alternatehistory.com

July 25, 1977

LOCKHEED WINS SPACE TELESCOPE

Lockheed Missiles and Space has beaten Boeing and Martin-Marietta in the competition to build Nasa's Space Telescope. For this major venture, the most important of half-adozen new space programmes begun this year by the space agency, the company will receive $72-8 million for initial financing. At the same time Perkin-Elmer has been chosen to build the optics, principally the 94-inch diameter primary mirror. Initially the mirror was to be 120-inch, but that was cut in 1975.

NASA did address the Space Telescope mirror size in the March 1975 hearings, at which time they were studying three options, the 3.0 meter, the 2.4, meter and the 1.8 meter telescopes. At that time NASA indicated that they were probably going to home in on 2.4 meter. It is less complex and looks to be a lower cost option than the 3.0 meter, but still is capable of good scientific observing in space. The 1.8 meter telescope did not appear to represent a significant step forward over what scientists are capable of doing from ground-based observatories, and other space observatories.While a 2.4-meter mirror reduces the light collecting area by 36 percent when compared to a 3-meter system, a further reduction to a 1.8- meter size reduces this capability by 64 percent or, stated differently, a 3-meter mirror has almost three times the light collecting area of a 1.8-meter mirror.

Central to Lockheed victorious space telescope bid has been Maxwell Hunter, one of the brighest aerospace engineer in the United States.

Hunter joined Douglas Aircraft in 1944. As chief missile design engineer, he was responsible for the design of the Thor, Nike-Zeus and other missiles. And as chief engineer of space systems, he was responsible for all Douglas space efforts, including the Delta launch vehicle and the Saturn S-IV stage of the Apollo moon rocket program.

In 1962, Hunter joined the staff of the National Aeronautics and Space Council in Washington, D.C., which was created at the same time as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration four years earlier to coordinate interagency air and space activities. As an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, he offered insight into future space programs and the creation of the National Space Policy.

Returning to designing in 1965, Hunter began his association with Lockheed Missiles and SpaceCo. in Sunnyvale, Calif., where he worked in several areas, including the astronautics (rocket) division and the advanced development section. At Lockheed, he was responsible for the design of the Advanced Space Transportation Vehicles - StarClipper and Shuttle, and he originated the concept of using large expendable tanks in shuttle designs, a move that drastically cut costs although it was not enough to save the program.

After he led the proposal that won the Hubble Space Telescope for Lockheed, the company said that Hunter will now manage another important space asset – the Agena space tug, in collaboration with NASA Lee Scherer and (very probably) the military. Over the last years it has been realized that the Agena potential far exceeded the original space tug role, that is, ferrying space station modules from orbital insertion to docking with the space station core module. Although very busy with Lockheed space telescope bid Maxwell Hunter has published a couple of studies over the space tug and the DIAGONAL launch vehicle. Hunter has said that Agena potential is so great it may change the way we are making things in space.