01:20:52.550 --> 01:21:29.900 I didn't mean to assume that the liquid would be better than solid. 01:21:29.900 --> 01:22:05.050 Just the observation of the basis the decision was made on. 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 01:22:14.110 --> 01:23:18.699 website which is a 10-page briefing. 01:23:18.699 --> 01:23:28.429 This is the 23-page briefing. 01:23:28.429 --> 01:23:33.659 There is a clear set of top level requirements in this new vision. 01:23:33.659 --> 01:23:40.840 And, if you're space types at all, you should know this. 01:23:40.840 --> 01:23:53.630 An interesting attempt to develop rationale for exploration which, as you see, is mainly 01:23:53.630 --> 01:23:55.239 intangible. 01:23:55.239 --> 01:24:08.530 Curiosity and leadership, they are very much the same things that started the shuttle program. 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 01:24:15.090 --> 01:24:22.550 vision says moon as a way of getting to mars. 01:24:22.550 --> 01:24:30.239 But here is why moon. 01:24:30.239 --> 01:24:33.460 And you're developing technologies that you're going to use downstream. 01:24:33.460 --> 01:24:43.099 And, in particular, this Saturn 5 class. 01:24:43.099 --> 01:24:50.510 The Apollo 17 Saturn 5 launcher took 117 metric tons to low earth orbit. 01:24:50.510 --> 01:24:54.630 This vehicle that's being planned is slightly larger than Saturn 5. 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 01:25:04.210 --> 01:25:09.360 liquid methane rather than liquid hydrogen as a fuel. 01:25:09.360 --> 01:25:09.520 Why? 01:25:09.520 --> 01:25:15.670 Maybe I'll ask the class, why would you be interested in liquid methane? 01:25:15.670 --> 01:25:16.969 Yeah. 01:25:16.969 --> 01:25:19.270 You could manufacture it on mars. 01:25:19.270 --> 01:25:20.130 Yeah, precisely. 01:25:20.130 --> 01:25:26.440 It's also a lot easier to store over the long-term, liquid hydrogen. 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 01:25:32.619 --> 01:25:35.809 you wouldn't have to carry it all the way out there. 01:25:35.809 --> 01:25:39.670 And you could get oxygen on mars because there is clearly water. 01:25:39.670 --> 01:25:39.849 Yeah. 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 01:25:43.139 --> 01:25:51.070 feasibility of [UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE]. 01:25:51.070 --> 01:25:58.530 Whether it's feasible or not, we're not going to do it. 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 01:26:07.690 --> 01:26:12.969 resource utilization. 01:26:12.969 --> 01:26:17.900 Maybe I should back up and say what is this? 01:26:17.900 --> 01:26:22.000 Mike Griffin was sworn in as NASA administrator April the 14th. 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 01:26:30.150 --> 01:26:32.900 vision was proceeding at much too slow a pace. 01:26:32.900 --> 01:26:40.150 And distributing money much too widely, including to MIT graduate students. 01:26:40.150 --> 01:26:45.699 Jeff will explain that if none of you were affected by it. 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 01:26:54.550 --> 01:27:00.219 a specific architecture for getting humans onto the surface of the moon. 01:27:00.219 --> 01:27:06.190 And that architecture was basically finished by the end of July. 01:27:06.190 --> 01:27:10.349 And it's taken six weeks to get White House permission to release it. 01:27:10.349 --> 01:27:13.020 And so it was formally released yesterday. 01:27:13.020 --> 01:27:17.750 It was mainly because of two reasons, because the senior people in the White House were 01:27:17.750 --> 01:27:22.540 on vacation in August, as we all know. 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 01:27:28.650 --> 01:27:32.320 down, but where is the money to carry it out? 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 01:27:37.520 --> 01:27:38.000 is allocated. 01:27:38.000 --> 01:27:49.739 And it takes a little prestidigitation, I think, to do that. 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 01:27:56.540 --> 01:28:00.239 our destiny as explorers. 01:28:00.239 --> 01:28:01.929 Safe accelerated. 01:28:01.929 --> 01:28:06.559 Accelerated in the sense that when Griffin got there the schedule for the first crude 01:28:06.559 --> 01:28:15.650 flight of the CEV, crew exploration vehicle was 2014, and he wanted the shuttle hard date 01:28:15.650 --> 01:28:17.150 retired in 2010. 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 01:28:26.579 --> 01:28:28.230 as early as 2011. 01:28:28.230 --> 01:28:33.219 It's turning out it is probably not going to happen. 01:28:33.219 --> 01:28:38.750 Why is this just not Apollo over again sending people back to the moon? 01:28:38.750 --> 01:28:40.619 Here are the arguments. 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. 01:28:52.300 --> 01:28:56.780 You can begin the buildup for permanent human presence in a lunar base. 01:28:56.780 --> 01:28:58.880 Do institute resources. 01:28:58.880 --> 01:29:04.760 And it's more reliable and safer. 01:29:04.760 --> 01:29:11.630 The argument is that, at least on ascent, you get almost a factor of ten improvement 01:29:11.630 --> 01:29:14.520 in the safety. 01:29:14.520 --> 01:29:23.040 And how is that going to happen? 01:29:23.040 --> 01:29:27.739 Well, there are specific charts on that later. 01:29:27.739 --> 01:29:33.610 Oh, OK. 01:29:33.610 --> 01:29:38.590 Although, the system is being designed from getting to the moon backwards. 01:29:38.590 --> 01:29:46.400 It can also be used for the International Space Station, if we continue with the space 01:29:46.400 --> 01:29:49.010 station. 01:29:49.010 --> 01:29:50.130 What are we going to do on the moon? 01:29:50.130 --> 01:29:55.040 Learn to operate away from earth. 01:29:55.040 --> 01:29:55.780 Do science. 01:29:55.780 --> 01:30:03.020 Learn how to use local resources. 01:30:03.020 --> 01:30:05.530 Develop one mission at a time. 01:30:05.530 --> 01:30:08.790 A lunar base. 01:30:08.790 --> 01:30:14.929 And develop techniques for the eventual human missions to mars. 01:30:14.929 --> 01:30:22.190 So there is another mars mention. 01:30:22.190 --> 01:30:25.809 Science group picked a bunch of places that were interesting. 01:30:25.809 --> 01:30:34.420 I believe this was primarily a drill because going in NASA knew that its preferred site 01:30:34.420 --> 01:30:39.389 was the Shackleton crater at the south pole of the moon. 01:30:39.389 --> 01:30:42.369 Why? 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 01:30:48.670 --> 01:30:52.949 utilization. 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 01:31:02.099 --> 01:31:04.309 of a long duration base. 01:31:04.309 --> 01:31:11.880 How is this going to be done? 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 01:31:20.290 --> 01:31:21.699 Lander. 01:31:21.699 --> 01:31:27.250 Then you're going to have the smaller rocket launch the crew exploration vehicle. 01:31:27.250 --> 01:31:31.250 They are going to rendezvous in earth orbit. 01:31:31.250 --> 01:31:35.530 Fire up the departure stage and head off to the moon. 01:31:35.530 --> 01:31:39.480 Arrive in lunar orbit. 01:31:39.480 --> 01:31:45.340 And then the lander will separate and come down to the moon. 01:31:45.340 --> 01:31:50.690 This is the lunar orbit rendezvous method that was used for Apollo, plus an earth orbit 01:31:50.690 --> 01:31:56.550 rendezvous step. 01:31:56.550 --> 01:31:58.079 Work on the moon. 01:31:58.079 --> 01:32:04.530 Come back and rendezvous with the CEV. 01:32:04.530 --> 01:32:11.949 Probably ablative heat shield for what is hoped to be a land landing in Western United 01:32:11.949 --> 01:32:17.599 States in Oregon, Nevada or California so you don't have to deploy the fleet. 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 01:32:25.250 --> 01:32:29.840 to reused up to ten times by replacing just the heat shield. 01:32:29.840 --> 01:32:33.130 Again, that's the hope. 01:32:33.130 --> 01:32:36.790 That is not put in as a requirement, which is important. 01:32:36.790 --> 01:32:37.699 It's a desire. 01:32:37.699 --> 01:32:47.190 It's a desire, yeah, because they don't know they can do it. 01:32:47.190 --> 01:32:50.150 The baseline design is for a crew to the moon. 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 01:32:55.980 --> 01:33:03.320 people to a mars transit spaceship downstream. 01:33:03.320 --> 01:33:11.980 It can also be used, if you take the crew accommodations out, as either a pressurized 01:33:11.980 --> 01:33:16.250 cargo module going to space station and bringing stuff back from the space station. 01:33:16.250 --> 01:33:23.059 Provides down mass capability which is missing after the shuttle goes away. 01:33:23.059 --> 01:33:27.070 The Apollo capsule was 3.9 meters across. 01:33:27.070 --> 01:33:34.170 This is 5.5 meters, 32 degree slope on the capsule. 01:33:34.170 --> 01:33:46.079 So, it's a much larger capsule with hopefully better characteristics. 01:33:46.079 --> 01:33:50.309 NASA is calling the bluff of the commercial industry. 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 01:33:56.309 --> 01:34:04.400 says you, you, the commercial sector, demonstrate the ability to have cargo or maybe even crew 01:34:04.400 --> 01:34:09.540 deliver to the space station and we'll buy those services. 01:34:09.540 --> 01:34:11.900 We won't use CEV. 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 01:34:18.989 --> 01:34:22.770 and crew rescue vehicle. 01:34:22.770 --> 01:34:31.719 I don't think anybody believes that, in the relevant timeframe, anybody in NASA believes 01:34:31.719 --> 01:34:36.889 in the relevant timeframe the private sector is going to develop crew transport to an acceptable 01:34:36.889 --> 01:34:38.650 level of reliability. 01:34:38.650 --> 01:34:39.510 Maybe cargo. 01:34:39.510 --> 01:34:54.179 The National Space Transportation Policy was issued last January that said that there should 01:34:54.179 --> 01:35:01.960 be full utilization of the evolved expendable launch vehicles, Delta 4 and Atlas 5. 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 01:35:05.699 --> 01:35:07.389 something else. 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 01:35:17.550 --> 01:35:18.989 its robotic missions. 01:35:18.989 --> 01:35:23.650 The problem with that is those things are expensive, a lot more expensive than the Delta 01:35:23.650 --> 01:35:25.340 2s. 01:35:25.340 --> 01:35:32.260 And where does that leave people like Elon Musk in space exploration in privately developed 01:35:32.260 --> 01:35:37.760 launch systems? 01:35:37.760 --> 01:35:44.300 Griffin was party to a study commissioned last year by the Planetary Society that came 01:35:44.300 --> 01:35:51.099 out with the conclusion that a shuttle derived launch system was the best way to approach 01:35:51.099 --> 01:35:53.340 this. 01:35:53.340 --> 01:36:01.010 This study examined that system, shuttle derived, and a number of possible alternatives and 01:36:01.010 --> 01:36:03.650 came up with this conclusion. 01:36:03.650 --> 01:36:07.469 This is the so-called stick. 01:36:07.469 --> 01:36:14.079 The first stage is the current solid rocket booster on the shuttle for segment solid rocket. 01:36:14.079 --> 01:36:22.559 There's a new upper stage powered by some version one space shuttle main engine, liquid, 01:36:22.559 --> 01:36:24.559 hydrogen, oxygen fuel. 01:36:24.559 --> 01:36:29.889 A capsule on top with a service module and an escape tower. 01:36:29.889 --> 01:36:35.179 Now you can say why is it safer? 01:36:35.179 --> 01:36:40.909 It's because the crew is above any debris. 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 01:36:45.119 --> 01:36:48.179 escape system to pull the crew away from it. 01:36:48.179 --> 01:36:56.530 And so NASA's probabilistic risk assessments say that this is a much safer system. 01:36:56.530 --> 01:36:58.599 You want to comment on that? 01:36:58.599 --> 01:37:07.929 Well, the probabilistic risk assessment, I think it's fairly obvious, if your escape 01:37:07.929 --> 01:37:16.540 system has a 90% probability of working then you have cut down, whatever the reliability 01:37:16.540 --> 01:37:23.889 of the main rocket, you've just increased your survival probability by a factor of ten 01:37:23.889 --> 01:37:26.119 if the rocket blows up. 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 01:37:34.300 --> 01:37:40.139 probably talk more about that, there were some serious questions in Apollo about how 01:37:40.139 --> 01:37:47.960 well the ejection rocket would work throughout the flight regime. 01:37:47.960 --> 01:37:54.750 And he said everybody always breathed a sigh of relief when the ejection rocket was jettison 01:37:54.750 --> 01:37:56.820 in the course of the launch. 01:37:56.820 --> 01:38:02.329 But, nevertheless, we've never used it in the US Space Program. 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 01:38:13.040 --> 01:38:16.659 was pulled off the pad by the ejection rocket. 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. 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 01:38:29.520 --> 01:38:33.300 site aborts on the shuttle? 01:38:33.300 --> 01:38:38.869 Which was never done, thank heavens. 01:38:38.869 --> 01:38:44.790 We'll actually talk about some of the abort schemes for the shuttle in more detail. 01:38:44.790 --> 01:38:48.449 And I think I'll leave it for that. 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 01:38:53.579 --> 01:38:55.889 survive. 01:38:55.889 --> 01:39:05.159 We now have the capability either of returning the shuttle to the launch pad and landing 01:39:05.159 --> 01:39:07.010 or going across the ocean. 01:39:07.010 --> 01:39:12.869 But if you cannot quite get back for a landing, we do now have the capability. 01:39:12.869 --> 01:39:16.309 I showed you the pictures of the escape. 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. 01:39:20.059 --> 01:39:26.199 And there's definitely no system of just extracting you out of the shuttle. 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 01:39:31.110 --> 01:39:32.300 crew on ascent. 01:39:32.300 --> 01:39:42.179 Well, I think the other point is that the solid booster by itself is more reliable. 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 01:39:46.489 --> 01:39:49.059 boosters work, plus all of the three main engines. 01:39:49.059 --> 01:39:50.679 So you've got a lot more failure points. 01:39:50.679 --> 01:39:54.300 This is a simpler system so only one solid booster. 01:39:54.300 --> 01:39:59.420 And then the second stage is your liquid rocket. 01:39:59.420 --> 01:40:02.050 So, there are a lot fewer things to go wrong. 01:40:02.050 --> 01:40:06.869 Plus the whole aerodynamics is much simpler because it's a simple stack formation. 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. 01:40:15.840 --> 01:40:21.820 Apparently, there were some concerns because this was so tall of bending and that sort 01:40:21.820 --> 01:40:22.219 of thing. 01:40:22.219 --> 01:40:23.730 Well, that's something they'll have to deal with. 01:40:23.730 --> 01:40:26.250 But we've launched tall skinny rockets before. 01:40:26.250 --> 01:40:29.989 And I suspect they'll be able to figure out how to do that. 01:40:29.989 --> 01:40:39.940 The heavy lift is built around something derived from the space shuttle external tank with 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 01:40:48.559 --> 01:40:49.020 solid rockets. 01:40:49.020 --> 01:40:56.869 So, it's adding one more segment to the existing booster. 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 01:41:05.619 --> 01:41:07.500 the upper stages of the Saturn 5. 01:41:07.500 --> 01:41:11.010 So, this is a pretty retro system. 01:41:11.010 --> 01:41:13.969 But it was a good engine. 01:41:13.969 --> 01:41:21.659 And the other thing to mention, some people had suggested using five segment solids for 01:41:21.659 --> 01:41:24.400 the crew launch vehicle. 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 01:41:31.489 --> 01:41:34.290 launches of the solid rocket boosters. 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 01:41:40.909 --> 01:41:47.270 to recover and reuse the solid booster, but you get to examine how it performed. 01:41:47.270 --> 01:41:52.400 And that makes a huge difference in terms of flying safely. 01:41:52.400 --> 01:41:57.590 Because, if you look back at the history of the Challenger accident, we knew for many 01:41:57.590 --> 01:42:02.030 years that we had a problem with blow by around the O ring seal. 01:42:02.030 --> 01:42:10.639 Unfortunately, for various reasons, management chose to ignore that and fly anyway. 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 01:42:16.010 --> 01:42:26.309 look and see if there are any critical failures which are suggesting that there are problems, 01:42:26.309 --> 01:42:28.520 that also improves your reliability. 01:42:28.520 --> 01:42:33.369 So, we have a lot of experience with four-segment solid rocket boosters. 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, 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. 01:42:45.469 --> 01:42:47.090 Well, besides that, we don't have it now. 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 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 01:43:00.710 --> 01:43:00.900 VOICES]. 01:43:00.900 --> 01:43:03.469 Now, this is the heavy lift thing. 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 01:43:07.619 --> 01:43:07.679 VOICES]. 01:43:07.679 --> 01:43:12.380 And the intent is not to human rate this from the start. 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 01:43:16.520 --> 01:43:29.500 first stage and 55 metric tons to, well, you can read, I think. 01:43:29.500 --> 01:43:35.400 That's a new development, obviously. 01:43:35.400 --> 01:43:41.949 This is Marsha Ivins who presented this yesterday, one of Jeff's former colleagues. 01:43:41.949 --> 01:43:47.199 This really isn't what it's going to look like, the Lunar Lander. 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 01:43:51.750 --> 01:43:57.429 a fairly significant cargo load down to the lunar surface and leave it there. 01:43:57.429 --> 01:44:03.929 And that enables the fairly early buildup of a lunar base capability. 01:44:03.929 --> 01:44:08.559 And, again, this ascent stage will use a liquid methane propulsion. 01:44:08.559 --> 01:44:16.000 Any sense of scale on the habitat? 01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:20.599 Well, this is enough for four people so it's not super big. 01:44:20.599 --> 01:44:31.199 I've seen dimensions on it, but this is just a nominal design anyway. 01:44:31.199 --> 01:44:35.920 This design, with all the tanks down here, is not very good for carrying cargo down. 01:44:35.920 --> 01:44:41.199 They added the cargo capability and didn't change the picture. 01:44:41.199 --> 01:44:47.909 Here is what NASA says are the commercial opportunities in this initiative. 01:44:47.909 --> 01:44:54.820 It's interesting. 01:44:54.820 --> 01:45:00.969 There were some other ones that have gone away from earlier briefings. 01:45:00.969 --> 01:45:03.510 Here are the international opportunities. 01:45:03.510 --> 01:45:10.309 And they are focused in the longer run on lunar surface systems. 01:45:10.309 --> 01:45:17.610 And the reality is that without international contributions you cannot do a lunar base because, 01:45:17.610 --> 01:45:20.460 on the budget available, you cannot afford to build this stuff. 01:45:20.460 --> 01:45:29.219 I am looking at this hard for the first time. 01:45:29.219 --> 01:45:32.829 I saw a version of this in July, and there have been some significant changes. 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 01:45:39.619 --> 01:45:51.510 here in this final briefing. 01:45:51.510 --> 01:45:53.650 Committed long-term lunar effort is needed. 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. 01:46:00.040 --> 01:46:07.920 And to reach for mars we must first reach for the moon. 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 01:46:19.750 --> 01:46:26.150 species into the solar system is inevitable, and the United States should lead so we carry 01:46:26.150 --> 01:46:31.730 the principles and values of Western philosophy and culture. 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 01:46:36.110 --> 01:46:46.860 not, but he means it. 01:46:46.860 --> 01:46:48.699 Great nations do great and ambitious things. 01:46:48.699 --> 01:46:50.270 We must continue to be great. 01:46:50.270 --> 01:46:53.040 Cue the music now. 01:46:53.040 --> 01:46:55.469 [LAUGHTER] 01:46:55.469 --> 01:46:56.630 This is interesting. 01:46:56.630 --> 01:47:01.210 This was a presentation that was given yesterday. 01:47:01.210 --> 01:47:07.000 And it is different than the presentation that was presented to industry yesterday. 01:47:07.000 --> 01:47:18.219 And the biggest difference is the industry presentation had a budget. 01:47:18.219 --> 01:47:20.469 [LAUGHTER] 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 01:47:35.070 --> 01:47:44.520 budget curve and then stops in terms of the affordability downstream. 01:47:44.520 --> 01:47:53.380 And it also shows no mars research and technology until fiscal 1917. 01:47:53.380 --> 01:47:57.320 And a fairly big wedge for lunar outpost. 01:47:57.320 --> 01:48:00.940 This is a US-only scenario. 01:48:00.940 --> 01:48:05.230 Any relief from this is going to come from international contributions. 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 01:48:13.920 --> 01:48:15.340 you can pay. 01:48:15.340 --> 01:48:22.599 In the trade between performance requirements, cost and schedule, what you're going to trade 01:48:22.599 --> 01:48:25.320 is schedule. 01:48:25.320 --> 01:48:30.889 And NASA is very nervous of announcing this thing in the middle of the Katrina recovery 01:48:30.889 --> 01:48:35.130 saying we're going to spend $100 billion going back to the moon. 01:48:35.130 --> 01:48:40.980 Actually, that was the first question that Griffin got at the press conference. 01:48:40.980 --> 01:48:41.429 Right. 01:48:41.429 --> 01:48:46.550 I talked with some media yesterday, and this is the same sort of thing. 01:48:46.550 --> 01:48:57.510 It's interesting that the budget chart is not in the presentation I was given. 01:48:57.510 --> 01:48:58.989 The budget said that you cannot do it? 01:48:58.989 --> 01:49:01.369 The budget says that they can get started. 01:49:01.369 --> 01:49:07.639 [LAUGHTER] 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 01:49:16.179 --> 01:49:19.770 next few years it's just the crew exploration vehicle. 01:49:19.770 --> 01:49:21.760 And the launch vehicle. 01:49:21.760 --> 01:49:23.980 The upper stage in the launch vehicle. 01:49:23.980 --> 01:49:26.099 Right, this. 01:49:26.099 --> 01:49:28.760 We will retire the shuttle. 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. 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 01:49:41.659 --> 01:49:44.630 shuttle flights can start going into building this. 01:49:44.630 --> 01:49:47.099 That's the way I understand it. 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 01:49:50.710 --> 01:49:52.030 next decade. 01:49:52.030 --> 01:49:54.900 2018 is the target date. 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. 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. 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. 01:50:12.420 --> 01:50:13.659 I think that's fair to say, isn't it? 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. 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 01:50:30.480 --> 01:50:36.659 to be paid for by somebody else. 01:50:36.659 --> 01:50:37.349 So, we will see. 01:50:37.349 --> 01:50:38.730 This is your future, I think. 01:50:38.730 --> 01:50:44.559 If you're going into aerospace engineering, this is at least the NASA project for the 01:50:44.559 --> 01:50:46.530 next 15 years. 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 01:50:51.429 --> 01:50:56.159 of the Lunar Exploration Program. 01:50:56.159 --> 01:50:58.380 So, you're kids can attend that class. 01:50:58.380 --> 01:50:59.309 [LAUGHTER] 01:50:59.309 --> 01:51:01.260 Then it was typewritten memos. 01:51:01.260 --> 01:51:05.630 Now it's PowerPoint. 01:51:05.630 --> 01:51:12.750 For you engineering junkies, there is a thousand page report coming next month that has all 01:51:12.750 --> 01:51:16.159 the information of the trade studies and everything underpinning all this. 01:51:16.159 --> 01:51:17.610 This is the output of a study. 01:51:17.610 --> 01:51:19.099 The study report is coming. 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 01:51:26.760 --> 01:51:27.320 projects. 01:51:27.320 --> 01:51:29.860 I'll have a look at those. 01:51:29.860 --> 01:51:32.699 If you haven't sent them to me, please make sure I get them by Thursday. 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. 01:51:40.489 --> 01:51:42.949 Let's see, that's on the reports. 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 01:51:50.420 --> 01:51:55.440 policy, how did the shuttle program get started. 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 01:52:02.070 --> 01:52:02.449 systems. 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 01:52:07.690 --> 01:52:09.219 system on Thursday. 01:52:09.219 --> 01:52:09.660 See you then.