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 to date, DC-X and SSTO backgrounders, 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, and will be so for a while yet.]
The House passed a DOD FY'95 Appropriations bill with $50 million for SX-2 back at the start of the summer. The Senate finished their version (with no SSTO funds) in mid-August. The House-Senate conference to hammer out a compromise version will happen sometime after members of the Congress come back to DC from their home districts on September 8th. Much of the groundwork is already being done by the staffs involved; the conference when it comes could be over fast.
We must get positive treatment for DOD SSTO work out of this conference. Appropriations is where Congress writes the actual checks and sets the final spending conditions. This FY'95 DOD Appropriations bill should be the final push for pro-SSTO activists in this year's funding process.
What we're hoping is that the House version's $50 million, plus the $34.9 million remaining at ARPA, will both be sent to the DC-X/SSRT guys at Phillips Lab in New Mexico, with instructions to go ahead on the SX-2 high-speed reusable rocket ATD (Advanced Technology Demonstrator, an "X"- vehicle), possibly in cooperation with NASA, possibly on their own. (NASA at the moment is showing signs of confusion at the working level on SSTO. Tying DOD efforts to NASA before they demonstrably have their act together would be a grave mistake.)
We have a good shot at getting SX-2 started this fall. We already have significant support on the House side, not least from the HAC Defense subcommittee chairman, John Murtha of Pennsylvania, and from a number of subcommittee members. We could use more supporters there, though, and we're not at all strong on the Senate side of the conference. Then too, there's the recurring problem of anti-SSTO staffer agendas. We can win, and win big here -- but it's no sure thing.
See the "SAS Action Recommendations" for how you can help us make this happen.
It was a bit over a week ago that we published a story with the headline "DOD FY'95 Authorizations Conference Finished, Results OK". The story went on to say "[The bill language] could be better, but [it is] good enough to live with..." Well, something funny happened on the way to the printers.
We went on to say "We are told, by the way, that the various restrictions on immediate SX-2 go-ahead in this Authorizations bill are the work of a staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee named Kirk McConnell; it apparently took a running battle by SSTO supporters to water down these restrictions to a halfway acceptable level."
Well, we can't say for certain whodunnit, but between the "page-turning" on Friday August 12th (the session where conference participants went over that particular section of the Authorizations bill to check that it was all as agreed) and the publication of the bill in the Congressional Record Monday August 15th, someone added an entire sentence to Section 211, subsection (f), the subsection calling for the Administrator of NASA and the Secretary of Defense to jointly develop a plan to coordinate DOD and NASA reusable and expendable developments.
The new sentence added onto the end reads "The Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress the plan developed under this subsection."
This is NOT a trivial change. This is not a minor grammatical correction or clarification of the sort to be expected as the bill is set into type. This is a significant alteration of the provision, from a joint NASA-DOD plan to one where DOD gets the final say. We do not know if this is good or bad for SSTO in DOD, though given resistance by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to SSTO to date, bad seems entirely possible.
This sentence was added entirely after the fact, after the essential content of the bill had been set by the conferees, almost certainly added by unelected staff axe-grinders. We're more than a little annoyed over this. We have to wonder why the elected officials whose clear intent is being meddled with here continue to put up with this nonsense.
As expected since this spring, the new NASA Office of Space Access and Technology ("Code X") is now official. At least it will be as of September 6th. OSAT has been created by the merger of NASA's existing Office of Advanced Concepts & Technology ("Code C" in NASA HQ-speak) and the Office of Space Systems Development ("Code D").
Mr. Mansfield was most recently on the permanent staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he handled budget and technical issues regarding a number of national strategic programs. We understand he is a recent convert to the idea of cheap space access via reusable SSTO X-development. We are cautiously optimistic about his new role.
We're a bit less optimistic about the new OSAT he's being handed to run. We hear there are already a hundred people on OSAT staff at NASA HQ, about forty in the "Transportation" branch, the rest in the "Spacecraft and Remote Sensing" branch. This strikes us as already topheavy for proper X-development efforts.
We understand that Mansfield will report directly to Goldin in this job, and that Goldin really does want to do SSTO right by our lights, nothing resembling a standing-army Shuttle II. We expect that making this happen will involve these gentlemen spending the next year or two overcoming considerable institutional inertia; we wish them the best of luck in this effort.
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, with Defense Department endorsement, has instigated a "National Space Transportation Roundtable For Reusable Launch Systems" this coming September 14th. This will be a half-day meeting, with the general purpose of bringing together representatives "..from the Congress, Government Agencies, various sectors of the industry, financial and entrepreneurial interests, and other interested space policy and advocacy groups." The purpose of the exercise is to get across to those who haven't gotten the word yet that the rules of the space-launch game have changed drastically.
We understand that the new ground rules are that the government will do tech support for new launcher development (pathfinder X-vehicles in particular, and old NACA-style research in general) but that development funding for those new launchers is going to have to be from private or commercial sources. The government may provide "anchor tenant" deals to encourage investors, but the days of massive government-funded launcher development projects are over.
We heartily approve of the general principal, though we're going to wait and see how the details turn out.
The meeting will take place in two tiers -- about twenty "principals" will each have their chance to speak their piece over the formal four hours of meeting. The meeting is to be moderated by John Logsdon, a noted authority on US national space policies over the decades. A hundred or more "observers", interested parties and press, will also be present. As usual in such affairs, a lot of the substantive work will be done informally, in small get-togethers before and after the main event.
Seats at the head table are, needless to say, a tough ticket, and apparently subject to maneuvering. People we're pretty sure will be there are Representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Bob Walker, Senator Pete Domenici, high-ranking officials from NASA, DOD, Department of Transportation, and the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, heads of a half-dozen major-to-mid-size aerospace corporations, a handful of heavy-hitter finance and insurance types, and even a few activist types, among these one Jerry Pournelle, Chairman of the Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy.
Not, alas, us; we'll be with the observers. We'll be in good company before it's over, however, as the head table would have to seat thirty or more to hold all the prominent names we've heard mentioned. We expect that fast-track X-development of fully reusable SSTO will be well- represented at the head table though, which is what counts in our book. Details on "principals" once that's firmed up. No sense embarrassing anyone who doesn't make the cut <grin>
The meeting is, by the way, being hosted by the National Space Society; we understand they were asked to after the DC Chamber of Commerce wanted too much money. NSS is of course trying to give the impression that this was all their idea and is going for all the prestige they can get. Mind, we would do the same were we in their place; this is too good an opportunity for publicity for any self-respecting Space Society not to exploit to the max.
We will have to content ourselves with noting that we know where the ideas to be endorsed at this meeting come from (chortle - a lot of them came from, or at least via, us) while thanking NSS in advance for their hospitality in taking care of the meeting arrangements.
Meanwhile we hear that Department of Transportation is holding a separate meeting a week beforehand, this one limited to commercial aerospace companies, to cover pretty much the same ground -- getting the companies up to speed on how the new national space launch policy is going to affect the way they do business.
We'll repeat from last week: It's time for a maximum-effort push. We have ten days until the Congress is back in session on September 8th; the DOD Appropriations conference could happen any time after that.
During much of the next week, the key Senators and Representatives will be back in their home states and districts. The Thursday after Labor Day, September 8th, they're due back in DC. Until after Labor Day, the best way to contact them is via their local offices.
Look these local offices up in your local phone book "blue pages" governent listings section, under "US Government" -- "Senators", "Congress", or "Representatives", and get in touch. Give them a call and ask for a fax number, if you have a letter that might not make it via USPS in time.
Otherwise call or write, or if you're up for it, set up a meeting with them and give them five minutes on why SSTO is a good thing and SX-2 is the best way to get there. If you're going to do this, have your presentation organized; rehearse it on a friend if possible. Don't waste their time; they have very little to spare at this point in the political season.
We need to persuade the DOD Appropriations conferees to do three things:
Contact: Any Representative on the list whose district you live in or very near to. Any Senator on the list from your state. Senator Inouye, the SAC Defense chair, Senator Stevens, the ranking Republican, and Senator Byrd, the chair of the full SAC. These last three contact at their DC offices, unless you're from their state.
If you write or fax, keep it to one page. Mention right at the start you're writing about the FY'95 DOD Appropriations conference, tell them what you'd like to see done, then provide supporting details -- why you think this is good for the country and so forth. (The person reading it will almost certainly be an overworked underpaid staffer. If yours is the only letter they get, it needs to be sensible and persuasive; if yours is the hundredth, it needs to be easy to categorize and add to their running total.)
If you phone, keep it short and polite -- you're likely talking to that same overworked staffer. Tell them you're calling about the DOD Appropriations conference, and that you support funding for Air Force Phillips Lab to start development of the SX-2 high-speed reusable rocket ATD (Advanced Technology Demonstrator or "X-vehicle") and to complete DC-X flight test this fall. If they want to know more, fill them in as best you can, otherwise thank them for their time and ring off.
We especially need to get across that there should be no further delays in getting the SX-2 competition underway. Congress approved this a year ago, yet it's still on hold.
By the way, legislators on the lists below with an "*" next to their name are as best we know already SSTO supporters. When calling or writing them, thank them for their past support and ask them to continue it in the upcoming DOD Appropriations conference, then give 'em the details. We'd also like to hear about it if anyone gets positive assurances of support on this from any of the other legislators listed.
-- Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee list --
("Senator XYZ", office#, "Washington DC 20510" will get mail to them.)
(A * next to a Senator's or Representative's name means we're reasonably
sure they already support us on SX-2 funding and development.)
SENATOR PARTY/STATE PHONE FAX Office#
-----------------------------------------------------------
Bond, Christopher R MO 224-5721 224-7491 SR293
Bumpers, Dale D AR 224-4843 224-6435 SD229
Byrd, Robert D WV 224-3954 224-4025 SH311
Cochran, Thad R MS 224-5054 224-9450 SR326
D'Amato, Alfonse R NY 224-6542 224-5871 SH520
DeConcini, Dennis D AZ 224-4521 224-2302 SH328
*Domenici, Pete R NM 224-6621 224-7371 SD434
Gramm, Phil R TX 224-2934 228-2856 SR370
Harkin, Tom D IA 224-3254 224-9369 SH351
Hatfield, Mark R OR 224-3753 224-0276 SH711
Hollings, Ernest D SC 224-6121 224-3573 SR125
Inouye, Daniel chair D HI 224-3934 224-6747 SH722
Johnston, J.Bennett D LA 224-5824 224-2952 SH136
Lautenberg, Frank D NJ 224-4744 224-9707 SH506
Leahy, Patrick D VT 224-4242 224-3595 SR433
Nickles, Don R OK 224-5754 224-6008 SH713
Sasser, Jim D TN 224-3344 224-8062 SR363
Specter, Arlen R PA 224-4254 224-1893 SH303
Stevens, Ted RRM R AK 224-3004 224-2354 SH522
-- House Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee list --
("Representative XYZ", office#, "Washington DC 20515" will get mail to them.)
*Murtha, John D PA 225-2065 225-5709 2423 RHOB
Dicks, Norman D WA 225-5916 226-1176 2467 RHOB
Wilson, Charles D TX 225-2401 225-1764 2256 RHOB
Hefner, Bill D NC 225-3715 225-4036 2470 RHOB
Sabo, Martin D MN 225-4755 225-4886 2336 RHOB
Dixon, Julian D CA 225-7084 225-4091 2400 RHOB
*Visclosky, Pete D IN 225-2461 225-2493 2464 RHOB
Darden, George D GA 225-2931 225-0473 228 CHOB
McDade, Joseph R PA 225-3731 225-9594 2370 RHOB
Young, Bill R FL 225-5961 225-9764 2407 RHOB
*Livingston, Bob R LA 225-3015 225-0739 2368 RHOB
Lewis, Jerry R CA 225-5861 225-6498 2312 RHOB
*Skeen, Joe R NM 225-2365 225-9599 2367 RHOB
Henry Vanderbilt "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere
Space Access Society in the Solar System."
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