Space Access Update is Space Access Society's semi-weekly publication. Space Access Society's goal is to promote affordable access to space for all, period. We believe in concentrating our limited resources at whatever point looks like yielding maximum progress toward this goal.
For the moment, our main focus is on supporting BMDO's "SSRT" (Single Stage Rocket Technology) program, DC-X and its planned-but-not-yet-funded followon, SX-2. Space Access Update is thus for the moment largely about the technology and politics of DC-X and SX-2.
We anticipate a change of focus in a couple of months, if all goes well. Once SX-2 startup funding is (with your help!) assured, we plan to begin working on establishment of a healthy second X-rocket development track at NASA, and on getting development of suitable engines started for the fully reusable orbital ships that should come after SX-2 and NASA's X-rocket.
With luck and hard work, we should see one or more fully reusable SSTO testbeds flying to orbit toward the end of this decade, with production prototypes entering test a couple of years after that. Join us and help us make this happen.
Henry Vanderbilt, Editor, Space Access Update
(For more info on Space Access Society, write us at 4855 E Warner Rd #24-150, Phoenix AZ 85044, or email hvanderbilt@bix.com)
[Editors note -- For those of you seeing this for the first time who need a bit more context, look for the subsequent post titled "DC-X Background". -HV]
Well, we may not get around to a full White Sands DC-X launch trip report for a while. This is the home stretch of the annual Congressional budget process. Things have been hopping, and likely will continue that way for another few weeks. Our attempt at a word picture of the doings in southern New Mexico will just have to wait a bit longer.
Meanwhile, there's no shortage of news.
Dates for the next three flights of DC-X have been tentatively set, with the first of these targeted for this coming Thursday, September 30th. Following that would be the fast turnaround demo, with flights on October 13th and 16th. At least one and possibly two flights would follow before the end of October.
Keeping in mind that these dates aren't yet firm, the turnaround times between flights would be 24 days (already accomplished), 19 days, 16 days, and 3 days.
Test profiles for the next three flights will still be basically straight up then straight down again, with higher speed and altitude each time. Thursday's flight is aimed (again tentatively) at reaching 1200 feet. The exact schedule and profile for this flight is due to be nailed down in a meeting Monday the 27th, according to an MDA spokesperson.
Schedule and profiles for each subsequent flight will of course depend in part on results from the previous one. Among the things they'll be looking at in these next few flights (in addition to reusable rocket operability) will be base drag and aerodynamic pressure distribution at higher forward speeds.
After October, unless the $4.88 million in FY '94 flight test continuation funding has arrived, DC-X testing will most likely be shut down for lack of money, after a total of either six or seven flights. FY '94 technically starts October 1st, but chances are FY '94 DOD funding won't be law until midmonth or later.
[Last-second addendum -- we just received considerable extra detail on the next five weeks tentative DC-X flight test schedule. The two additional October flights are pencilled in for the 20th and 27th. SAS members, look for full details in your members-only SAU supplement later today. -HV]
-- The problem with hydrogen gas getting inside DC-X (mentioned several times here over the past few months) looks like being solved. It turns out that the "eyeball" gimballing seals around the engines (spherical-section metal plates around the nozzles) were lifting slightly out of their seats at landing, under pressure from the hydrogen-rich exhaust gas trapped between the vehicle and the ground. The leak mechanism was spotted by an IR video camera placed inside the engine compartment for the second flight. Presumably the fix will involve holding the "eyeball" plates down against their circular sockets more firmly, by beefing up the hold-down springs (assuming they're spring-loaded).
-- The "ablative coating" on the landing pad is actually an industrial compound called "Super Slick", laid down as insurance against gear damage or toppling if DC-X were to land with significant horizontal velocity. So far, there's been no need for this; DC-X has landed both times with near zero sideways speed. The ablative protection for the pad as the stuff boils off is an unplanned side benefit.
You may recall that last week we hinted at dirty pool in the Senate prior to the 66-33 defeat of the Domenici Amendment that would have fully funded SSRT. Well, the details are all over the place anyway; now we can talk about it.
A couple of weeks ago, rumors started floating around of active anti SX-2 lobbying in Washington. The names of various major aerospace contractors and government research centers were mentioned, but hey, these were just rumors.
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 by Senate standards, even if the flyer weren't a pack of lies as regards SX-2.
We immediately composed a refutation and sent it out (with annotated copies of the flyer -- yes, the flyer mysteriously showed up on our fax machine) to all the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. SASC is of course due to conference with their House counterparts in the next few days, said conference being a prime opportunity to restore the $79.88 million SSRT authorization level that was voted down after the flyer circulated. Presumably Senators don't like being lied to any more than the rest of us. We'll see.
The text of the flyer is attached at the end of this update. While we're fond of our particular refutation letter, the points made are obvious enough that we'll save everyone a bit of storage space. We might mention, though, that SX-2 will be a lot closer to seventy tons fully fuelled than it will be to seven hundred.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the House Appropriations Committee has some staffers with ideas of their own. HAC gave SSRT $40 million in their final Defense markup, half the House authorized level -- our reaction as of last week was that this is not great, but not bad given the cuts made elsewhere.
It turns out though that the report language accompanying the HAC Defense markup is loaded with clever and not-so-clever SSTO killers. On the clever side was the bit ordering ARPA to run SSTO themselves, rather than contracting it out to any other government agency (regular ARPA practice to date.) This would kick the current BMDO DC-X management team off the job and hand it directly to ARPA, which has no great interest in actually flying rockets itself. As one unkind but knowledgable person put it, this would likely result in ARPA buying another supercomputer and painting "SSTO" on the side.
On the other end of the subtlety scale was the part where the report flat-out recommends bringing expendable "Spacelifter" (formerly NLS, the "Never Launch System") back from its well-deserved grave for "aggressive development". Reusable SSTO would be relegated to a "thoughtful, long-term research and development program" specifically aimed at an eventual Spacelifter successor. If that didn't make the point bluntly enough, they went on to say SSTO should be "a very slow, long-term technology effort" aimed at "developing a prototype" of an operational medium-payload SSTO.
In other words, turn SSTO into the next NASP - a long-term aerospace welfare program, aimed at the ever-receding target of producing a useful cargo- carrying example of an entirely new type of vehicle on the very first try. Like NASP, it would produce ten years of funding for tech development and simulation-shuffling, and like NASP, it would never produce an actual flight vehicle.
This is, in our opinion, an attempt to produce a two track National Aerospace Jobs Program, since while "Spacelifter" in theory could be an improvement over current US expendables, on the evidence to date it is near certain to be overstaffed and overdesigned, and to end up over budget, over schedule, and just as expensive as current expendables by the time it actually flies. The current US space launch establishment is about as likely to produce a simple rugged cheap easy-to-operate spacelift vehicle, expendable OR reusable, as we are to produce a Picasso next time we pick up a paintbrush.
Hrrrmph. And now that we have vented our editorial spleen on this attempt to subvert the intentions of the actual members of HAC Defense, we have to say this: SAS recommends that you NOT raise a major fuss over these matters. Not yet anyway. There is a lot going on behind the scenes in the way of efforts to quietly fix these problems. The best way to back these efforts up as members of the public is to keep up the sharply focussed positive pressure in favor of fully funding "SSRT followon", the SX-2, over the next couple of weeks.
Then we shall see what we will see.
We're asking for basically the same actions as last week, contacting members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee (SAC Defense), and also contacting likely participants in the upcoming House-Senate Defense Authorizations conference. There are a couple changes in emphasis, however.
SAC Defense has moved to top priority, both because of the problems with the HAC Defense report language, and because SAC Defense is now supposed to mark up the Senate Defense Appropriations bill tomorrow, Tuesday the 27th.
We recommend immediate calls or faxes to Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the SAC Defense subcommittee, to Senator Ted Stevens, Ranking Republican on the subcommittee, to Senator Robert Byrd, extremely influential member of the subcommittee (Byrd is chairman of the full SAC) and to any SAC Defense members from your state.
Ask them to appropriate funds for the Single Stage Rocket Technology (SSRT) program at the House Defense Authorization level of $79.88 million. Thank the Senators (marked with a *) who voted for Domenici's SSRT amendment, and inquire politely of the others why they opposed SSRT, while giving them at least one good reason why they should support it. Emphasis on "politely". Please, no flames. Yet.
-- Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee List --
("Senator XYZ", office#, "Washington DC 20510" will get mail to them.)
(* = voted for the Domenici Amendment favoring full funding for SSRT.)
(note - Phil Gramm of Texas did not vote either way on the amendment.)
SENATOR STATE FAX PHONE Office#
-----------------------------------------------------------
*Bond, Christopher R MO 224-7491 224-5721 SR293
Bumpers, Dale D AR 224-6435 224-4843 SD229
Byrd, Robert D WV 224-4025 224-3954 SH311
*Cochran, Thad R MS 224-9450 224-5054 SR326
*D'Amato, Alfonse R NY 224-5871 224-6542 SH520
DeConcini, Dennis D AZ 224-2302 224-4521 SH328
*Domenici, Pete R NM 224-7371 224-6621 SD434
Gramm, Phil R TX 228-2856 224-2934 SR370
Harkin, Tom D IA 224-9369 224-3254 SH351
Hollings, Ernest D SC 224-3573 224-6121 SR125
Inouye, Daniel D HI 224-6747 224-3934 SH722
*Johnston, J.Bennett D LA 224-2952 224-5824 SH136
Lautenberg, Frank D NJ 224-9707 224-4744 SH506
Leahy, Patrick D VT 224-3595 224-4242 SR433
Nickles, Don R OK 224-6008 224-5754 SH713
Sasser, Jim D TN 224-8062 224-3344 SR363
Specter, Arlen R PA 224-1893 224-4254 SH303
*Stevens, Ted R AK 224-2354 224-3004 SH522
Meanwhile, the House-Senate Defense Authorization conference could start any day now, as soon as the House makes their version of the DOD Authorization official. We have a tentative list of conferees (SASC & HASC committee and subcommittee heads and RRM's) attached. Call, write, or fax:
Ask them to support the House Defense Authorization language on BMDO's Single Stage Rocket Technology (SSRT) program in the Defense Authorization conference.
On the Senate side, pay particular attention to giving at least one good reason to support SSRT to the Senators who voted against the Domenici SSRT Amendment. Thank the Senators who voted for that amendment, and ask the ones who didn't (politely) why not.
On the House side, thank Representative Dellums for his past support and ask him to continue it. (We've taken Representative Schroeder off the list because of a recent speech indicating that she's solidly behind SSRT, and feedback that her office has been getting a LOT of calls. Good work, all. Notes of appreciation for her support wouldn't hurt.)
-- Likely Conferees from the Senate Armed Services Committee --
("Senator XYZ", office#, "Washington DC 20510" will get mail to them.)
(* = voted for the Domenici Amendment favoring full funding for SSRT.)
Name office# phone fax (AC 202)
Sam Nunn (D-GA) SASC Chair SD-303 224-3521 224-0072
James Exon (D-NE) "Nuke" Chair SH-528 224-4224 224-5213
John McCain (R-AZ) SR-111 224-2235 224-8938
*Richard C. Shelby (D-AL) SH-509 224-5744 224-3416
William S. Cohen (R-ME) SH-322 224-2523 224-2693
Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) SR-315 224-4543 224-2417
Carl Levin (D-MI) SR-459 224-6221 224-1388
Dan Coats (R-IN) SR-404 224-5623 224-1966
*Trent Lott (R-MS) SR-487 224-6253 224-2262
*Bob Smith (R-NH) SD-332 224-2841 224-1353
*Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) SH-110 224-5521 224-1810
*John Glenn (D-OH) SH-503 224-3353 224-7983
Strom Thurmond (R-SC) SR-217 224-5972 224-1300
John Warner (R-VA) SR-225 224-2023 224-6295
-- Likely Conferees from the House Armed Services Committee --
(all phone #'s in 202 area code, all addresses are Washington DC 20515,
in either the Cannon, Longworth, or Rayburn House Office Buildings.
Rep. Dellums' address, for instance, would be written as:
Representative Dellums
2136 Rayburn HOB
Washington DC 20515 )
phone fax address
Ron Dellums, D 9 CA HASC Chair 225-2661 225-9817 2136 RHOB
Floyd Spence, R 2 SC HASC RRM 225-2452 225-2455 2405 RHOB
Patricia Schroeder, D 1 CO 225-4431 225-5842 2208 RHOB
Earl Hutto, D 1 FL 225-4136 225-5785 2435 RHOB
Dave McCurdy, D 4 OK 225-6165 225-9746 2344 RHOB
Bob Stump, R 3 AZ 225-4576 225-6328 211 CHOB
Duncan Hunter, R 52 CA 225-5672 225-0235 133 CHOB
John R Kasich, R 12 OH 225-5355 ? 1131 LHOB
James V Hansen, R 1 UT 225-0453 225-5857 2466 RHOB
Ike Skelton, D MO 225-2876 225-2695 ?
Jon Kyl, R AZ 225-3361 225-1143 ?
Norman Sisiky, D VA 225-6365 226-1170 ?
That's all for this week. Thanks for all the good work so far. Things don't look quite as rosy as they did a week ago, but good things seldom come easy.
[Note from the editor: If you've never contacted your elected representatives in Washington before, now is a good time to start. It's painless, it can actually be pretty effective, and if you don't believe developing the means of affordable space access is a good cause, chances are you wouldn't be reading this, eh? For some tips on making effective contact, see the Politics section of the subsequent "DC-X Background" posting. -HV]
Henry Vanderbilt "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere Executive Director, in the Solar System." Space Access Society - Robert A. Heinlein hvanderbilt@bix.com "You can't get there from here." 602 431-9283 voice/fax - Anonymous -- Permission granted to redistribute the full and unaltered text of this -- -- piece, including the copyright and this notice. All other rights -- -- reserved. In other words, intact crossposting is strongly encouraged. --[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
[End of text]