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 the government's "SSRT" (Single Stage Rocket Technology) program, DC-X and its recently 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 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 underway shortly thereafter. Join us and help us make this happen.
Henry Vanderbilt, Editor, Space Access Update
[For more info on Space Access Society, on our upcoming affordable access engineering/politics/economics conference "Space Access '94" (March 11-13 in Scottsdale, Arizona) or on the DC-X/SSTO video we have for sale, 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 our post entitled "DC-X Background". Honest, we'll be updating and reposting it Real Soon Now.]
We start out this issue with a retraction and an apology: In SAU #29, we stated that layoff notices were going out to the DC-X crew the next day. This was incorrect. (We applaud the courage of whoever at McDonnell-Douglas refused to do the easy thing and send out layoff notices two weeks before the apparently inevitable February 1st contract termination date.)
Incorrect or not, reporting this was insensitive as hell as regards the feelings of the DC-X crew. Their lives have likely been aggravating enough lately without our adding to it. Sorry, guys. We've been there ourselves, working in the middle of a sea of layoff rumors, and it's not fun.
TITLE: It's official now. DC-X has won a stay of execution - NASA is sending one million dollars of discretionary funding over to BMDO to keep the DC-X contract from being shut down on February 1st, tomorrow.
This is not exactly a victory, but it's certainly the avoidance of a defeat. DC-X remains grounded indefinitely, but this money from NASA will allow BMDO to keep the contract alive another month or two, and thus allow McDonnell- Douglas to keep the DC-X test site intact and the flight team together.
More on this in the next Space Access Update, later this week.
Well, it's later this week. We still don't have many new facts on NASA's last-second rescue of the DC-X, but there is a lot of background to this event that needs explaining, judging by the mail our bulletin generated. [Yes, we read our email; we just can't always answer it right away. Ditto paper mail; there we're *really* backed up. A catch-up blitz is due Real Soon Now.]
First, the new facts: This money came straight from the top at NASA; Administrator Goldin is behind it. DC-X does seem to be a good example of the better-faster-cheaper philosophy Goldin is pushing in NASA, and Goldin has gone on record over the past year as favoring such flight demonstrator programs.
The amount NASA sent to BMDO is just under one million dollars, which apparently is enough to pay for keeping DC-X and its crew on standby for another two months. It's not at all clear what NASA is to get out of this, though apparently their level of involvement will increase. To quote the MDA press release, "During the next 60 days, NASA and DOD will study options and lay out a plan to complete the original flight envelope testing of the experimental vertical-takeoff and vertical-landing launch vehicle." Now you know as much as we do.
Some of the questions we've received, in no particular order:
Well, this is a complicated one. For starters, NASA is not a single monlithic agency with a single coordinated policy on all things. Look at them as a gaggle of field centers flying in extremely loose formation, occasionally even taking their lead from NASA headquarters in Washington, and you won't be far off the mark. Some groups within NASA have vehemently opposed the SSRT DC-X program, either because they saw it as a threat to their own pet solutions to the space launch problem, or more charitably because they honestly believed it wouldn't work. (It's amazing how unworkable someone else's idea can look when it's radically different from the way you've been doing things for your whole career - especially when it might reduce your status if it did work.)
NASA as a whole is gradually coming to acknowledge the merits of reusable SSTO launchers. Some parts of the formation are turning faster than others, but they are turning, especially since the pro-SSTO Bekey report began circulating in draft form last year. There is still a strong tendency to try to fit SSTO into standard NASA agendas.
For instance, a lot of the NASA centers would like funding for technology developments in support of SSTO - lighter structures and better engines being prime goals. This is OK with us at SAS, indeed we support such, as long as they aren't allowed to delay interim experience-building reusable rocket flight test projects such as SX-2. We in particular support NASA sponsored development of SSTO-suitable engines, so when the time comes later this decade to build the first fully reusable orbital vehicles, the engines will be there.
There is also a tendency within NASA to try to redefine SSTO as another all- things-to-all-launch-customers National Space Transportation System, AKA "Shuttle II". SAS vehemently opposes any such project as being likely to repeat all the problems we've seen with Shuttle - massive overhead, overcomplexity, fragility, and suppression of alternative launcher projects.
There's an important distinction to make here: SAS does not oppose continued Shuttle operations. NASA's Shuttle program provides the nation with a useful mix of space capabilities, several of these Shuttle-unique. We support continued operation of Shuttle until such time as its tasks can be taken over by a number of simpler, cheaper, more specialized fully-reusable vehicles, built by commercial vendors, and flown by commercial transport companies where the NASA mission doesn't require specialized in-house operation.
This one's easier to answer: Because while McDonnell-Douglas could easily afford to finish DC-X flight test out of pocket, finishing DC-X flight test would still leave them somewhere between the high hundreds of millions to low billions of dollars away from having a commercially salable space transport in production. McDonnell-Douglas is only a couple years past being given up for dead by the finacial world. Things are looking up, but it's by no means clear they could raise the money for a wildcat commercial SSTO venture right now even if they were to put the entire company in hock.
The perceived risk of a commercial SSTO venture is still too high. SAS's position is that further reduction of both technical and perceived risk, via the SX-2 suborbital reusable rocket testbed, via other similar projects, and via SSTO-enabling technology developments, is needed to bring us to the point where bankers could reasonably consider a commercial SSTO development to be a prudent investment of the sums required. We note in passing that such risk- reduction work will also both reduce and better define the sums required.
No, we haven't won. We've succeeded in holding our ground for another two months; we've bought more time to fight the battle over freeing up the $40 million ARPA is supposed to be spending on DC-X/SX-2.
On the other hand, holding our ground is pretty significant. To continue the military metaphor, DC-X was a flanking movement, an end-run past the opposition's main forces. Now we're deep into their territory, and the reason we're seeing such a stiff fight lately is that they've brought up all their reserves. They still haven't managed to toss us out of their territory. If we can win this one, they'll have expended a lot of their resources, and things should go a bit easier for a while.
As we mentioned last issue, on December 31st 1993 the Comptroller's office at the Department of Defense released a list of proposed "recissions" for FY'94, a list of programs which DOD would be willing to shut down, returning their funding to the Treasury.
The SSRT project (DC-X/SX-2) was on this list in the guise of "ARPA Space Program", a fact we found out about in early January. A week's worth of quiet behind-the-scenes attempts to get this fixed later, it became obvious that "ARPA Space Program" didn't get on the kill list by accident or oversight, and that it wouldn't come off the list without a fight.
We have since gotten a little better handle on the nature of the holdup, while at the same time the situation has evolved. The latest scuttlebutt is that Dr. Gary Denman, the head of ARPA, is now in favor of proceeding with SSRT.
Denman's boss is Dr. John Deutch, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition. At the moment Deutch seems to be the chief obstacle to removing DC-X/SX-2 money from the rescission list. There are some indications his opposition is a matter of caution over letting the camel's nose into the tent on any major new space launch projects, rather than opposition to reusable SSTO per se. It would seem that the nature of, need for, and the limited overall cost of DC-X/SX-2 need further authoritative explanation at this level.Deutch in turn reports to Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. William J. Perry. Perry, of course, is the Administration's nominee to replace Les Aspin as Secretary of Defense, and a safe bet for quick confirmation, possibly as early as tomorrow - the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on Perry were over in three hours earlier today. Word is that Deutch is likely to move up into Perry's old job when Perry is confirmed.
DOD is supposed to be sending its rescissions list to Congress this coming Monday, February 7th. Things will go a lot easier if this problem is fixed within DOD by taking "ARPA Space Program" off the list before that happens - after that, it'll be back in the Congress for discussion and vote, a whole new ballgame.
Assuming we get DC-X/SX-2 off the rescissions list, there's still the problem of getting the money released. The $5 million for DC-X flight test completion looks like it shouldn't be too much trouble at this point, what with the amount of publicity DC-X has gotten lately. See the February issue of Popular Science for a good overview of reusable launchers (that's a cutaway of DC-X on the cover), and the Boston Globe of Saturday 1/22/94 and New York Times of Monday 1/31/94 for stories on the funding problems. CBS News also ran a short piece on DC-X's funding problems Monday evening.
The $35 million for the SX-2 reusable rocket followon could be tougher, though. SX-2 startup is still subject to the results of the White House OSTP (Office of Science & Technology Policy) future space launch study, as well as the similar study USAF General Moorman is currently running for DOD. It's still anybody's guess what recommendations these studies will come up with, or for that matter when they'll come up with them.
Our recommendations are basically the same as two weeks ago.
Please don't contact any of the above-mentioned officials directly, unless you happen to be a drinking buddy of theirs. Members of the general public calling them about policy differences will only annoy them and make them even less likely to do what we want. The people to talk to are your elected representatives in Congress - it's part of their job to act as intermediary between the public and the bureaucracy.
We recommend that you call or fax your local Representative and/or Senators if you have any reason to believe that they're already pro-SSTO. The message to deliver is that unelected officials are attempting to thwart the will of the Congress and kill the "SSRT" Single-Stage-To-Orbit program, and that Secretary of Defense William J. Perry should be told to have his people:
Two specific congressmen who need contacting:
- Ron Dellums of California, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Representative Ron Dellums, 2136 RHOB, Washington DC 20515 phone 202 225-2661 fax 202 225-9817 - Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee. Representative John Murtha, 2423 RHOB, Washington DC 20515 phone 202 225-2065 fax 202 225-5709
Whew. Wotta coupla weeks it's been.
Henry Vanderbilt "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere Space Access Society in the Solar System." 4855 E Warner Rd #24-150 - Robert A. Heinlein Phoenix, AZ 85044 602 431-9283 voice/fax "You can't get there from here." (hvanderbilt@bix.com) - Anonymous "SSTO? C'mon, the only people who support that are Trekkies and right-wingers." - The Unknown Staffer -- 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. --