Category AVIATION &ТНЕ ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

The air carrier industry has passed through a series of changes or “waves” since deregulation in 1978.5 The initial wave was the creation of the hub and spoke system. The second wave was the inauguration of low-fare, point-to-point ser­vice, pioneered by Southwest Airlines. The third wave was the entry into the airline fleet of the regional jet. The fourth wave, now in process, is the abandonment of the financial and operational model of the legacy carriers from the period of

CAB regulation, and a process of convergence of practices of legacy carriers and low-cost car­riers (LCCs). This process of convergence has been driven by the reality of all five of the largest legacy carriers having entered Chapter 11 bank­ruptcy as of the end of 2011. The relative success of the low-cost carriers during the same period underscores the bottom-line effects of the differ­ences in the business practices of the two groups. Also underscoring the success of the LCC group is their increase of domestic passenger market share—from 13 percent in 1997 to 28 percent in 2009.

■ Hub and Spoke

Before deregulation, it was said that if you trav­eled in the southeastern part of the United States and you wanted to get to heaven, you would have to go through Atlanta and change planes. Delta Airlines is credited with creation of the hub and spoke concept that it centered in Atlanta, and, as discussed earlier, Delta began this service dur­ing the 1940s at the behest of the CAB in order to bring service to small outlying communities in the Southeast. The other trunk airlines that
operated during regulation, however, were all point-to-point carriers.

After deregulation, the opportunities to serve when and where the airlines wanted, coupled with the economic necessity to fill their airplanes with as many passengers as possible, caused the adoption of the hub and spoke system nation­wide. This system had two main advantages to the traveler:

• The passenger who lived in the hub city gained access to a greatly increased number of destinations directly from the hub airport.

• The passenger who lived in one of the smaller communities at the end of a spoke, who may not have had any service under regula­tion, was offered access to the same greatly increased number of destinations after one stop at the hub airport.

Hub and spoke brought to the airlines a much more efficient use of aircraft by allowing many more destinations to be served using far fewer airplanes. By way of example, if a car­rier had 20 airplanes engaged in point-to-point service between city pairs, as was the case before deregulation, the number of origin and destination operations (O&D) would be limited to 20. In the hub and spoke system, the O&D number would suddenly jump to 400 (20 x 20). The truth is that there will never be nonstop service between most cities. Recognizing this fact, the hub and spoke system should be rec­ognized as a major, positive development of deregulation.

The hub and spoke system has also drawn complaints.

• First, passengers were said to be traveling “around their elbow,” being required to stop at hub aiiports that were considerably distant from a direct line of travel, and losing the main advantage of jet aircraft, which is speed and the efficient use of time. According to this view, these passengers were traveling at the convenience of the airline, not themselves.

• Second, the system produced the natural result that the dominant airline gained tre­mendous market share at the hub city, a potential anticompetitive development. Dom­inated hubs include Atlanta (Delta), Denver (United), Detroit (Northwest), and Chicago (American and United).

• Third, the system required that all aircraft returning to the hub do so at or about the same time in order to make connections with aircraft departing from the hub to new destinations. This confluence of activity placed a huge strain on air traffic control and airport operations.

The introduction of these relatively short – haul operations altered the airlines’ needs as to types of aircraft. Boeing, it is said, was in the process in the late 1970s of phasing out produc­tion of the 737. This decision was reversed after deregulation due to the adoption of the hub and spoke system, and production of 737 aircraft soared. The hub and spoke system also gave rise to an entirely new line of short-range air­craft, like the MD-80, shorter Airbus planes, and regional jets (RJs). Suddenly there was less need for the larger, fuel-hungry 747s, and a general downsizing of aircraft began.

A government study begun in 19907 found that the hub and spoke system, adopted by all major airlines after deregulation, resulted in airlines charging premium prices to local passengers originating from dominated hubs. But it also found that low-cost point-to-point service, such as that developed by Southwest Airlines, pro­vided an effective counter to local hub and spoke market power. Further, DOT concluded that the rapid growth of Southwest and the entry into the market of other low-cost carriers appeared to be correcting the lack of price competition at hubs. Thus, governmental action was not warranted.

By 1995, nearly 40 percent of domestic pas­sengers flew from hubs with low-fare competi­tion, causing some major carriers to emulate the low-cost point-to-point carriers by forming their own low-cost divisions, like Delta Express, United Shuttle, and Metrojet. In 1998, the DOT concluded that the competitive stimulus supplied by new-entrant carriers had decreased, and that the number of new-entrant carriers had signifi­cantly declined. The reason, according to DOT, was because of anticompetitive activity on the part of some major airlines.8

Predatory activity by incumbent airlines his­torically has occurred when other airlines, usu­ally smaller discount airlines, attempted to enter a market already served by the incumbent airline. The incumbent airlines may respond to this new competition by fare cuts, capacity increases by adding aircraft, or capacity increases by add­ing routes. The purpose of the response is to maintain market power and to diminish or elimi­nate competition. Since the cornerstone of a suc­cessful air transport system under deregulation depends on fair competition among the partici­pating air carriers, predatory activity is harmful to the success of the system and to the ultimate interest of the consumer. Maintaining competi­tion requires the assurance that carriers can enter new markets fairly.

It has been argued that the competitive responses of major hub carriers differ depending on which airline is supplying the competition. Major carriers’ responses as to each other reflect a “live and let live” approach, that is, there is an implicit recognition that relatively equal finan­cial strength and market power provide a control mechanism that allows a peaceful coexistence to be maintained in the competitive process.

The competitive response to new entrant airlines, however, is territorial and aggressive, including matching and even undercutting the smaller carrier’s low-cost fares and adding capacity on the routes of the interloper. Histori­cal examples may include United versus Frontier, American versus Vanguard, Delta versus (the former) ValuJet, Northwest versus Sprint and Reno, and Continental versus Kiwi.

In 1998, the DOT said:

m DOT believes that the responses of some large, established major car­riers at their hub cities to service by small, new-entrant airlines have inhib­ited competition, resulting in higher prices for many passengers and pre­venting a large sector of air travel demand from being efficiently served. These responses, which protect major carriers’ ability to charge higher prices in local hub markets, involve tempo­rarily selling such large numbers of seats at low fares, comparable to new-entrant fares, that by sacrificing profits in the short term, they force the new-entrant carriers to exit from the local market» .9

Once the low-cost carrier had been forced out of the market, it was common practice for the incumbent airline to set its fares at least as high as they had been prior to the incursion by the new-entrant airline. It is believed that these anti­competitive practices against low-fare entrants caused new entries to virtually cease, beginning in the middle 1990s.

Having concluded that predatory activity by the incumbent airlines was, indeed, reduc­ing competition, the DOT in 199 810 announced its new enforcement policy directed at curbing predatory activities by the major air carriers. DOT policy regards an incumbent’s competi­tive response to a new entry to be anticompeti­tive and predatory where it initiates fare cuts or capacity increases on the routes served by the new entrant, and where the incumbent’s tac­tics appear to be economically rational only if they force the new entrant to exit the market or reduce service.

Since 2001, however, incumbent airlines have struggled financially. Bankruptcies and mergers of incumbent carriers have been the rule while, at the same time, a new breed of low-cost carrier has entered the market. Low-cost carriers have increased market share significantly, from 5 percent in the 1990s to around 30 percent cur­rently. Incumbents have gone from trying to drive new carriers out of business to attempting to copy their way of doing business. As a result, anticom­petitive practices have markedly declined.

The European Union has passed a law, effective as of January 1, 2012, that would expand its pre­existing cap and trade regimen to foreign airlines, and which would tax all airlines flying into the EU airspace in 2012 and thereafter based on their carbon emissions. The law is referred to as the Emission Trading System (ETS) and requires all airlines to provide to the EU emission data so that a tax can be calculated and collected beginning in 2013. The tax is said to be applicable not only to flight miles within the EU, but also to the dis­tance over their entire flight path. The tax money would go to all 27 members of the EU as well as to Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. (All of the EU, with the possible exception of Germany, is in dire need of additional cash, without question.)

There has been worldwide opposition to the EU action, with United States airlines requesting President Obama to file an Article 84 complaint with ICAO, which would create a global frame­work for dealing with carbon emissions and would provide the appropriate forum for the settlement of the dispute. The United States and Canada filed an action in 2011 with the European Court of Justice to block the tax on grounds of sovereignty and treaty, but they were ruled against in December 2011. The U. S. aviation community is also calling on the federal government to challenge the law in international court. The United States has also taken unofficial action in convening two meetings (in Delhi and in Moscow) of opponents of the law and has invoked a resolution in ICAO declaring the EU law illegal. Russia, China, the United States, and India have formed an anti-carbon tax coalition to oppose the law.

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Consequences, if the EU persists, could include a worldwide embargo on Airbus aircraft and limitations on flights into Europe.

The United States has consistently refused to join what it has considered ineffective world efforts to lessen carbon emissions; it refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty, for instance. The EU ETS system, as well as any ICAO strategy to be put together to control airline engine emissions, seems like just one more global effort along the same lines, in spite of the miniscule contributions attributed to aircraft engines.

Mesaba began operations in 1944 as a feeder route in Minnesota. In 1984, it began flying exclu­sively for Northwest Airlines as a regional carrier. Mesaba depended on Northwest for all of its pas­sengers and its entire schedule. When Northwest filed for bankruptcy protection on September 14, 2005, cash shortages, fleet changes, and other uncertainties were imposed on Mesaba by North­west. It is not surprising, then, that Mesaba fol­lowed Northwest into Chapter 11, which it did on October 13, 2005. Mesaba was owed $30 million by Northwest when Northwest filed in September.

Between 2002 and 2005, eight major carri­ers had entered bankruptcy. By 2007 all major airlines that had entered Chapter 11 post 9/11 had emerged from bankruptcy:

• June 2, 2005: Hawaiian Airlines

• September 27, 2005: US Airways. In Chapter 11, it merged with America West.

• February 1, 2006: United Airlines

• February 17, 2006: Aloha Airlines

• April 30, 2007: Delta Airlines

• May 31, 2007: Northwest Airlines

These transitions through reorganization have been largely at the cost of air industry labor groups and employees, as well as the stockhold­ers of the companies. The one consistent win­ner through the years since deregulation has been the consumer. Domestic airfares had fallen 50.5 percent since 1978, adjusted for inflation. This phenomenon explains, in large part, the explosive growth that has been seen in air travel.

In 2005, the U. S. air carrier industry reported its first operating profit since 2000. Yet interest expense and other nonoperating costs left the airlines with a net loss of $5.7 billion.

By the end of 2006, for the first time since the turn of this century, U. S. air carriers had recorded a net profit. That year the airlines posted net income of $3 billion on $163.8 billion in rev­enues. Although fuel prices continued to increase (see Figure 35-17), fuel efficiency also increased, by 22 percent over the year 2000. Passenger load factor increased to 79 percent. (See Figure 35-18.) The airlines carried 12 percent more passengers in 2006 than in 2000, and they used 719 million fewer gallons of fuel in doing so. And they did it with fewer employees. (See Figure 35-12 and Table 35-1.) The airline fleet continued toward modernization. (See Table 35-2.)

«Since 1978 the record pretty well shows that no start-up airline. . . has really been successful, so the odds of

JetBlue having long-term success are remote. I’m not going to say it can’t happen because stranger things have happened, but I personally believe P T. Barnum was, in that respect, correct.**

(Ed. Note: P. T. Barnum, a 19th century showman and circus owner, is supposed to have famously said, “There is a sucker born every minute.”)

Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, commenting on the 70% rise in JetBlue’s stock price in the days after its IPO. Continental’s annual shareholder meeting, 17 April 2002.

Special activity airspace is designated airspace wherein limitations may be imposed on aircraft operations, including restricted, prohibited, and military operations areas. This airspace is scat­tered throughout the NAS and poses potentially blocking areas to direct flight. Most of these areas have non-active periods that permit com­mercial and general aviation aircraft to tran­sit them, but their activity schedules are often difficult to determine for flight planning and flight operations. The FAA has published a con­cept of operations for SAA data automation, including a system of electronic schedules and updates of SAA operations, to provide real-time
information of the status of SAAs for flight plan­ning and en route use.

Global Integration

As the FAA moves forward to develop and imple­ment NextGen capabilities in the United States, similar systems are being put in place around the world. It is necessary that these systems and procedures be coordinated so as to provide seam­less and efficient operations globally, and that the same avionics are approved to be able to conduct similar operations everywhere. To that end, the FAA works with governments and representative groups worldwide, including the European equiv­alent of NextGen, Single European Sky Air Traf­fic Management Research (SESAR) and ICAO.

■ Why NextGen Matters

By some projections, passenger demand is expected to increase by 25 percent this decade. General aviation piston aircraft are projected to increase at an annual rate of 1.4 percent, while business jets are expected to increase at the rate of 4 percent. Very Light Jets (VLJs) will add hun­dreds of aircraft to the NAS per year. Unmanned Aircraft Systems will become routine in the NAS.

NextGen will help communities make bet­ter use of their airports. Flying will be quieter, cleaner, more efficient, and safer. Travel will confront fewer delays with less time sitting on the ground or holding in the air, and with more flexibility to deal with weather.

ince the 1950s, Europe has been on a journey to consolidate its economic power through a close association of its several states. Significant developments during that period are now having an important impact on the evolving global market. Specifically, the evolving equal­ity between Europe and the United States, and the resulting competition between European and American commercial interests in international civil aviation, is a direct result of these develop­ments. It is important, therefore, that we under­stand something of the history of the relationship between these two great areas of commerce.

The European-American Relationship

The primary advances in commercial aviation during the first part of the 20th century were made in Europe. The French builder Deperdus – sin, for example, flew a 100-mile per hour air­plane in 1912, a feat technologically far ahead of the Americans. European manufacturers supplied essentially all of the military aircraft used in World War I. French, German, and English man­ufacturers produced the world’s most advanced aircraft designs and the most powerful aircraft

engines. Further, the countries of Europe led the way in creating, organizing, and funding com­mercial passenger aviation immediately after World War I and began scheduled international aviation transportation as early as 1919. Amer­ica had to play catch up during the 1920s, and American business interests had a hard time try­ing to figure out how the airplane could make any meaningful contribution to the progression of commerce in the United States.

The first airlines in the United States dur­ing the 1920s often looked to Europe to supply their aircraft needs. Juan Trippe, for example, began Pan American service in 1927 with Fokker Trimotors, as that airplane set the standard with its cantilevered, monowing design. The Fokker departed from the biwing, wire-and-fabric air­planes of that and prior decades. This design was largely emulated in the Ford Trimotor in the 1920s.

But the pendulum began to swing in favor of the Americans about this time when Fred Rent – schler and Pratt & Whitney developed the power­ful Wasp radial engine, which would supply the motive power for the newest and most advanced designs of aircraft in the world beginning in 1927. In fact, aircraft would begin to be designed around the new radial engines.

The work of the small group of engineers at the National Advisory Committee on Aero­nautics would produce cowl designs and other innovations that would lead to the introduction in 1933 of the twin-engine Boeing 247, broadly acknowledged as the first modern airliner with its low monowing, retractable landing gear, and stressed all-metal skin design. At the same time, the fortunes of the leading European aircraft manufacturer, Fokker, went into decline due to design failures that resulted in stress fractures in its wooden wing. The first known failure of this wing caused the highly publicized crash of a Fokker Trimotor in 1931, resulting in the deaths of all passengers, including Notre Dame coach­ing legend Knute Rockne.

In addition, the vast geographical area of America proved to be a fitting laboratory for the evolution of the commercial airliner. Naviga­tional developments in the United States, begin­ning with its beacon system and followed by radio navigation, would lead the world in avia­tion technology as the airlines of America took to the skies. Beginning with the radial engine, the United States would take the lead in civil avia­tion technology and never look back.

Production of state-of-the-art transport air­craft intensified in the United States during the 1930s as Douglas inaugurated the highly suc­cessful Douglas Commercial (DC) series of air­planes. Lockheed joined the contest with the Constellation, Boeing countered with the first pressurized passenger airplane (the 309), and then came World War II.

The consolidation of military and political power by Germany during the 1930s, and the resulting devastation visited on the countries of Europe during the six years of World War II left the United States in a position of preemi­nence in all things relating to commercial avia­tion by 1945. America had a ready-made fleet of commercial-type aircraft, the most advanced of which included the Douglas DC-4 and the Lockheed Constellation. Immediately after the end of the war, advanced types of even larger aircraft began rolling off the American assembly lines, lines that had been set up during the war to produce the massive military airlift capacity of the Allies. The entire war production plant of the United States was now turned to peaceful and commercial ventures. At the same time, Europe lay in ruins.

In 1945, there were widespread hunger, unemployment, and housing shortages through­out the continent of Europe. Raw materials and foodstuffs were in short supply. Industries lay idle, or almost so, as much-needed machinery and capital proved elusive. European cities were little more than acres of rubble, an estimated 500 million cubic tons of it in Germany alone. A breakdown of moral, social, and commercial, life was threatened. The occupying forces of the Soviet Union were entrenched in much of Europe, and the expansionist Stalin government in power in the U. S.S. R. after World War II cast a covetous eye over the continent.

The decision of the European Court of Justice in 2002, holding that bilaterals between Member States and the United States were in violation of EU law, posed a significant problem for the EU States, as well as for the United States. It did, however, provide an opportunity to pressure the United Kingdom into finally seriously addressing the issue of globalization and relaxation of the constraints imposed by Bermuda 2.

In 2006, agreement was reached between negotiators for the U. S. and the EU for an Open Skies agreement for all EU Member States, including the U. K. Open Skies agreements are, technically, treaties between nations and, as such, in the United States these agreements must obtain Senate approval. The Senate that year refused to approve the Open Skies agreement that had been negotiated, primarily on the basis that the agreement would have relaxed the law (enacted by the entire Congress) applicable to foreign ownership of U. S. airlines.

The negotiating teams went back to work, and in 2007, a new Open Skies agreement was reached, but this time the ownership rules were preserved, as well as historical cabotage restraints.9 This new Agreement was signed on April 30, 2007, by the representatives of the EU and by the U. S. Department of State. The Agreement was originally slated to go into effect in October 2007 but, due to objections posed by the U. K., the effec­tive date was moved back to March 30, 2008. This was, in part, to allow Heathrow airport to complete new terminal construction to enlarge its facilities in anticipation of the significant increases in traffic that the Agreement will cause.

The Agreement also contained exit provi­sions that allowed the EU to renounce the agreement in 2010 if the issues of cabotage and airline ownership had not been liberalized. This Agreement went into effect in March of 2008.

The EU has voiced one additional complaint. They say that the United States has the better part of the deal since U. S. airlines are permitted to fly into any EU country and then fly from that country into any other EU countiy. Although U. S. airlines may not fly from one point in any one EU country to another point in that same countiy, U. S. airlines do have a sort of cabotage right if the EU is considered a single sovereign entity. For instance, a U. S. air­line will be permitted to land at Heathrow, pick up passengers and fly on to Paris, while an EU airline, landing at JFK, will not be permitted to proceed with passengers to Dallas, or any other U. S. city.

The right of the EU to renounce the Agree­ment in 2010 gave rise to continued negotia­tions on the issues that remained unresolved in the 2008 Agreement. The EU wanted unlimited rights to fly intra-United States (cabotage) and they wanted liberalization of ownership rights in U. S. airlines to allow foreign majority owner­ship. Although there are good arguments on both sides, no agreement has been reached.

Some believe that foreign investment in U. S. airlines could enhance the financial condition of domestic airlines, take advantage of larger route networks and their economies of scale, as well as improve the level of service. Others fear that foreign ownership would bring a loss of jobs and control, and perhaps the disappearance of some U. S. air­lines. Such a revision of United States law would certainly alter or eliminate cabotage and would seriously affect the ability of the country to com­mand the participation of U. S. airlines in times of emergency or national need. Bob Crandall, formerly CEO of American Airlines, poses the question of why any foreign airline or group would actually want to own an American airline, given their proven poor financial track record, the high level of compe­tition, and the slim profit margins that exist for even profitable airlines in this country. He also poses the answer: Foreign ownership would be used by for­eign interests only for the purpose of access to U. S.

markets, which doubtless are vast, and to control airline transportation to and from the United States. Under his view, domestic airline service would sig­nificantly deteriorate under such a system.

A second-stage EU-U. S. Open Skies Agree­ment was signed in March 2010, but it did not con­tain the cabotage and airline ownership rights sought by the EU. The new arrangement does provide means for cooperation on competition, environmen­tal issues, labor standards, safety, and security. It will also give airline alliance partners greater flex­ibility in service areas.10 The Fly America Act which requires all travel funded by the United States gov­ernment to be on a domestic airline, is not applicable since it contains an exception for flight on airlines associated with nations that have a bilateral or multi­lateral agreement with the United States.

The 2010 amendment goes only so far as to commit the parties to engage in a process of reforming airline ownership and control rules, promising a quid pro quo for allowing majority ownership in each group’s airlines.

By 2011, the United States had concluded Open Skies agreements with over 100 countries. Although global liberalization began with the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, it was difficult to actually achieve a common policy of liberal­ization within Europe, even after the founding of the European Union. Through steady pressure by the institutions of the EU, and the Open Skies accords that have been put in place by the United States and the EU, there is a shared appreciation for the benefits that accrue from the elimination of trading and operating constraints.

Traffic growth after liberalization averages between 12 percent and 35 percent according to a recent study,11 and in some cases has reached nearly 100 percent of the pre-liberalization rates. As an example, liberalizing 320 specific country pair bilateral contracts specified in the study would produce 24.1 million full-time jobs and generate an additional $490 billion in GDP (corresponding to an economy almost the size of Brazil).

While we have analyzed the results of these policies within the United States as a result of

deregulation, examples of similar global effects include the growth of international services to secondary airports in the United Kingdom (Man­chester, Birmingham, and Glasgow), the growth of Dubai as a major international hub, domestic deregulation in India, and the putting in place of the EU’s Single European Market, resulting in the growth of low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and Easyjet. Significant examples of other sym­biotic traffic relationships include United Arab Emirates and Europe, Malaysia and Thailand, and Australia and New Zealand. Please refer to Figure 40-1 for a chart depiction of the number of seats worldwide supplied by low-cost car­riers. Cooperation between countries utilizing these anticompetitive techniques also results in sharing the ideas and effects of improved envi­ronmental measures, such as noise reduction, improved fuel efficiency, and reduction of emis­sions, as well as efficient air traffic management.

The Space Shuttle Program arose from discus­sions about what should follow Project Apollo and the lunar explorations and landings. In the 1960s, NASA’s grand vision for the future advo­cated placing increasingly large outposts in earth orbit, lunar orbit, and even on the moon itself. With the development of the Saturn V, these ideas became possible, and earth orbit sta­tions holding 12, 50, and even 100 people were expected. Mars would be explored by human crews. The need for crew changes and for supplies for the stations in low earth orbit is where the idea of the Space Shuttle first devel­oped. The concept was to minimize costs by developing a reusable vehicle.

As is often the case, dreams of engineers and planners frequently do not match those of earth-bound politicians and their constituents. President Johnson’s Great Society programs, followed by the exigencies of the Vietnam War, took precedence. The Department of Defense had its own priorities for space assets in orbit. The Nixon White House rejected NASA’s grand plans; the Space Shuttle for low earth orbit became the only feasible alternative, which was a compromise for all interests. Planned com­mercial, scientific, and national security payloads visualized 50 STS missions every year.

As each interest’s needs were realized and as designs were fleshed out, the Shuttle took form. The 60-foot-long bay, payload weight requirements, delta wings to allow maneuvering, and the reusable thermal shield for reentry were developed to accommodate those interests. The Shuttle would be the first reusable spacecraft, the first to have wings, and the first to land on a runway. But budget constraints in 1971 doomed plans for a completely reusable vehicle. Modi­fied designs were searched out. Nevertheless, NASA claimed in 1972 that for the $5.5 billion funded for the project, the Shuttle would meet all performance requirements, would perform 100 missions for each successive vehicle, and each mission would cost $7.7 million. The program was launched to great fanfare during the election year of 1972.

The promised delivery date of March 1978 came and went. So did the next one, 1979, when the program was fully reviewed by the Jimmy Carter White House. One of Carter’s priorities was the need for a space platform to verify com­pliance with the Salt II arms treaty by the Soviet Union, which, among other things, assured the continuation of the program of development to flight status. Problems with the Shuttle’s main engines and the reentry tile structure resulted in two more years of delay.

The first STS was named Columbia, com­pleted after nine years of development. It was launched for its first test flight from Cape Canav­eral on April 12, 1981 for a two-day orbit and returned for landing to Edwards Air Force Base. Four more test flights were made and, in 1982, the Shuttle was made fully operational “for eco­nomical and routine access to space for scientific exploration, commercial ventures, and for tasks related to the national security.”25

As finally configured, the Space Shuttle, mission-designated as STS with mission num­ber, consisted of the Orbiter, which in common usage became the “Space Shuttle,” the Shuttle’s three main engines, the external tank, and the two solid rocket boosters. The Orbiter carried a maxi­mum crew of seven, a payload of up to 56,300 pounds depending on the orbit, and an airlock for exiting either on the ground or in orbit. The main engines burned a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen at a rate of half a ton per second, each engine producing 375,000 pounds of thrust, four times that of the largest commercial jet; the large bell-shaped nozzles swivel for steering control during ascent. The bum rate of the main engines would empty a normal-sized swimming pool in twenty seconds. The external tank carried over 143,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and over

385,0 gallons of liquid hydrogen, stored at minus 297 degrees and 423 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively; the external tank was not reusable. The solid rocket boosters provided 85 percent, or six million pounds, of the necessary thrust for the STS. These motors burned for two minutes each, then separated and were pushed away from the array by small rocket motors; parachutes deployed from their nose cones returned them to earth 120 miles downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.

Declaring such first-generation technology operational after only five test flights was con­sidered risky and unusual by many informed observers. That decision has been laid over to

NASA’s desire to secure Presidential approval of its next manned program, the Space Station, which would necessarily depend on a credible Shuttle, and to the appearance of the European Space Agency’s “Ariane” expendable launch vehicle. Ariane was already competing for com­mercial launch contracts as early as 1982. The appearance of Ariane greatly conflicted NASA’s expectation of off-setting the Shuttle’s operat­ing costs with commercial contracts. As a result, even though launch costs were running at the time over $120 million dollars each, NASA offered commercial launches for just $42 million.

The Shuttle Story was not all negative. Between 1982 and 1986 it retrieved two commu­nications satellites, repaired another in orbit, and launched 24 more. It visited the European-built Spacelab, carried citizens of Germany, Mexico, Canada, Saudi Arabia, France, and the Nether­lands into space, as well as two members of Con­gress. By 1985, four Orbiters were in operation. Yet, that year the Space Shuttle flew just nine missions.

The goal was no longer 50 flights each year as originally predicted; the goal in 1985 was 24 flights, but even that was unattainable. The cost of each mission was over $140 million, seven times greater (adjusted for inflation) than that projected the previous decade. The interim prep­aration period for each mission had grown from a projected 10 days to an average of 67 days. Worse, pressure on maintaining the flight sched­ule caused NASA to begin to accept less than specification performance of shuttle components.

The 25th mission of the Shuttle, flown by Challenger on January 28, 1986, abruptly terminated 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members on board. No Shuttle was launched thereafter for 32 months. The Depart­ment of Defense decided to launch all future mil­itary payloads on expendable rockets (excepting a few in progress). President Reagan announced the termination of all commercial launches via the Shuttle. The abandonment of the proposed

Shuttle launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base was announced. This event, and these decisions, greatly reduced the effectiveness and glamour of the Shuttle and increased its net costs, and there was yet to be further tragedy.

The next mission was not launched until September 29, 1988, and the Shuttle was no lon­ger described as “operational.” It was, in fact, thereafter treated like an R&D test program, according to NASA Associate Administrator Richard Truly.26 Yet, the Shuttle accomplished many objectives before the loss of Columbia in 2003. During that 15-year period, the Shut­tle flew 87 missions, compared with 24 before the Challenger accident. It launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, its repair in 1993, and its servicing in 1999 and 2002. It returned America’s first orbiting astronaut, John Glenn, to orbit again in 1998, and it delivered America’s contributions to the International Space Station. It launched several planetary probes and partici­pated in a number of Shuttle-Spacelab missions devoted to scientific research. It conducted nine missions to rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir. For a time, the Shuttle was the only vehicle that could launch the ready-built constitu­ents needed to complete European and Japanese contributions to the ISS and to supply access to and from the ISS for scientific experiments. It was this ISS-Shuttle symbiosis, in fact, that justi­fied the Shuttle’s existence.

The White House made a change in 1992 in NASA leadership with the appointment of Daniel

S. Goldin as Administrator. Goldin brought Rus­sia into partnership in the International Space Sta­tion, and the ISS became his (and NASA’s) main program with the Shuttle playing a subordinate role. He transferred engineering talent and work­force from the Shuttle to the ISS and to his pet project, the exploration of Mars. This also trans­ferred the emphasis of the NASA mission from the Shuttle to its original mission of exploration.

During the middle of the 1990s, the emphasis centered on ways to make public-sector programs more efficient and less costly. Transferring gov­ernment operations to the private sector (privati­zation) was a preferred way of doing this. At the time, NASA was managing 86 separate contracts with 56 different firms in order to keep the Shuttle going. In 1995, a joint venture of Lockheed Mar­tin and Rockwell won the Space Flight Opera­tions Contract and formed a new corporation known as United Space Alliance to run the Shut­tle program, with NASA oversight. Boeing soon replaced Rockwell.

Although by some estimates this devel­opment saved NASA some $1 billion over six years, the split of authority between NASA and United Space Alliance was not optimal. Plans for complete privatization were discussed along with a replacement for the Shuttle, which was recognized as approaching obsolescence. The X-33 program with Lockheed Martin and the X-34 program with Orbital Sciences were floated with the hope that the next generation of human space flight could be privately funded with little government spending.

These programs did not mature, despite sig­nificant spending to find a Shuttle replacement between 1986 and 2002. In the meantime, the Shuttle ground infrastructure was deteriorating dangerously and the Shuttle itself required costly safety upgrades. When the Bush Administration took over in 2001, the International Space Station was $4 billion over budget. Discussions about what to do about the situation continued without result into 2003. The workforce was depicted as “The Few, the Tired,” also an apt description of the entire Shuttle Program when the Columbia reentry accident occurred in 2003, according to the Accident Board investigating that tragedy.

In its final report in August 2003, the Board stated what it called “an inescapable conclusion: Because of the risks inherent in the original design of the Space Shuttle, because that design was based in many aspects on now-obsolete technologies, and because the Shuttle is now an aging system but still developmental in character, it is in the nation’s interest to replace the Shuttle as soon as possible as the primary means for transporting humans to and from Earth orbit.”21

In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced the mandatory retirement of the Space Shuttle, to take place in 2010. The Shuttle next flew after the Columbia accident some two and a half years later, when Discovery was launched on July 26, 2005. Congressional funding for the Shut­tle allowed flights into 2011, with the final launch occurring on July 26, 2011, of the STS Atlantis.

Although in 2004 President Bush had announced a subsequent space program known as “Constellation” in his Vision for Space Explora­tion, which would have sent astronauts first to the ISS, then to the Moon, and then to Mars, in

2010 the Obama Administration canceled the program.

In all, there were five Shuttles: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor. Two of these were destroyed during Shuttle mis­sions, a 40 percent vehicle failure rate, with the loss of 14 lives onboard. Compared with other space programs, this loss rate was extraordinary. The Mercury and Gemini Programs had no fatali­ties. Apollo had three fatalities, which occurred in the capsule during a test while on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. While there is no verifi­able data, the Russian space program admits one cosmonaut death during reentry (Soyuz 1) and three cosmonaut deaths during Soyuz 2 when they were exposed to space vacuum. There are unverified reports of other casualties during the early days of that space program. To date, there have been no reported Chinese space program fatalities.

NASA says that it cost $450 million to launch one STS mission. There were 135 mis­sions in total. It was independently reported in

2011 that NASA spent more than $192 billion on the Shuttle Program from 1971 to 2010 (in 2010 dollars), and that during the period 1982 to 2010, the average cost per launch was about $1.2 billion.28 The Russian Space Agency does not advertise its launch costs, but it is reliably rumored to be around $45 million per launch. They started out selling tickets to the public for orbital flights at $20 million a seat. The price lately has risen to $63 million.

The legacy of the Space Shuttle will be a subject of discussion for years to come.

И New York to Paris

harles Lindbergh was already being treated like something of a celebrity even before he departed New York for Paris. He and the Spirit of St. Louis had been ready to fly since Monday, May 16, 1927, but the weather was dreadful in New York and points north. Since his arrival in New York he had been feted and greeted by dig­nitaries ranging from William McCracken, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronau­tics to Harry Guggenheim, Tony Fokker, Rene Fonck, С. M. Keyes of the Curtiss Company, Charlie Lawrance, the air-cooled radial engine pioneer, and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

The press had been pushy and ever-present, and the week had been very tiring. On Thursday, the 19th, Lindbergh visited the Wright factory in Paterson, New Jersey, and attended the theater that night, including a trip backstage. He did not arrive at his hotel until after midnight, and he was scheduled to arise at 3:00 a. m. to go out to Roosevelt Field to make the final decision for takeoff as weather had been reported improved. He was too keyed up to sleep.

In the pre-dawn gloom of Roosevelt Field on Friday, May 20, 1927, the clouds hung low and a light rain was falling. The weather was reported as still improving, and a high-pressure
area is moving in over the North Atlantic. After the Spirit of St. Louis is towed into takeoff posi­tion and fueled, the wind shifts to a tailwind. The engine on run-up is thirty revolutions low due to the weather, the mechanic said.

As Lindbergh himself explains the situation:

Plane ready; engine ready; earth-inductor compass set on course. The long, nar­row runway stretches out ahead. Over the telephone wires at its end lies the Atlantic Ocean; and beyond that, mythi­cal as the rainbow’s pot of gold, Europe and Paris. This is the moment I’ve planned for, day and night, all these months past. The decision is mine. No other man can take that responsibility. The mechanics, the engineers, the blue – uniformed police officers standing there behind the wing, everyone has done his part. Now, it’s up to me.

Their eyes are intently on mine. They’ve seen planes crash before. They know what a wrong decision means. If I shake my head, there’ll be no complaint, no criticism; I’ll be welcomed back into their midst, back to earth and life; for we are separated by something more than the few yards that lie between us. It seems almost the difference between the future and the past,

to be decided by a movement of my head. A shake, and we’ll be laughing and joking together, laying new plans, plodding over the wet grass toward hot coffee and a warm breakfast—all men of the earth. A nod, and we’ll be separated—perhaps forever.1

■ The Flight

Takeoff from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York. Mud, rain, and fog complicate the departure. Lindbergh clears telephone wires at the end of the runway by only 20 feet.

Over Rhode Island, 100 miles from Roosevelt Field, 3500 miles to go. Altitude 600 feet; Airspeed 102 miles per hour; Ceiling 2000 feet; Visibility 5 miles; True course 51 degrees; Compass course 63 degrees.

Between Boston and Cape Cod. Alti­tude 150 feet; Ceiling 4000 feet; Vis­ibility unlimited; Airspeed 107 miles per hour; True course 56 degrees; Compass course 70 degrees.

Over water. Burning 16 gallons of gasoline per hour. Altitude 50 feet; Ceiling unlimited; Airspeed 104 miles per hour; True course 57 degrees; Compass course 73 degrees.

Approaching Nova Scotia. Altitude 200 feet; Airspeed 103 miles per hour; True course 58 degrees; Compass course 78 degrees. He is six miles southeast of course.

12:52 p. m. Over Nova Scotia. Wind is 30 miles per hour from the West forcing a crab correction of 15 degrees. Alti­tude 700 feet; Airspeed 102 miles per hour; True course 60 degrees;

Compass course 82 degrees. Storm clouds are forming.

1:52 p. m. Beginning the seventh hour, over

Nova Scotia. 3000 miles to go. Alti­tude 900 feet; Ceiling 1500 broken; Airspeed 101 miles per hour; True course 61 degrees; Compass course 84 degrees.

2:52 p. m. Still over Nova Scotia. Altitude 600 feet; Airspeed 96 miles per hour; True course 64 degrees; Compass course 89 degrees. Storm recedes to the North. Lindbergh sees fog, his most dreaded condi­tion, directly ahead.

3:52 p. m. Leaving Cape Breton Island for a 200 miles stretch of water to Newfoundland. Altitude 500 feet; Airspeed 94 miles per hour; True course 64 degrees; Compass Course 91 degrees. Lindbergh is fighting the urge to sleep. Sleep is winning.

4:52 p. m. Over ice fields in the Atlantic. Alti­tude 150 feet; Airspeed 95 miles per hour; True course 73 degrees; Compass course 102 degrees. Lind­bergh has trouble holding course, causing repeated corrections.

5:52 p. m. Placentia Bay, along the southeast­ern coast of Newfoundland. Altitude 300 feet; Airspeed 92 miles per hour; True course 70 degrees; Compass course 100 degrees.

6:52 p. m. Sunset over Newfoundland. Alti­tude 700 feet; Airspeed 98 miles per hour; True course 68 degrees; Compass course 99 degrees. Lind­bergh has covered 1100 miles in 11 hours, exactly. Never before has an airplane overflown Newfoundland without landing. Lindbergh leaves the continent of North America.

12:52 a. m. Closer now to Europe than America.

Altitude 9600 feet; Airspeed 88 miles per hour; True course 72 degrees; Compass course 106 degrees. High thin overcast. Lindbergh only wants sleep, nothing else. Yet he realizes that sleep means death and failure. He must be intermittently sleeping:

He makes repeated course correc­tions in excess of 10 degrees in both directions.

1:52 a. m. 1800 miles to Paris. Altitude 9000;

Airspeed 87 miles per hour; Lind­bergh fails to record his true course or his compass course. Lindbergh begins to wonder what difference a few degrees can make. Figuring out his new heading is beyond his resolve and his ability. Suddenly, he realizes that it is daylight again.

2:52 a. m. Beginning the 20th hour. Altitude 8800 feet; Airspeed 89 miles per hour; Ceiling: flying between cloud layers. True course and compass course not recorded. The altimeter has not been reset since Newfound­land, by flying close to the water.

That was 8 hours ago. He descends to near sea level and determines that he has a quartering tailwind there.

But he encounters fog and begins a climb to 1500 feet. He frequently loses control of the airplane as he fights sleep, but recovers each time.

During the Lindbergh misses the 3:52 a. m. log

21st hour, entry. He reasons that it’s not worth the effort anyway. He is so tired that he cannot both control the airplane and make entries in the log. He has energy enough only to fly the airplane and keep track of fuel management. The Spirit of St. Louis has 5 fuel tanks: a nose tank, a fuselage tank,

a left wing tank, a center wing tank, and a right wing tank. He switches tanks hourly.

Still on instruments. He wonders what happened to the forecast high-pressure area that was sup­posed to be over the North Atlantic. His log entries are confined to fuel management. Over and over again he falls asleep with his eyes open, knowing all the time this is what’s happening, but unable to prevent it. (p. 387) He finds himself just above the mountainous ocean waves, flying in salt spray form the wave tops. He climbs.

6:05 a. m. The 23rd hour. No entries again.

What difference does it make, he wonders. No entries in the log for over 3 hours. Lindbergh flies above, below and between layers of clouds. The 24th Lindbergh decides to abandon any hour. further effort to keep his log. He fig­

ures that he is 2300 miles from New York, 1300 miles from Paris, and maybe 700 miles from Ireland. But he is beginning to realize that he can no longer accurately deal with figures.

Endnote

1. The Spirit of St. Louis, p. 182.