I was sitting,alone, with Richard Truly, the only Astronaut ever to be Head of NASA, in his private hideaway office; just after he returned from the Oval Office in the White House, where he had been fired by Vice President Quayle.
I am the Democrat running in TX 10 against a Freshman Republican. Ted's webpage
He said to me "Don't these people understand that they are destroying America's Space Program." He related how the Vice President, in the presence of Bush 41, had directed him to pay for Space Station cost overruns by raiding the Space Shuttle budget. Richard Truly refused, on the basis that it would jeopardize Shuttle safety; and Quayle then asked for his resignation, in return for which he would receive nomination as an Ambassador "Probably to one of the Soviet Republics". Richard Truly again refused and said that "You will have to fire me." Richard Truly was fired and replaced with "Better, faster, cheaper" Dan Goldin; who did raid the Space Shuttle budget to cover Space Station Cost overruns. Several years later, we had the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, from which we still have not recovered.
After 10 years as NASA's longest serving Administrator (due in my opinion in no small part to his willingness to cut budgets whenever the White House wanted, no matter the consequences), Dan Goldin was replaced by an Accountant from the Office of Management and Budget as Head of NASA. During this gentleman's tenure, he cancelled the project to build an "Advanced Crew Rescue Vehicle". Unusual for NASA projects, this one, headed by my friend John Muratore, was on budget and schedule and had completed initial test flights. The ACRV was a five-person "Lifeboat" for the Space Station. Unlike the TV show "The West Wing", NASA has always restricted the size of the crew on the Space Station to no larger than the capacity of an attached lifeboat that can bring the crew home in an emergency. The interim lifeboat was, and still is; the Russian "SOYUZ" space capsule, with a capacity of three astronauts. That means that no more than three Astronauts can be on the Space Station, unless a Shuttle is also docked to the Station. The problem with this is that it takes three people working full time to keep the Space Station operating. That means that to do any scientific experiments, there have to be more than three astronauts on board. This is why there has never been any meaningful science done on the Space Station, unless the Shuttle has been docked to it. So, because a "number-cruncher" cancelled the five person lifeboat (which would have cost about the same as a single Shuttle launch); the Space Station, which has now cost more billions of dollars than I can remember, is unable to do any of the science it was purported to do. And this would be the case even if it could be serviced by the Space Shuttle, right now.
Back to my original thought about how NASA finally gets it right, Bush 43 has made at least one good appointment in his second term; and that is of Mike Griffin as replacement for the accountant as Head of NASA. Mike headed Space Science when I was Richard Truly's assistant, and he has laid out a plan for replacing the Shuttle and going on to Mars. For those of you who think that this is a waste, I disagree. "What's a Heaven for if a person's reach cannot exceed one's grasp." But, that's a subject for another discussion. Mike's plan gets past two of the Shuttle's greatest weaknesses, which are responsible for each of the two Shuttle disasters we have experienced.
First, a little history. The reusable Space Shuttle was never a top NASA idea, until Richard Nixon made it so. Nixon cancelled the Apollo Moon Program with two completed Apollo rockets virtually on the launch pads as a cost saver. In the lead up to the 1972 election, he was taking a pounding in California because of the Aerospace Industry layoffs. He directed NASA to crank up a new effort, but it couldn't look anything like the Apollo rocket he cancelled. Hence, the reusable Space Shuttle. This has two huge vulnerabilities: the solid rocket motors on launch, and the wings on reentry. Once you light off the solid rocket motors, you cannot turn them off without explosive consequences. The location of the solid rocket motors in close proximity to the Space Shuttle means that if they explode, they take the Space Shuttle with them. This is exactly what happened to the Challenger. The wings are very vulnerable on reentry, and the failure of one of them is what happened to the Columbia.
Mike Griffin's plan is to go back to the Apollo rocket archictecture, but modernizing it with the best parts of the Space Shuttle. Incidentally, I like to think that this is what NASA would have done as the follow on to the Apollo rocket, if it had not been restrained by Nixon's directive that it "Not look like Apollo". Mike's plan is to have a crew conpartment (or cargo-only container) perched on top of a big body that looks a lot like the Space Shuttle External tank. The Space Shuttle Main Engines will be at the tail end of this body, and they are much more powerful than the old kerosene-based engines on the Apollo rockets. Strapped to each side are two solid rocket motors, similar to that of the Space Shuttle. Instead of the multi-stages of the Apollo rockets, there is just the single stage, with boosters. This is safer because the solid rocket motors are way below the crew compartment, so that an explosion at one of the solid rocket motors is well clear of the crew compartment; which can be ejected well clear of an accident. Equally, it does not have the fragile wings of the Space Shuttle. This idea uses much of the technology and manufacturing capacity that already exists, so it is a relatively low-risk new program. This is what we should have been doing all along, but for political interference!
Now for the moral of this story (you knew you would have to pay for it, didn't you?): Wouldn't it be nice if the House Space Subcommittee had a member on it that was a "Rocket Scientist", instead of just another lawyer? My opponent, freshman Republican Mike McCaul sits on the Space Subcommittee, and I'm sure that he wouldn't have a clue that the cancellation of the Space Station Lifeboat really meant that all the billions of dollars that were spent on the Space Station were completely wasted; because we can't put enough people on the Space Station, without the lifeboat, to do anything except maintenance and housekeeping. Our Congress is supposed to be able to figure out when we are being penny wise and dollar foolish.
Contribute