We're going to try something a little different here, and start sending some of the news we gather to SAS members only, instead of posting it all online for anyone to see. The main reason for this, frankly, is to get more people to sign up and pay; running SAS costs money.
Another reason is we can be a bit less formal here, and talk about things not entirely appropriate for the public Updates for one reason or another.
It started a couple of weeks ago, with rumors floating around of anti SX-2 lobbying by Rockwell (NASP lead contractor) and NASA Ames (HL-20 proponents - remember William Piland of Ames's attempt to defund DC-X last summer?)
Then we lost the Domenici Amendment vote (which would have brought Senate Defense Authorization SX-2 funding up to the House level of $79.88 million) by a lopsided 66-33 margin, when we'd thought we had a chance to win.
Since then we've gotten reliable reports that a severely misleading anti SSTO flyer was actually handed out in the Senate cloakroom before the vote, a rather rude and untraditional thing to do even if the flyer wasn't a pack of lies as regards SX-2. We have a fair idea of where it came from and who handed it out, but can't really say much more on that subject for the moment.
What we could and immediately did do was to compose a refutation and send it out with annotated copies of the flyer (yes, it mysteriously showed up on our fax machine) to all the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the people due to conference with their House counterparts in the next few days, said conference being a prime opportunity to get approved the $79.88m SSRT authorization level that was voted down last Tuesday. Presumably Senators don't like being lied to any more than the rest of us. We'll see.
Text of the flyer and the refutation attached.
Meanwhile, Senator Inouye's SAC Defense subcommittee (see the main update for details and subcommittee list) is going to begin their markup tomorrow. This came in too late to make the main Update. If you're going to call or fax Inouye and your Senator(s) (if any) on SAC Defense, do it tomorrow, Tuesday, if at all possible! They may or may not finish up tomorrow - if you can't get in touch tomorrow, it should still do some good if you call or fax first thing Wednesday.
We already have the official release tape of the first flight, plus a BMDO SSTO backgrounder and CNN and NBC broadcast excerpts from the first flight. In the next few days we should receive official and amateur footage of the second flight, plus footage from a Worldcon DC-X panel and from Jerry Pournelle's "DC-X - The Once And Future Spaceship" talk.
If you want a copy of whatever DC-X material we actually have on hand as of a week from now, send a check for $15 to Space Access Society, 4855 E Warner Rd #24-150, Phoenix AZ 85044. $15 is the SAS members rate, non-members will pay $20 when we start selling to them.
That's it for this week.
Henry Vanderbilt
Executive Director
Space Access Society
[Text of flyer circulated in the Senate Tuesday 9/14/93]
DOMENICI SINGLE STAGE TO ORBIT
Arguments for:
-- Has capture public imagination
-- Efficient new way of doing business
-- Could possibly make space flight as common as air travel
-- Aims to reduce cost from $5000 per pound to $50
Arguments against:
-- Program will cost $6 billion
-- 700 ton spaceship flies up and back
-- Risks are very great. Requires new engines, new engineering
-- If weight growth is even 1.5%, payload would be zero
-- Wrong vehicle for DOD
-- Optimum for manned flight, millions of pounds per year
-- But DOD needs less than 100,000 pounds/year
-- Possibly right vehicle for NASA
[Text of letter sent to all members of SASC Friday 9/17/93 - minor changes in first sentence made for SASC members who voted in favor of the Domenici Amendment. ("..your colleagues were lied to... ..sway their votes...")]
Dear Senator ____,
Last Tuesday you were lied to, on the threshold of the Senate floor, in an
attempt to sway your vote on a key space issue.
We have obtained a copy of the attached flyer; it was we are told handed out at
the doors of the Senate last Tuesday, shortly before the floor vote on the
Domenici Amendment (number 853) to S.1298, the Senate Defense Authorization.
The Domenici Amendment would have authorized $79.88 million in 1994 funding to
start the next phase of the Single Stage Rocket Technology (SSRT) program,
matching the amount in the House Authorization. It was tabled, 66 to 33.
The actual facts of the case:
-- SSRT will be an X-ship, not a spacelifter. The next phase of SSRT is a
three-year program to build a reusable rocket experimental spacecraft, intended
to explore the potential cost savings of fully-reusable, fast-turnaround, small-
groundcrew single-stage rocket space vehicles.
-- 1/10th current launch costs is a more reasonable near term expectation than
the 1/100th ($50 per pound) cited in the scurrilous flyer attached.
-- SSRT is "fly before buy". Any decision to build an operational spacelift
vehicle would come only after the results are in from this next phase.
-- SSRT will cost $400-$500 million total, not the $6 billion claimed in the
propaganda flyer. SSRT came in on budget and on time in the first two-year
$60 million phase that used rapid prototyping and lean management techniques
to produce the DC-X vehicle currently flying. This next phase of SSRT will
produce a ship a fraction of the weight of the 700 ton propaganda claim, and of
that fraction 9/10ths will be fuel. Fuel is cheap.
-- SSRT's new X-ship will fly with existing engines and will have
no requirement to carry payload, greatly reducing program risk.
-- SSRT will demonstrate rapid turnaround, rapid response, and operation from
austere field sites, all useful to DOD even at current low launch rates.
We believe that SSRT and similar programs are vital to this nation's future
economic competitiveness. We cannot continue paying the current horrendous
cost of access to space. We cannot continue treating space as a hi-tech jobs
program. We must begin to treat space as an investment expected to produce a
reasonable return on costs. SSRT is a major step in the right direction.
sincerely,
Henry Vanderbilt
Executive Director, Space Access Society
-- This addendum is solely for Space Access Society members. All rights --
-- reserved. Permission to retransmit or redistribute to anyone not a --
-- member of SAS is expressly denied. --