Space Access Update is Space Access Society's when-there's-news 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.
Right now, we think this means working our tails off trying to get the government to build and fly a high-speed reusable rocket demonstrator, an "X-rocket", in the next three years, in order to quickly build up both experience with and confidence in reusable Single-Stage To Orbit (SSTO) technology. The idea is to reduce SSTO development cost while at the same time increasing investor confidence, to the point where SSTO will make sense as a private commercial investment. We have reason to believe we're not far from that point now.
One major current focus is on supporting the Department of Defense's Single Stage Rocket Technology (SSRT) program, DC-X and its funded (but so far stalled) followon, SX-2. We're also working on getting a healthy X-rocket development going at NASA, and on getting work underway there on suitable engines for the fully reusable orbital transports that should come after SX-2 and NASA's X-rocket.
With luck and hard work, we should see fully reusable SSTO testbeds flying to orbit toward the end of this decade, with production ships a-building shortly thereafter. Join us and help us make this happen.
Henry Vanderbilt, Editor, Space Access Update
[For more info on Space Access Society or on the *new* DC-X/SSTO video we have for sale, including footage from all five flights plus a White Sands Missile Range travelogue, email hvanderbilt@bix.com, or write us at: SAS, 4855 E Warner Rd #24-150, Phoenix AZ 85044.
Please forgive any delay in our reply; we're a couple weeks behind in answering non life-or-death email right now.]
A quick one this week -- not much hard news and too much going on. Sound like a paradox? Welcome to politics in the nineties.
DC-X was quietly trucked back to the factory around the start of August. If we'd known in time, we could have hung out at the Denny's by I-10 and watched it roll by. Oh well. We understand the aeroshell has been removed and is under repair; no details on repair techniques yet, though given that MDA has said there's margin for weight growth, possibly they're doing what would be done with, say, a boat hull -- stapling or wiring the pieces together temporarily, bracing them to the proper shape, then applying another layer of graphite-epoxy on the inside anyplace where the shell was torn or severely bent.
We understand that the explosion bent some hydraulic lines that, if broken, would have led to loss of engine gimballing capability. These are being rebuilt in a way (check valves and so forth) such that no one hydraulic leak can kill the capability to gimbal the engines. Loss of engine gimballing would make the vehicle uncontrollable and, post-liftoff, would have led at minimum to the need to use the emergency parachute for vehicle recovery.
We have no word yet on repairs to the inch-and-a-half crack in the liquid hydrogen tank, or on any other damage that teardown and inspection may have revealed.
It seems very likely now that DC-X will be repaired and reflown before turnover to NASA next spring; everyone involved seems to want that. The financing is still up in the air, the main question being will the money come from the $35 million FY'94 DOD SSTO money that remains unspent (in ARPA for now) or will NASA pay the several million needed for reflight, once repairs are done. Stay tuned.
There are a number of positive indications regarding the chances of getting a substantial amount of FY'95 money (plus a reprogramming of the FY'94 money stalled in ARPA) for startup of SX-2 in DOD, but there's nothing definite yet. We hear that at least one key legislator has recently become aware that this is a bipartisan effort aimed at a competitive bidding process, not the partisan single- district pork it has apparently been portrayed as.
One possibility is still a cooperative DOD/NASA demonstrator. Another possibility that has gained ground in the last few weeks is the one we were pushing this spring, an immediate-start DOD suborbital SX-2, with NASA following on with a '96-'97 start of a more capable (possibly even a squeaks-into-orbit) reusable rocket X-demonstrator.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has delivered their final version of the new US national space launch policy, and the President has signed it. The broad outline of the policy is the same as in early drafts that have circulated: DOD should upgrade and possibly consolidate the existing ELV (expendable launcher) fleet, and NASA should upgrade existing Shuttles but build no new ones, in anticipation of relatively near-term fully reusable followon vehicles.
The important changes we won were in the details of how the reusable followons are to come about.
This is a national space launch policy we can work with.
And finally for this issue, we're going to do something a bit different, and ask you all for support for what we've been doing at SAS. We understand that this is a ticklish subject in a number of the venues where these Updates circulate. We're going to do our best here not to violate anyone's guidelines; please bear with us for the next few paragraphs.
Putting one of these Updates together typically takes anywhere from a couple of days to a week, depending on circumstances. Each one also takes a considerable investment in fax paper, long distance charges, online time, head-butting with our Advisory Board, and general overhead, as in keeping an office roof over our head. We've put out forty-two Updates in the last sixty weeks.
We've made occasional noises about "Updates for paid-up SAS members only, real soon", but frankly, it ain't gonna happen, though we do try to give members an occasional discount or bit of inside info. (We have to do *something* for the people who've kept us going so far.)
We circulate these Updates on the nets as soon as we have 'em ready to go for a very good reason: It's one of the most effective tools we have for advancing our cause: "Affordable reliable access to space for all." It doesn't matter how good our info is and how much sense our point of view makes; if it doesn't get read, it does no good.
So think of our Space Access Updates as shareware. We put 'em out on the nets for you to check out for free. If you like them, if you read them, if you think they're worthwhile, send us some money to help us keep on putting them out. A check for thirty dollars US to SAS will make you a member for a year, with direct emailing of Updates. Ten or twenty will help too, but all you get for that is warm fuzzies. A thousand will make you an SAS member for life -- and chances are you'll get shorted, because, assuming sufficient toil, tears, and sweat plus a dash of luck, we'll be able to disband, mission accomplished, sometime early next decade.
How's that for a mission statement: "To short our life members."
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 -- 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. --