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NASA future (6): station first or shuttle first ?
1971 - NASA quandary: shuttle first or space station first ?

“If a space station is put into operation early and the space shuttle deferred, the logistics role would most probably fall on use of Apollo hardware. While the Apollo spacecraft can be extended to modest increases in its capabilities and cost effectiveness as an earth orbital logistics craft — through Command Module reuse, four-man crew, extended "quiescent" orbital stay time and other refinements it still presents a high-recurring "throw away" cost in boosters (Saturn IB or INT-20/21, Titan III-X) and Service Module's, driving recurring cost of station support operations rather high. If such use could be limited to 2 years or less, this is probably an acceptable program alternative.
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If the shuttle is developed and introduced first, the Earth orbital space station "gap" would be filled with extension of the AAP (Saturn V) workshop program. One such mission is now programed, a second in the planning stage, and a third could be required to maintain program continuity.
The potential to use these AAP workshops to develop operational, maintenance and logistics concepts as well as some of the advanced hardware for the next generation space station program is excellent. It must be recognized however, that this is a fairly expensive gap filler and would tend to encroach on vital shuttle/space station R.&D. Dollars.”
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"The AAP / orbital / Saturn workshop may be very well christened Skylab, a name being derived from 'a laboratory in the sky', first proposed by Donald L. Steelman of the USAF, while working at NASA in 1968.

Even then, however, Skylab is referred as the orbital or AAP workshop rather than a space station. NASA forged the alternate designation in order to distinguish Skylab from the real space station it hopes to launch into low-Earth orbit before the end of the 1970s. The distinction is paramount !
Last year, during a meeting to discuss the feasibility of a large space station as a major post-Apollo effort, exactly two years after the loss of Apollo 1, George Mueller suggested that perhaps the proposed 'logistics system' should first be developed, before space station characteristics were decided upon.
In short, it looks as if NASA may try to secure the budget for the Space Shuttle before funding of the space station it is designed to service !

Meanwhile progress at least have been recorded with Skylab. So far three years of delays design changes, late decisions and cost cuts delayed the Marshall Orbital Workshop wet stage design. But the early success in man-rating the Saturn V on the third (Apollo 8) launch meant that one of the Saturn Vs could be used for an AAP mission earlier than previously expected.

Incidentally Apollo 20 cancellation lprovided a Saturn V to get the first Skylab off the ground in July 1972 for three flights and eight months of manned operations.

Looking forward however reveals uncertainty in spaceflight programmes after Skylab and it is difficult to visualise missions beyond 1972 to keep the programme sustained.
Progress on the "true" Space Station will obviously rely on the success of the Skylab to provide essential data. In fact it may almost become a case of flying Skylab to prove that it could be done and then seeing what happens to the budget.
As such, NASA top priority today is to fly one AAP workshop before asking for funds to support any follow-on programmes - be it the shuttle or the true space station. As if things were not complicated enough NASA also has to take into account the last manned lunar landings.

Before its cancellation Apollo 20 was planned for July 1972, but lack of budget and Soviet failures led to a stretch of the flight schedule.

With only two lunar landings per year Apollo 19 has been pushed as late as 1973 or even 1974. In summary, so much hardware has already been procured for Apollo that the landings may drag long enough to compete for funding with the shuttle, Skylab and the "true" space station !

For example a scenario has the space station moved ahead to 1977 or 1978. The second Skylab or the first space shuttles would be flown after Apollo 19 in the 1974-75 era.

Although Skylab is definitively not NASA dreamed space station, nothing would prevent a Shuttle docking to the workshop..."
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An interesting ideological dichotomy however separates the space station from the shuttle.
For the shuttle, technology is clearly the driver, and paves the development in every respect. Advancements required in key propulsion, materials/structures, and thermal protection combined with painstaking attention to advanced hypersonic, supersonic, transonic and subsonic aerodynamics present a true technological challenge; but we consider this to be a challenge of credible extension of current art.

These technological requirements establishes the shuttle to be the long lead system of the integrated plan and that system with perhaps the most uncertainty or risk in cost and schedule projections. If we are to have a reusable shuttle and are to realize the tremendous benefits it can bring to an era of "routinized" operations in space, we must press forward on this program with maximum urgency.

(Merely to pursue technologies in a puristic sense will not materially advance us toward our goal, since as we discussed earlier, the driver on the shuttle is the shuttle configuration itself, represented in reality only by something closely approaching the full-scale aerodynamic/structural vehicle itself, in near-optimum integration to validate its performance capabilities and thereby its value …)

The space station, on the other hand, is much farther from absolute or from a "go-no go" solution in form. It can be stated that instead of technology it is the Initial Operating Capability (IOC) that sets the technology cutoff date and thereby drives the configuration. To illustrate, a station of considerable sophistication meeting most of the program criteria currently set down by the NASA could be realized as early as 1975 with minor extension of Apollo/ AAP technology.

If one more round of technology extension were undertaken to materially advance the art in key subsystems (such as ECLSS or electrical power) to a next logical plateau, 2 more years should be provided before a desired IOC (1977-78)

If true and complete modularization and standardization of all subsystems, including structural vehicle and configuration, were established as a constraint to permit universality in low or high inclination earth orbit, and lunar orbit, 3 to 5 years additional should be provided to IOC (1978-80).
If universality were to be extended to the Mars excursion module, 4 to 6 years should be added ( 1979-81 ).
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If the shuttle is developed and introduced first, the earth orbital space station "gap" would be filled with extension of the AAP (Saturn V) workshop program.

One such mission is now programed, a second in the planning stage, and a third could be required to maintain program continuity.

The potential to use these AAP workshops to develop operational, maintenance and logistics concepts as well as some of the advanced hardware for the next generation space station program is excellent. It must be recognized however, that this is a fairly expensive gap filler and would tend to encroach on vital shuttle/space station K.&D. Dollars.”

(Excerpt from: Manned Space Flight: Present and Future: Hearings before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Feb 12 1971)
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