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".]
Not much new on DC-X since this weekend. We've gotten independent confirmation that DC-X's engines indeed throttled up at different rates after liftoff on its third flight September 30th. This caused a lateral drift at low altitude over the pad area as the engines gimbaled to keep the vehicle upright despite the asymmetric thrust. Once the lagging engines caught up, the flight control system was able to complete the test mission as planned.
Still no word on the cause of the slow throttleups. The next two flights, originally scheduled for October 13th and 16th, have been moved back a week.
A little-publicized meeting took place last Friday in the Russell Senate Office Building, Room 236, at 10 am. Apparently most of the attendees only heard about it through invitations issued by Dr. Terry Dawson, a staffer for the House Space, Science, & Technology Committee and former NSS Board member. Attendees were mainly senior space staffers from various Congressional committees and organizations. The main agenda point seems to have been that SSTO will take at least fifteen years and cost at least fifteen billion dollars, and that as sensible people the attendees ought to get behind a "sensible" space launch policy that puts SSTO on the back burner.
In a possibly related development, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently set up an interagency working group to once more study the space launch problem to death, in a massive across-the-board review scheduled to take at least a year. Meanwhile, OSTP wants DOD and NASA to hold off on any commitment to SSTO work until the study is done, meaning startup budgeting would likely not happen before FY '96, a two-year delay.
OSTP of course has little or no authority to order DOD or NASA around - they have no more authority than direct Presidential backing might give them in any particular instance, and it's not at all clear that this OSTP initiative originated at anything like that high a level. It remains to be seen what if any effect this OSTP move will have, beyond causing more forests to die in rediscovering the obvious, that we have a launch problem.
The full SAC finished marking up the FY '94 Defense Appropriations bill Tuesday, and it turns out they deleted _everything_ having to do with new space launchers. No NASP, no "Spacelifter", no ARPA line item for SSRT or any other space development. One theory is that Senator Inouye cut everything else to the bone to finance another new aircraft carrier for the Navy.
Whatever the reason, we'll need to work on persuading Senator Inouye to look more favorably on SSRT "SX-2" startup funding before the House-Senate Appropriations Conference later this month. We have Representative Murtha's (Murtha is Inouye's House counterpart) promise of strong support, but best that Senator Inouye be brought around as far as possible beforehand.
This news isn't all bad; at least the Senate side of this Appropriations conference will be starting with a clean sheet of paper, rather than with a specific agenda of their own.
Meanwhile, the House-Senate Defense Authorization Conference began holding preliminary, informal, unofficial meetings earlier today. This is of course where a fair amount of the important stuff will get decided, long before the actual conferees are announced and the Conference officially starts, early next week. We need to shift top priority to these people, now.
We still don't know exactly who will be part of this Conference, but we do know there will be 30 participants from the House side, 18 Democrat and 12 Republican, a little over half the total membership of the House Armed Services Committee, selected pretty much by seniority. This lets us make a pretty good guess at the House participants.
On the Senate side, we still have no better information than that conferees will certainly include all the committee and subcommittee heads and RRM's, fourteen Senators. This is well over half the SASC total membership, so this list is not likely to be too different from the final one.
The potential House-Senate Defense Authorizations conferees have moved to the top of the priority list. We've also got quite a few more Representatives on the House half of the list for you to check for proximity.
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.
-- 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
Strom Thurmond (R-SC) SR-217 224-5972 224-1300
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
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 )
(Absent a specific office address, "Representative XYZ, Washington DC 20515"
has a reasonable chance of working. Apologies for the missing addresses.)
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 ?
Browder, Glen, D AL 225-9020 225-3261 ?
Dornan , Robert R CA 225-2965 ?
Hefley, Joel R CO 225-1942 225-4422 ?
McCloskey, Frank D IN 225-4688 225-4636 ?
Evans, Lane D IL 225-5396 225-5905 ?
Montgomery, G.V. D MS 225-3375 225-5031 ?
Bilbray, James D NV 225-8808 225-5965 ?
Hochbrueckner, GeorgeD NY 225-0776 225-3826 ?
Lancaster, H. Martin D NC 225-0666 225-3415 ?
Weldon, Curt R PA 225-8137 225-2011 ?
Machtley, Ronald R RI 225-4417 225-4911 ?
Spratt,, John D SC 225-0464 225-5501 ?
Ravenel,, Arthur R SC 225-4340 225-3176 ?
Lloyd, Marilyn D TN 225-6974 225-3271 ?
Ortiz, Solomon D TX 226-1134 225-7742 ?
Bateman, Herbert R VA 225-4382 225-4261 ?
Pickett, Owen D VA 225-4218 225-4215 ?
Does it sometimes seem like this funding season has been dragging on forever, or is it only me?
[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.]
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. --