Category After Apollo?

In late October, there was an unexpected external intervention in the shuttle decision process. Mathematica, the Princeton-based company that NASA had selected to carry out an independent analysis of the cost-effectiveness of a space shuttle, had submitted its final report with respect to the two-stage fully reusable shuttle concept in summer 1971. But this submittal came after

NASA had already decided to abandon the fully reusable approach and to examine alternative shuttle designs. The Mathematica report had made the point that while the two-stage fully reusable design was marginally cost- effective, it was not necessarily the optimum shuttle design from an eco­nomic perspective. NASA had decided to extend Mathematical work to examine the economic dimensions of the alternate shuttle concepts during the extended study period.

The person in day-to-day charge of the Mathematica effort was economist Klaus Heiss. During September, Heiss visited with two of the study contrac­tors, McDonnell Douglas and Grumman, to get information on the alterna­tives being examined by the two companies. Each firm had been allowed by NASA to allocate 10 percent of its study effort to a shuttle concept in which an orbiter with an external propellant tank was carried to orbit by the power of its own engines combined for the initial few minutes of the flight with the much higher thrust of one or two conventional rockets attached to the orbiter or its propellant tank, all engines firing from the launch pad on. McDonnell Douglas had labeled its concept rocket-assisted takeoff (RATO); Grumman, thrust-assisted hydrogen-oxygen (TAHO) takeoff. Heiss got cost and other data on those configurations and other designs under study from the two companies and also from a third study contractor, Lockheed. He used that information as input to the complex computer-based model that Mathematica had developed for its shuttle-related work. (Heiss did not interact with the fourth shuttle study contractor, North American Rockwell, because he “was convinced from the beginning that they would win the competition.” Apparently, he was aware of the bias toward awarding the shuttle contract to a California firm.) Heiss discovered that “whatever space program [mission model] you used and even if you changed interest rates from five percent to ten percent to fifteen percent, again and again and again the same configura­tion came out” as economically preferred—the RATO/TAHO approach. He labeled this concept TAOS (thrust-assisted orbiter shuttle).16

Heiss faced a dilemma with respect to what to do with that finding. The second Mathematica report was not due until the end of January 1972, and by that time a decision on the space shuttle design might have been reached. He was aware of the conflicts between OMB and NASA over shuttle approval, and thought that his findings could help resolve the debate. Heiss told Bob Lindley that “I’m going to do something that maybe I’m not supposed to, but since it’s so clear. . . I’m going to write up my conclusions in fifteen or twenty pages and send that to [NASA Administrator] Fletcher.” Heiss chose not to route his analysis through Dale Myers, believing that Myers and his team were still trying to find a way to get approval for some version of a two-stage shuttle in order to have enough work to occupy both Houston and Huntsville.17

The Heiss memorandum, dated October 28, 1971, was titled “Factors for a Decision on a New Reusable Space Transportation System.” It was co­signed by Oskar Morgenstern, Mathematica’s head. The memo led off with three conclusions, all emphatically stated in capital letters:

1. A REUSABLE SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM IS ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE, ASSUMING THAT THE LEVEL OF UNMANNED U. S. SPACE ACTIVITY WILL NOT BE LESS THAN IT HAS BEEN ON THE AVERAGE OVER THE LAST EIGHT YEARS.

2. AMONG THE MANY SPACE SHUTTLE CONFIGURATIONS SO FAR INVESTIGATED, AND WHICH ARE DEEMED TO BE TECHNOLOGICALLY FEASIBLE, A THRUST ASSISTED ORBITER SHUTTLE (TAOS) WITH EXTERNAL HYDROGEN/OXYGEN TANKS EMERGES AT PRESENT AS THE ECONOMICALLY PREFERRED CHOICE.

3. THE DEMAND FOR SPACE TRANSPORTATION IN THE 1980’S BY THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION, THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, BUT PARTICULARLY BY COMMERCIAL AND OTHER USERS IS THE BASIS FOR THE ECONOMIC JUSTIFICATION FOR THE TAOS PROGRAM.

The memorandum noted that “in part the choice of the current Mark I-Mark II approach was forced by a peak funding requirement for space shuttle development of, say, $1 billion per year. In this approach, however, several important parts of the system would be postponed in some configurations while other configurations with the same total funding requirement assure an early IOC [initial operating capability] date not only of the space shuttle alone, but also of the space tug" It suggested that “the non-recurring costs of TAOS are estimated by industry to be $6 billion or less” and noted that the TAOS configuration would promise “the same capabilities as the original two-stage shuttle.” Heiss added that “the most economic TAOS would use the advanced orbiter engines immediately” and that “the cost per launch of TAOS can be as low as $6 million or less.” The memo thus concluded that “TAOS practically assures NASA of a reusable space transportation system with major objectives achieved"1

It is difficult to judge the impact of the Heiss memorandum on the ulti­mate decision regarding the shuttle program. A version of the TAOS con­cept was indeed the shuttle configuration selected for development. Heiss suggests that “as soon as Fletcher read” his memo, he concluded “that’s the solution to this problem” and “ran all over town with it,” going first to OMB and saying “this group of outside people finds that this makes sense, so why do you fool around with this negative attitude?” Fletcher himself suggested that the Mathematica work reflected in the memo “did influence the decision in the sense that if it had come out negative, we’d have been in trouble.” But, he added, “the Mathematica stuff all along was really supportive of our decision, not determinative.”19 The memorandum did not make its way to those managing the shuttle studies at the Manned Spacecraft Center, who were interacting directly with their study contrac­tors in evaluating the final shuttle configuration. The TAOS concept they ultimately adopted likely reached them through those interactions, not as a result of the Heiss intervention. As the shuttle debate continued in the last two months of 1971, there were few, if any, references in the interactions between NASA, OMB, OST, and the White House to this memorandum or to the economic analyses it reported. It seems as if the Mathematica memo was one, but only one, of the influences that converged on the concept of a “thrust assisted” shuttle orbiter as the best technical choice for a new space transportation capability.

Although NASA’s Fletcher and Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard had agreed in October that NASA and DOD would work together to develop a restated rationale for the shuttle, by the start of December little progress had been made in this effort. One problem was that Johnny Foster, DOD’s director of defense research and engineering, who had been charged with preparing the rationale paper, remained ambivalent about a DOD commit­ment to the shuttle and to NASA’s approach to selling it. Talking with George Low at a December 1 dinner party, Foster had suggested that NASA was “doing the wrong things,” saying that “NASA should not let OMB impose an arbitrary cost limit on the shuttle. Dictating technical decisions through the budget process is just plain wrong.” He added “it is even worse if NASA lets OMB dictate the shuttle configuration.” Foster suggested that “NASA has decided to build a taxi to nowhere on faith. We should instead have a flight program that demonstrates the need” for the shuttle. Low’s retort was that “the main lack was in presenting an imaginative military space program taking advantage of the new capabilities that the shuttle would represent.”9 Foster’s advice was hardly useful to NASA, faced as it was with what seemed to be an unchangeable upper limit on the budget that the White House was willing to allocate for its activities. But NASA did not give up its attempt to get DOD support; rather, it took on itself the role of suggest­ing the “imaginative military space program” that Low had suggested was needed. That program came in the form of a memorandum for Fletcher to send to Packard. The memo was drafted by NASA’s Assistant Administrator for DOD and Interagency Affairs Jacob Smart, a retired four-star Air Force general. Smart’s draft noted that “in the next few weeks the President will make decisions relating to national objectives in space” that would be of “critical importance, because the nation’s military security, its political, eco­nomic and social well being in this and succeeding decades, are inextricably interwoven with what we do and what we fail to do in space.” He forecast dire consequences if the United States did not maintain a position of space leadership: “the self confidence of our people would diminish, our posture in the world community will be overshadowed, and our trade in world markets will be reduced,” resulting in “problems of great magnitude and complexity” which would “likely face this government, particularly DOD.” As noted in chapter 9, Smart in his draft detailed a number of ways in which “the space shuttle can deliver, with few exceptions, the total traffic of presently-planned military spacecraft to useful earth orbits.”10

Smart’s suggestions for potential national security uses of the space shut­tle were very similar to the ideas in the initial June 1969 DOD-NASA study of shuttle uses. They had been in the background of the discussions between the two agencies over shuttle design ever since, but apparently had had little influence on the assessment of the shuttle by the OMB civilian space staff. However, those potentialities were indeed known to and of interest to the top levels in the White House, including Richard Nixon. Ehrlichman in a 1983 interview suggested that “what the military could do with the larger bay in terms of the use of satellites” and the fact that “the space shuttle would have the capability of capturing satellites or recovering them” had “a strong influence on me” and “weighed into my attitude toward the larger shuttle. And I feel it is valid to say it also weighed into Nixon’s” attitude.11 What is not clear was how, and when, Nixon, Ehrlichman, and perhaps also Flanigan, Shultz, and Weinberger, were made aware of the national security potentials of the shuttle; because the issues involved were highly classified, any relevant documents are not contained in accessible archives. But as final decisions on shuttle size were reached at the end of December, the presi­dent’s interest in national security uses of shuttle capability were known to his other senior associates and very likely influenced their willingness to go forward with NASA’s full capability space shuttle.

It is not clear whether the Fletcher-Packard memorandum was ever sent; a final copy does not appear in NASA’s files. But the memo stands as an example of the arguments that NASA was using in its effort to insure DOD support of the shuttle program. Fletcher and Smart did meet with Foster and several of his associates on December 3. But no formal statement of DOD views on the shuttle sent to the president in December 1971 was located in research for this study, and there is no record of a meeting with the president to discuss this issue.12

Nixon on November 24 had indicated that he should announce his approval of shuttle development “out in California where you are going to put it.” Fortuitously, Nixon was scheduled to fly to California on the evening of January 3 in advance of a January 6 meeting at the Western White House in San Clemente with Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato. His presence there provided the opportunity for an early announcement of shuttle approval.

There was some initial confusion at the White House about what actually was being announced. On December 30, Nixon’s political advisor Charles “Chuck” Colson initiated a proposal that President Nixon should visit the Rocketdyne plant in Canoga Park, California, to “announce the initiation of research on engines for the space shuttle.” Colson had not realized that the announcement would deal with the shuttle overall, not just its new engine. He also was seemingly unaware that the engine contract award was being protested by Rocketdyne’s competitor, Pratt & Whitney, and thus it would have been inappropriate for the president to visit the Rocketdyne plant. When these realities were recognized, the Colson recommendation was quickly withdrawn in favor of a December 31 proposal by Peter Flanigan that Nixon meet with Fletcher and Low on January 4 (soon changed to January 5) “to discuss the decision to go ahead with the shuttle program which will insure the continuation and expansion of thousands of additional jobs in the space industry. This announcement is particularly significant to Southern California.” Once again, the employment impact of starting the shuttle was identified as of high importance. Flanigan’s schedule proposal noted that “at a recent budget session in Key Biscayne [likely referring to the December 3 meeting, since there were no other budget sessions on the president’s published calendar while Nixon was in Key Biscayne between Christmas and New Year’s Day] the decision was made to go ahead with the space shuttle program. Some of the mechanics in implementing the pro­gram have still to this moment not been completely resolved, but will be on Monday, January 3.”19

In its 135 flights between April 1981 and July 2011, the space shuttle was undoubtedly the public face of the U. S. space program, communicat­ing to the nation and the world an image of U. S. technological capability and American leadership. The shuttle orbiters carried 355 different people into orbit, including 306 men and 49 women, with many making multi­ple flights; two U. S. astronauts each flew on seven shuttle missions. The relatively nonstressful conditions of launching aboard the shuttle opened up the experience of space flight to scientists and engineers, and also to a few politicians, teachers, and industry representatives, not just to test pilots. Astronauts from 16 countries flew aboard the shuttle, thereby fulfilling Richard Nixon’s “pet idea” of flying non-U. S. people on a U. S. spacecraft. (In fact, while Nixon wanted only the symbolism connected with flying non – Americans on a NASA spacecraft, his interest opened the door to intimate international participation in the U. S. human space flight program, leading to the European Spacelab effort and the Canadian robotic arm on the shut­tle, the U. S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, and eventually to the 15-part­ner International Space Station (ISS).) Of the shuttle’s 135 missions, 37 were dedicated to assembling and outfitting the ISS; maintaining the capability to launch space station elements had been a NASA “bottom line” in the final stages of the shuttle debate. Demonstrating the unique capabilities offered by the shuttle, other missions launched, repaired, and recovered satellites, most notably the Hubble Space Telescope, sent probes to the Sun, Venus, and Jupiter, launched other telescopes to observe the universe, and hosted on-orbit research. There were nine shuttle dockings with the Soviet/Russian space station Mir. Unfortunately, two missions ended in catastrophe; in each, seven crew members lost their lives.

The shuttle was and continues to be a source of considerable pride for U. S. citizens. Images of a shuttle launch are global symbols of American accom­plishment and technological leadership, and even after they have been retired from service the three remaining shuttle orbiters—Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour—are objects with high public appeal. In terms of its political impact and of offering unmatched capabilities for space operations, the space shuttle was a resounding success. The space shuttle met the objective of keeping Americans flying in space as a source of national prestige and pride; the capabilities offered by the shuttle made the United States the unques­tioned leader in human space flight.

As George Low had led NASA through the process of developing the agen­cy’s FY1972 budget request, at the White House Peter Flanigan continued his search for a person to take on the administrator’s job on a permanent basis. By late 1970 two promising candidates had been identified—Frank Jameson, president of Teledyne-Ryan Aeronautical Corporation in San Diego, California and James Fletcher, president of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. Neither had been on the White House radar screen a few months earlier. The White House ran background checks on the two. Director of personnel Fred Malek reported the results to Flanigan on January 6, 1971, noting that there had been “no attempt to contact the candidates” and “no attempt to determine their political philosophy.” Of Jameson, Malek reported that he was known as “an accomplished and marketing-oriented executive” and “an extroverted, hale, hearty, and well-met type of individ­ual,” but “not generally well regarded for his administrative skill.” This led Malek to suggest “if we are seeking a tough minded, control-oriented, inside executive, to really manage the agency, Frank Jameson would not seem to be a top choice.” With respect to Fletcher, Malek reported that he had “a unique combination of management and technical skills,” was “intelligent, articulate, and a proven leader of technical people,” and was “reported to have an uncanny ability to embrace a large spectrum of diverse business and technical activities simultaneously.”1

The suggestion of Jameson for the NASA position had come from House Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-MI). Supporting Fletcher was Senator Wallace Bennett (R-UT). In addition to their Utah and Mormon connec­tions, Fletcher and Bennett were related by marriage; Bennett’s daughter was married to Fletcher’s brother. In early February, Bob Haldeman asked Flanigan “what’s the status of NASA? Gerry Ford is pushing Jameson. Have we got a candidate yet or is that still hanging fire?” Flanigan responded a few days later that “Gerry Ford has been informed. . . that Jameson is not getting the position. Subject to clearance Jim Fletcher will.”2

On February 17, Flanigan formally recommended to President Nixon that he nominate Fletcher as NASA administrator. He told Nixon that of “a large number of candidates proposed for the post,” Fletcher “appears to be by far the strongest.” Flanigan noted that in his role as president of the University of Utah Fletcher “has had unusual success in running the university while pla­cating both radical and conservative students.” He also noted that Fletcher, a physicist and engineer with a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology, had served for many years as a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). He alerted the president that Fletcher had just been offered the position of chancellor at the new University of California campus in San Diego, and thus it was important “to assure Fletcher now that he is our first choice.” He closed his memorandum by noting “Fletcher’s high business, management and technical qualifications would seem to be an ideal blend for a NASA Administrator.” It is not clear whether Richard Nixon saw the memorandum and told Haldeman he approved the choice of Fletcher, or whether Haldeman made the choice himself without bothering the president, something that happened on occasion with respect to issues of secondary interest to the president. At any rate, the initial in the “Approve” box on the Flanigan memo was Haldeman’s, not Nixon’s.3

The White House sent Fletcher’s nomination as NASA administrator to the Senate on February 27. Although easy Senate confirmation seemed likely, the nomination soon ran into trouble with the president. On March 9, vet­eran CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr on the evening’s nightly news pro­gram reported that Fletcher had advised President Nixon to take more time before endorsing a proposed antiballistic missile system called Safeguard. News anchor Walter Cronkite said that Schorr had gotten his information from overhearing a Fletcher conversation. Nixon was enraged by this report; his reaction was caught in his newly installed taping system. Meeting with Flanigan on the morning of March 10, which was the day of Fletcher’s Senate confirmation hearing, Nixon said “I am going to withdraw his nomination today unless that [the Schorr report] is denied.” Regarding Fletcher, Nixon said “I have never met the son of a bitch. I shook his hand once in my life. . . I am not going to have the new director of NASA, that good job, not meeting this flatly. . . We want him to say that he is in support of the ABM program. He has got to say that or I will withdraw his nomination this afternoon. I mean it, we are going to get tough around this place.” Nixon’s anger soon passed, and Fletcher’s nomination was not withdrawn.4

Once NASA in 1970 made the decision to defer the space station and focus its hopes on the space shuttle, potential European contributions to shuttle development became central to its planning for international cooperation in the post-Apollo program. Preliminary discussions between NASA and European space officials suggested that Europe might contribute up to 10 percent of the costs of developing the shuttle. Three possibilities for that contribution emerged. One was Europe building a portion of the shuttle air­frame, such as the vehicle’s vertical tail. Another was Europe contributing a “research and applications module,” also called a “sortie module” or “sortie

can,” which would fit into the shuttle’s payload bay and serve as a facility for scientist astronauts to carry out on-orbit research. The third, which became Europe’s preferred option, was its taking on responsibility for the space tug needed to move payloads from the shuttle to higher orbits. This last possi­bility was troubling to the national security community, which was leery of depending on a foreign-made system to position its sensitive and often highly classified satellites. How to reconcile national security uses of the shuttle and international participation in the effort was a continuing issue.

The prospect of significant European participation in shuttle develop­ment had been troubling to Tom Whitehead for some time; as the March 1970 presidential statement on space had been drafted, he had been skepti­cal of any specific commitment to space cooperation. Whitehead, by 1971 the director of the new White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, was no longer working for Peter Flanigan on NASA issues, but occasion­ally became involved. In a February 1971 memorandum, Whitehead took a very skeptical position with respect to NASA’s attempts to engage Europe in the U. S. post-Apollo program. He noted “NASA is aggressively pursuing European funding for their post-Apollo program. It superficially sounds like the ‘cooperation’ the President wants,” but asked “is this what the President would really want if we thought it through?” Whitehead was concerned that “if NASA successfully gets a European commitment of $1 billion [to the shuttle program], the President and the Congress will have been locked into NASA’s grand plans because the political cost of reneging would be too high.” He suggested that “the kind of cooperation now being talked up will have the effect of giving away our space launch, space operations, and related know-how at 10 cents on the dollar.”1

Issues of international space cooperation were discussed in a February 22 Oval Office meeting attended by the president, science adviser Ed David, and Nixon assistants Flanigan and John Ehrlichman. Excerpts from the con­versation at the meeting include:

Ehrlichman: “Well, Mr. President, you have urged that we get international involvement in the space program. . . [You have said] let’s get an actor up there from a foreign government. But that’s been interpreted to a large extent by NASA, as bringing foreign countries into the development of the space shut­tle . . . To the extent that we have developed a very significant technology here which is all ours, it would seem to some of us that we risk giving that away for a pretty small amount of money.”

Flanigan: “I am all for getting their astronauts up there and letting them walk around. . . We get a lot of visibility. But I wonder if for a little bit of money we aren’t selling our heritage.”

Nixon : “Well then, don’t do it. . . What I want is symbolism. Nothing more. Give us a little cosmetics. . . What you are doing for cosmetics, do for cosmetics. Let’s appear to be very liberal.”2

There were continuing talks with Europe regarding participation in the shuttle program through 1971 and 1972, but the potential for international cooperation was not a major factor in the 1971 debate over whether to approve shuttle development. In June 1972 the United States would give Europe a “take-it-or-leave-it” choice of contributing a research and applica­tions module. Europe decided to take that offer; the result was the program that came to be known as Spacelab.3

Incidentally, Nixon’s “what I want is symbolism” comment certainly applied to another space cooperation initiative under discussion during 1971. This was the idea of a space rendezvous between a leftover Apollo spacecraft and a Soviet spacecraft. George Low had traveled to Moscow in January 1971 for a round of discussions with his Soviet counterparts regarding the feasibility of such an undertaking, which had little substantive justification but would help the Nixon administration symbolize a changed U. S.-Soviet relationship. Approval for what became the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project would have to come soon if the cooperative initiative were to move forward; funds for that effort would have to be allocated at the same time as a commitment to shuttle development was made.4

Soon after submitting its budget proposal to OMB, the NASA leadership set about seeking support for the space shuttle from the aerospace industry, members of the Congress, and the DOD. Fletcher and Low in October held a meeting with the top leadership of the companies involved in the shuttle studies to explain to them NASA’s current plans and the reasoning behind them. The executives welcomed this information, and told NASA that “it was imperative to move out with the shuttle as soon as possible.” Low noted that “the meeting was frank and open, and perhaps the first of a kind in NASA history.”

With respect to the Congress, Low thought that “support will be a little more difficult to obtain because there really is no center of power within either the Senate or the House.” As NASA leaders began to visit individual members of Congress, they discovered that since they were “now deeply involved in so many other things, that most members would just as soon not hear about NASA until after the first of the year.”20

While Nixon’s most senior domestic policy advisers, Ehrlichman and Shultz, had become engaged in discussions of NASA’s future, that was not the case with respect to national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Kissinger had got­ten involved in evaluating post-Apollo space cooperation with Europe and the Soviet Union, but had not had much exposure to the broader issue of future U. S. space activities. Fletcher set out to remedy this situation, first by talking with Brigadier General Alexander Haig, Kissinger’s deputy on the National Security Council staff. Fletcher reported to Low that “in suggest­ing that the National Security Council become more involved with NASA affairs, Al Haig needed absolutely no persuasion. He has, for the last year and a half, been convinced of this and so has Henry [Kissinger], but they have been so busy they haven’t really tried to work the problem.” Haig had suggested “that someone who regularly meets with the President ought to be intimately familiar with NASA affairs” and that, if Kissinger were to play that role, “some mechanism has to be set up whereby Henry is regularly informed on what the major issues are in NASA.” Fletcher told Haig “that perhaps the principal issue before the President now was the space shuttle,” and gave Haig a copy of the November 22 “best case” memorandum on the shuttle rationale, while observing that “it is doubtful whether he is going to have the time to read” the document.13

NASA’s somewhat belated attempts to engage Kissinger as an advocate for the national security and foreign benefits of full capability shuttle and a strong civilian space program were intended as a corrective to the real­ity that from the start of the Nixon administration the future of the space program had been treated as an issue of domestic policy and thus had been evaluated in terms of employment effects, technological benefits, and budget priority. Whether NASA would have fared better in its post-Apollo aspirations if the Nixon White House had from the start seen the space program as a foreign policy and national security effort, as had been the case during the Kennedy administration, is an interesting but unanswer­able question.

On December 29, Flanigan had asked NASA to suggest a new name for the program. Fletcher replied on December 30, telling Flanigan that the names he was proposing were “drawn from a much longer list previously generated by our Public Affairs department and by the people working on the shuttle itself, with the addition of several contributed by George Low and me.” That longer list included suggestions such as: Mayflower, Starship, Spaceliner, Star Frigate, Caravel, Star Packet, Star Freighter, Rocket Clipper, Star Ferry, Space Tram, Star Schooner, and Space Schooner, all of which were rejected. Fletcher’s preferred names were Skyclipper, Skyship, Pegasus, and Hermes. He gave second priority to Space Clipper, Astroplane, Skylark, and Dragonfly.20

In a January 4 memorandum to the president, Flanigan told Nixon that the name “space shuttle” does “not have the lift or importance that the project deserves. The word ‘shuttle’ has a connotation of second class travel and lacks excitement.” Flanigan added “assuming that you wish to choose a name other than ‘space shuttle,’” the suggested names were

1. Space Clipper—Generally agreed upon by NASA, Shultz, Safire, Moore, Davis and me, this name would describe the overall project. Individual vehicles might have individual names, the first being Yankee Clipper;

2. Pegasus—Preferred by the classicists, such as Jim Fletcher;

3. Starlighter—Dick Moore’s favorite.

Commenting on the choice of names, speechwriter Bill Safire had sug­gested Space Clipper, The Yankee Clipper, Rocket Ship #1, and Space Ship #1. Safire was attracted to The Yankee Clipper name “because of its historic and patriotic association,” which had been used to describe “a fleet of ships designed for speed and passengers rather than cargo and helped make the American merchant fleet preeminent in the early 19th century.” (Safire’s his­tory of clipper ships was not quite accurate.) He added that “the name would be criticized as nationalistic, but I think that heat would be good.” Safire advised against the name Pegasus “because it would soon be named Peggy and parodied with the old song title ‘Peg of My Heart.’”21

Another of the influences on the choice of the full capability shuttle was President Nixon’s interest in its ability to launch the most advanced intelli­gence satellites and to carry out innovative national security missions. Those missions included the shuttle launching on demand during a political or military crisis, conducting a single-orbit satellite deployment or rendezvous, or inspecting or even destroying a potentially hostile satellite.

While the president himself may have been attracted by such national security uses, the reality was that support for the shuttle within the military and intelligence community was at best tepid, both at the time the shut­tle decision was made and afterwards. Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard’s 1971 flexibility on shuttle requirements is suggestive of an ambiva­lent Department of Defense attitude toward the vehicle, and the effort in late 1971 to get a joint NASA-DOD statement to the president in support of the shuttle apparently did not bear fruit. During 1972 Congressional hearings on the shuttle program, DOD and Air Force testimony was supportive but guarded in character; the military took the position that the DOD would commit to depending on the shuttle only after its capabilities and constant availability had been fully demonstrated. During the mid-1970s top-level Department of Defense support for the shuttle ebbed and flowed. At lower levels of the national security community, there was strong opposition to phasing out expendable launch vehicles until the shuttle was demonstrated to be completely reliable. The DOD did agree to pay the costs of a west coast launch site for the shuttle at Vandenberg Air Force Base, since that location was primarily needed for national security launches into polar orbit. In addi­tion, DOD agreed to be responsible for funding the “space tug” to move pay­loads from the shuttle to higher orbits and for covering the costs of separate launch control centers in Houston and Colorado Springs for managing classi­fied shuttle missions. With the urging of Hans Mark, first as Undersecretary and then as Secretary of the Air Force from 1977 to 1981, and for much of that time also director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), some national security satellites were redesigned to take advantage of the shuttle’s attributes. When in 1979 President Jimmy Carter considered canceling the shuttle program because of its cost overruns, it was the national security uses of the shuttle, particularly in terms of launching the photo-reconnaissance satellites needed to verify arms control agreements, that convinced the presi­dent to continue the program. Once the Reagan administration took office in 1981, an early action was to confirm as national policy that the shuttle would be “the primary space launch system for both United States military and civilian government missions.”21

This policy declaration represented the high point of the notion of using the shuttle for national security missions. Within the first years of the Reagan administration, Air Force and NRO resistance to total dependence on the shuttle escalated into a conflict that required a presidential decision to resolve. The consequences of total U. S. dependence on the shuttle had been predicted. In the midst of the shuttle debate in 1971, the OMB had warned “for national security purposes, we may not want all our eggs in one basket.” The Air Force and NRO in 1984 won the right to develop an expendable launch vehicle as a backup to the shuttle for the largest national security payloads; this turned out to be the Titan IV booster. In the aftermath of the January 1986 Challenger accident, most national security payloads were removed from the shuttle and expendable launch vehicle production lines were activated; the nearly complete multibillion dollar West Coast launch site for the shuttle was mothballed.

Only ten dedicated national security missions, eight of which were classi­fied, were launched aboard the space shuttle, including eight missions after the 1986 Challenger accident; the payloads for most of those missions had been uniquely designed for shuttle launch. Some of the capabilities relevant to national security uses, such as satellite repair, recovery, and refueling, were demonstrated on other early shuttle missions. But as a national security system, the shuttle had no continuing utility. One historian of national secu­rity space activities cites a Department of Defense 1992 report that set the cost of redesigning military and reconnaissance spacecraft first to launch on the shuttle and then reconfiguring them again to launch on the expen­sive Titan IV expendable launch vehicles after the Challenger accident as “in excess of $20 billion.”22 None of the ten national security shuttle mis­sions required the cross-range capability that had been an original DOD demand, and none of the innovative missions described in the 1969 DOD/ NASA space shuttle report that had influenced Richard Nixon’s support of the NASA shuttle were ever attempted. Rather than provide new capabili­ties used by the national security community, the shuttle turned out to be a multibillion dollar drain on the national security space budget.