alternatehistory.com
Battle for the space shuttle (7)
September 24, 1971
The Flax committee hold its second meeting. Alexander Flax could see Martha's Vineyard on the background.
He focused on the NASA man and its speech - Dale Myers, that did his best to present the shuttle the space agency dreamed to afford.
Yet another, different concept than the ones they had discussed only five weeks earlier !
“Our preferred concept would be a phased shuttle orbiter. We would first build an interim shuttle with Apollo technology to lower development costs; that shuttle would then gradually be upgraded."
Flax could see that Eugene Fubini was sceptical.
“What about an up-scaled Titan with an unpowered shuttle on top ? Why can’t you use the Air Force rocket, for god sake ? Listen. Why not a small space shuttle with a payload of 10 000 pounds ? What's wrong with that ?"
Myers was stunned.
A ten thousand pounds payload Glider ? Didn't George Low mentioned a similar concept a month ago - with three times the payload ? How the hell did this Fubini heard about it ? Did someone leaked the thing to him ?
It doesn't matter. But damn, not this Glider again !
Myers politely started to rip Fubini arguments to pieces.
"This glider is not a true shuttle because only the orbiter is reusable. Even if the solids are recovered, main engines are lost. With an overall weight limited to 45 tons by the Titan, payload drops substantially, and the payload bay size with it. In my opinion, once you start using expendable rocket for manned spaceflight, you’d better mounting a capsule on top of it !
"The only advantage of a winged spacecraft over this capsule would be its payload bay; not sure it’s enough to justify the complexity of the glider, or the cost of the enlarged Titan. NASA certainly won’t accept such a downgraded shuttle. What we need is a large orbiter with a fully recoverable booster. We don't want this glider; we don't need a fat DynaSoar" Myers concluded with a pun. Fat dinosaur, ha ha ha !
Not only Fubini did not laughed, he also remained silent. Had Dale Myers been less overconfident enough that Nixon advisors would accept the Saturn-Shuttle, he would have smelled the rat.
Unknown to Myers, at this very minute, Eugene Fubini had changed its mind. He didn’t gave a damn about whatever booster the shuttle would use.
For Eugene Fubini, the full-size orbiter was now unnecessary. Something smaller would be better.
It was Flax that resumed the talk.
“Now let’s discuss another topic – the Mathematica study. Can you explain me what's this Thrust Augmented Shuttle Orbiter ?”
“My assistant Robert Lindley currently works along Mathematica” Myers replied. “Robert ?”
Robert Lindley was one of the Arrow orphans, one of James Chamberlin twenty-five top Canadian engineers that had been recruited by a nascent NASA a decade before to work on Gemini and Apollo.
In the post-Apollo era Robert Lindley had been tasked with economic justification of the shuttle.
Flax soon understood why NASA had Lindley in charge of that difficult task. The Canadian was an extremely charming and extremely shrewd man who was getting out of this group of people a set of numbers for what the economics of the shuttle might be downstream.
As he spoke, Flax felt that noone really resisted him; and when Fubini objected about This is not knowable, or if it is knowable, we don't have the information yet; we would have to do a study - Lindley remain unflapable.
To Flax it was obvious what he was doing was focusing, steering this group of Headquarters people into a totally subjective, qualitative kind of justification of the shuttle, without any real basis at all.
A year before Lindley had required an assessment of payload effects by an aerospace corporation with actual experience in building spacecraft. He wanted mission models, projections of the specific spacecraft, and payloads that the shuttle might carry, and he needed such mission models for the Air Force as well as NASA. The BoB also encouraged him strongly to have the economic analysis - including the vital determination of discount rates - conducted by professional economists with experience in this area.
For mission modeling and for payload and launch vehicle cost estimates, Lindley turned to the Aerospace Corp., which had strong ties to the Air Force and was widely known as a center of expertise.
Lockheed, builder of the Corona spacecraft, took charge of work on payload effects.
For the overall economic evaluation, which these other contracts would support, Lindley followed recommendations from the BoB and approached the firm of Mathematica, Inc., in Princeton, New Jersey.
So here was Robert Lindley, fighting bravely to defend a different shuttle, another concept. Unfortunately USAF officials already had ruined his valiant atempt. Preceding Myers and Lindley speeches Air Force presentations had projected lower launch rates than that used in Mathematica Reports.
Furthermore, Mathematica had been deconsidered by the fact their earlier report (issued late May) talked only of – obsolete – fully reusable shuttles. Mathematica still suffered from that credibility issue.
The Mathematica peoples were no engineers - rather economists hired by Weinberger's Bureau of Budget to pressure NASA over cheaper shuttles. The space agency, of course, did not cared much about the effort. Unlike NASA, USAF or the White House, the Mathematica Institute, Princeton, Virginia, was new in the space arena debate.
Lindley speech mentioned revised economic analysis. As he progressed through his speech, Flax come to understood the Mathematica economists also had their own prefered concept, that preserved the big Air Force payload bay at the expense of everything else.
The thing was nothing like Myers Saturn-Shuttle - and really a far cry from it. Even more worrying was the fact that it was quite obvious that, apart from that poor Lindley no one at NASA really cared about the concept.
When the meeting ended Flax was very baffled if not totally pissed-off.
Jesus. What a mess.
-----------
NOTE: look at the four people below. Those four each have a prefered shuttle concept. Date is late September 1971. The end result is a kind of knife-fight over the shuttle budget and shape.
Dale Myers, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Spaceflight
Klaus Heiss, tasked with a study of Shuttle economics.
The Mathematica institute, Princeton, New Jersey.
Alexander Flax, tasked with shuttle studies
for Nixon Presidential Science Advisory Committee (the PSAC)
Caspar Weinberger, in charge of shuttle studies for the Office of Management and Budget (the OMB)
The Flax committee hold its second meeting. Alexander Flax could see Martha's Vineyard on the background.
He focused on the NASA man and its speech - Dale Myers, that did his best to present the shuttle the space agency dreamed to afford.
Yet another, different concept than the ones they had discussed only five weeks earlier !
“Our preferred concept would be a phased shuttle orbiter. We would first build an interim shuttle with Apollo technology to lower development costs; that shuttle would then gradually be upgraded."
Flax could see that Eugene Fubini was sceptical.
“What about an up-scaled Titan with an unpowered shuttle on top ? Why can’t you use the Air Force rocket, for god sake ? Listen. Why not a small space shuttle with a payload of 10 000 pounds ? What's wrong with that ?"
Myers was stunned.
A ten thousand pounds payload Glider ? Didn't George Low mentioned a similar concept a month ago - with three times the payload ? How the hell did this Fubini heard about it ? Did someone leaked the thing to him ?
It doesn't matter. But damn, not this Glider again !
Myers politely started to rip Fubini arguments to pieces.
"This glider is not a true shuttle because only the orbiter is reusable. Even if the solids are recovered, main engines are lost. With an overall weight limited to 45 tons by the Titan, payload drops substantially, and the payload bay size with it. In my opinion, once you start using expendable rocket for manned spaceflight, you’d better mounting a capsule on top of it !
"The only advantage of a winged spacecraft over this capsule would be its payload bay; not sure it’s enough to justify the complexity of the glider, or the cost of the enlarged Titan. NASA certainly won’t accept such a downgraded shuttle. What we need is a large orbiter with a fully recoverable booster. We don't want this glider; we don't need a fat DynaSoar" Myers concluded with a pun. Fat dinosaur, ha ha ha !
Not only Fubini did not laughed, he also remained silent. Had Dale Myers been less overconfident enough that Nixon advisors would accept the Saturn-Shuttle, he would have smelled the rat.
Unknown to Myers, at this very minute, Eugene Fubini had changed its mind. He didn’t gave a damn about whatever booster the shuttle would use.
For Eugene Fubini, the full-size orbiter was now unnecessary. Something smaller would be better.
It was Flax that resumed the talk.
“Now let’s discuss another topic – the Mathematica study. Can you explain me what's this Thrust Augmented Shuttle Orbiter ?”
“My assistant Robert Lindley currently works along Mathematica” Myers replied. “Robert ?”
Robert Lindley was one of the Arrow orphans, one of James Chamberlin twenty-five top Canadian engineers that had been recruited by a nascent NASA a decade before to work on Gemini and Apollo.
In the post-Apollo era Robert Lindley had been tasked with economic justification of the shuttle.
Flax soon understood why NASA had Lindley in charge of that difficult task. The Canadian was an extremely charming and extremely shrewd man who was getting out of this group of people a set of numbers for what the economics of the shuttle might be downstream.
As he spoke, Flax felt that noone really resisted him; and when Fubini objected about This is not knowable, or if it is knowable, we don't have the information yet; we would have to do a study - Lindley remain unflapable.
To Flax it was obvious what he was doing was focusing, steering this group of Headquarters people into a totally subjective, qualitative kind of justification of the shuttle, without any real basis at all.
A year before Lindley had required an assessment of payload effects by an aerospace corporation with actual experience in building spacecraft. He wanted mission models, projections of the specific spacecraft, and payloads that the shuttle might carry, and he needed such mission models for the Air Force as well as NASA. The BoB also encouraged him strongly to have the economic analysis - including the vital determination of discount rates - conducted by professional economists with experience in this area.
For mission modeling and for payload and launch vehicle cost estimates, Lindley turned to the Aerospace Corp., which had strong ties to the Air Force and was widely known as a center of expertise.
Lockheed, builder of the Corona spacecraft, took charge of work on payload effects.
For the overall economic evaluation, which these other contracts would support, Lindley followed recommendations from the BoB and approached the firm of Mathematica, Inc., in Princeton, New Jersey.
So here was Robert Lindley, fighting bravely to defend a different shuttle, another concept. Unfortunately USAF officials already had ruined his valiant atempt. Preceding Myers and Lindley speeches Air Force presentations had projected lower launch rates than that used in Mathematica Reports.
Furthermore, Mathematica had been deconsidered by the fact their earlier report (issued late May) talked only of – obsolete – fully reusable shuttles. Mathematica still suffered from that credibility issue.
The Mathematica peoples were no engineers - rather economists hired by Weinberger's Bureau of Budget to pressure NASA over cheaper shuttles. The space agency, of course, did not cared much about the effort. Unlike NASA, USAF or the White House, the Mathematica Institute, Princeton, Virginia, was new in the space arena debate.
Lindley speech mentioned revised economic analysis. As he progressed through his speech, Flax come to understood the Mathematica economists also had their own prefered concept, that preserved the big Air Force payload bay at the expense of everything else.
The thing was nothing like Myers Saturn-Shuttle - and really a far cry from it. Even more worrying was the fact that it was quite obvious that, apart from that poor Lindley no one at NASA really cared about the concept.
When the meeting ended Flax was very baffled if not totally pissed-off.
Jesus. What a mess.
-----------
NOTE: look at the four people below. Those four each have a prefered shuttle concept. Date is late September 1971. The end result is a kind of knife-fight over the shuttle budget and shape.
Dale Myers, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Spaceflight
Klaus Heiss, tasked with a study of Shuttle economics.
The Mathematica institute, Princeton, New Jersey.
Alexander Flax, tasked with shuttle studies
for Nixon Presidential Science Advisory Committee (the PSAC)
Caspar Weinberger, in charge of shuttle studies for the Office of Management and Budget (the OMB)
- Archibald
- Word Count: 1.1k