THE SPACE SHUTTLE DECISION AUGUST 1971 - JANUARY 1972
In July 1971 situation of the Shuttle program is as follow
- Interim NASA administrator George Low (September 1970 – May 1971) obtained funding for SSME studies. But he did not obtained funds for the fully reusable two-stage shuttle NASA wanted. External tank orbiters are now preferred.
- James C. Fletcher took over Low role in May 1971.
- He asked Mathematica to study economics of the Shuttle. Klauss Heiss and Oskar Morgenstern received a contract running into the year 1971.
- Heiss and its boss studied only two-stage, fully reusable shuttles concepts. These concepts were already obsoletes by mid-71, making their studies unuseful from the beginning. Heiss nevertheless continued analyzing Shuttle concepts he received from contractors (Boeing, Lockheed, Grumman…)
Main protagonists are
- NASA (Mainly Fletcher and Low)
- OMB (Cap Weinberger) Office and Management of Budget.
- Mathematica (Heiss)
A fourth protagonist appears. It’s the Flax Committee. As the OMB, it has to review the Shuttle program for the White House.
BUT the Flax committee is the offspring of the OST, Office of Science and Technology.
In short, Weinberger and its OMB colleagues review the Shuttle program for the White House from the point of view of BUDGET.
While the OST – Flax Committee do the same, from another point of view : SCIENCE.
Now NASA has two White House organizations monitoring its Shuttle program...
To complicate matters furthermore, each protagonist (or so) defends its own “idealized shuttle” concept!
On the White House side, things are clear. Both OMB and Flax Committee wants the less expensive Shuttle possible. So, what’s it ?
It’s a Hermes-like concept. A “glider” ontop of an expendable Titan III booster; a revival of DynaSoar!
The glider had been imagined by Martin Marietta, and catched George Low attention.
Martin Marietta build the Titan III booster, the most dangerous rival to the Shuttle.
Flax and Weinberger philosophy is as follow “This is a form of Shuttle, on top of an already existing booster…”
George Low interest for the “glider” was only superficial. By the way, he’s no longer the boss.
NASA preferred option as August 1971 is an external-tank Shuttle, but similarities with the actual shuttle stop there.
There’s two differencies.
- The booster is a manned, winged Saturn S-IC
- The orbiter SSME light IN FLIGHT, no on the pad as today.
This is call “series burn”. The booster light first, carry the Shuttle and its tank to mach 5, then the shuttle light its SSME and go to orbit. The booster glide back to the Cape.
An alternative is the Big Dumb Booster falling in the sea. The BDB has no turbopumps in its pressure-fed rocket engines. Its structure has to be much more robust and heavier, for lower performances. At least it resist better than a S-IC to saltwater corrosion at sea. That’s why the S-IC option has to flyback to land. F-1 delicates turbompumps would no resist seawater corrosion. The booster has to be reusable, as the orbiter!
The actual Shuttle light its SSME on the pad, and they “burn” along the SRBs. That’s called “parallel burn”.
In August 1971 NASA hate parallel burn and solid rocket boosters. Well, nine months later in March 1972, the space agency adopts the shuttle we know today… with SRBs and parallel burn!
What happened during the crucial period August 1971 – January 1972 ?
Heiss and Mathematica
Parallel burn and SRBs were part of the third protagonist “idealized Shuttle”… Klauss Heiss, at Mathematica.
Heiss found the concept in contractors studies, and called that the TAOS = Thrust Augmented Orbiter Shuttle. Light the SSME on the pad, and you can reduce further the booster size and efficiency… to the point that solids become a viable solution. By the way, you also have to stretch the External Tank, which now has to provide propellants from the pad to orbit!
The current Shuttle is the TAOS : a big Tank, SSME from the pad, and small boosters.
Let’s resume
- OMB / OST = a glider ontop of a Titan III
- NASA = Shuttle / External tank ontop of a winged, manned flyback S-IC; series burn
- Klaus Heiss = TAOS. A bit like NASA favoured concepts, with two drawbacks
o Parallel burn
o Less efficient, unwinged, solid boosters
From September 1971 each of the three concepts fight the others.
Heiss did not won the battle of TAOS before late December 1971.
He was frantically promoting the TAOS to NASA as the solution to its Shuttle-funding problems…since at least August 1971! An important thing to notice is that NASA officials disliked very much the TAOS at the time.
They reluctantly endorsed it… much later.
A fourth protagonist waited in the dark, ready to fill the gap if the Shuttle was cancelled. It was Big Gemini.
Had the Shuttle been cancelled, the obvious question is : will a capsule replace it, or will manned spaceflight stop after ASTP and the last Apollo CSM ?
The second option was seriously considered from April 1970 to August 1971, before Cap Weinberger pledged the cause of manned spaceflight to Nixon in a famous memo. Nixon answered “I agree with Cap” on August 15 1971, meaning that he would not stop manned spaceflight even if the Shuttle was cancelled.
So had the Shuttle failed, NASA would have ended with a capsule.
Paradoxically, it would not be Apollo, because North American had tailored its spacecraft for 10-days lunar missions, not 90-day to Skylab (yes, enough problems developed with the CSM that NASA modified a Saturn IB and CSM-119 to a rescue mission).
Gemini would have been a better basis… with a large extension, the basic ship being quite cramped. Douglas had such ship ready since 1967, called “Big Gemini”. The bigger variant launched by a Saturn INT-20 really had Shuttle performances : up to 12 astronauts and 27000 kg of cargo to LEO! Most importantly, a smaller variant existed, ontop of a Titan III…
Big Gemini was clearly NASA preferred option if no Shuttle could be procured. It was not to be because of Heiss TAOS.
The closest Big Gemini ever went to become NASA next manned spacecraft was October 1971.
(that's my POD!)
From August to late October (the 28) Heiss and the TAOS are out of the fight.
OMB and NASA battle alone. As noted above, October 1971 is crucial. It was the closest the Shuttle ever was from cancellation.
Here's a detailed timeline of this period
On September 30th 1971, Fletcher send its budget request for FY73, asking budget to develop the Shuttle. Guess why concept he asks for ? the flyback S-IC thing.
Not a very good idea.
The OMB and Flax committee, both working for the White House, had agreed on their preferred Shuttle. It’s the glider ontop of the Titan III… the less expensive of all Shuttles. They even mentioned Big Gemini as less expensive!
Date of the paper : October 4, 1971.
On Heiss side, in its own words
“by the end of the month (read September) we thought that the program (read the shuttle) was on catastrophic course”.
Heiss said that in desesperation.
Indeed, NASA officials, when presenting their shuttle concepts to the white house officials (Flax and Weinberger) deliberately OMMITTED (!) the TAOS concept. They did so as far as October 15!
They mostly talked about their prefered option, the flyback booster. They disliked the TAOS.
In desperation, Heiss pledged the TAOS cause to Fletcher himself… but that did not happened before October 28 1971, and we saw earlier that Fletcher itself defended the flyback option.
From this point, we can see that the period from October 4 to October 28 was crucial in the Shuttle program.
Early October, NASA preferred flyback S-IC was rejected by both the Flax committee and Weinberger OMB, in favour of
- Big Gemini (no Shuttle at all!)
- The glider. Only a bit of Shuttle.
Both launched by a Titan III of course.
On October 22, 1971, a large chunk of OMB staff simply proposed the unthinkable “cancel the shuttle program”.
But Weinberger was the boss. He had to chose between Big Gemini and the glider, both launched by the expendable Titan III… and, the Glider being, after all, a mini-shuttle, he decided to go this way.
“Some form of Shuttle would be built : NASA would not have to rely on Big Gemini”
(the Space Shuttle decision, chapter 8, “A Shuttle to fit the budget”)
Big Gemini was dead. NASA would have a pre-Hermes, post-DynaSoar Shuttle.
But this was not to be.
As mentioned above, a week later Heiss finally addressed Fletcher directly,pushing the TAOS concept. Now that the flyback S-IC shuttle was dead and the glider the most likely option… the TAOS suddenly sounded much more interesting to NASA!
Now Heiss and Fletcher had found an agreement : the TAOS was the way to go… sadly, the OMB and Flax committee were now fixed on their glider!
NASA had to convince White House officials that they wanted the TAOS, not a stupid glider on top of a Titan III.
Two bizarre months followed, NASA battling again with the OMB, to the point that late December, in G. Low words
“Fletcher nearly tell Weinberger to go to hell, but restrained much better than I would have”
The OMB only discussed the side of the Glider bay, not the Glider Vs TAOS argument. The conflict was only solved in the last week of December. NASA literally received the TAOS as Chritmas gift!
In conclusion, Shuttle destiny really hanged to two events
- Weinberger decision of October 22 to go for the Glider instead of Big Gemini, saving at least the spaceplane. From the spaceplane, NASA rebounded to the TAOS two months later.
- Heiss obstination against NASA’s N.I.H syndrome
(N.I.H = Not Invented Here. The TAOS had been invented by contractors and promoted by Heiss, both exterior to NASA. Heiss was very lucky to triumph from the N.I.H syndrome!!!).
The rest is history. Nixon publicly endorsed the Shuttle on January 5 1972. In march, NASA definitively decided to go with SRBs, the contract going to Thiockol soon thereafter (hmmmm…). North American Rockwell received a $3billion contract for the orbiter on July 26 1972.
