Flax Committee and a Space Glider

One of the other key actors over the November-December period was sci­ence adviser Ed David. When Fletcher first discussed the shuttle program with David in May 1971, he had found David rather negative with respect to the wisdom of moving ahead with that program, at least as NASA was then defining it. By late September, David was still “negative about the wis­dom of a shuttle in view of the political pressures, both from the public and the Congress,” was “receptive to the idea that we needed some kind of a new booster for the ’80’s,” but was “not sure that the shuttle is the way to develop that booster.” David’s main concern was “assuming that we do need a manned space program, is the shuttle the best program we can come up with?”11

As discussed in the previous chapter, David had created an ad hoc panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), chaired by Alexander Flax of the Institute of Defense Analysis, to advise him on the shuttle program. Flax made an interim report on the committee’s delib­erations to David on October 19. Flax noted that the committee “was far from achieving any degree of unanimity regarding the attractiveness, util­ity, desirability, or necessity of the shuttle system or, for that matter, on the virtues of alternatives to it.” He added that “most of the members of the Panel doubt that a viable program can be undertaken without a degree of national commitment over the long term analogous to that which sustained the Apollo program. Such a degree of political and public support may be attainable, but it is certainly not now apparent.” He observed that “plan­ning a program as large and as risky (with respect to both technology and cost) as the shuttle, with the long-term prospect of fixed ceiling budgets for the program and NASA as a whole, does not bode well for the future of the program.” Given this reality, “most Panel members feel that seri­ous consideration must be given to less costly programs which, while they provide considerably less advancement in space capability than the shuttle, still continue to maintain options for continuing manned spaceflight activ­ity, enlarge space operational capabilities, and allow for further progress in space technology.”

The 23-page summary of the committee’s views made a number of sage observations regarding the shuttle program and possible alternatives: [10]

a primary basis for deciding to undertake such an expensive and high-risk program. . . We believe that a decision to proceed with a program such as the space shuttle should be based on an assessment of new capabilities it would provide and whether they serve the national purpose to a degree sufficient to justify the costs.

• Prudent extrapolation of prior experience would indicate that estimated development costs may be 30 to 50 percent on the low side. In consid­eration of the technical and operational risks and uncertainties and the sensitivity of potential savings from the space shuttle system to the result­ing uncertainties in development, production, and operational costs, it is clear that there is little incentive to embark on the program if the aim is primarily to achieve the possible economic benefits. Rather, if the program is to be undertaken, it must be primarily for the purpose of acquiring new capabilities, aggressively pursuing new opportunities in space, and assuring continuing national leadership in space technology and space activity.12

It is not clear how widely these observations were known at the upper echelons in the White House or much influence they had on the shuttle decision process, although they certainly were incorporated into OMB and OST attitudes. The Flax committee had considered several alternatives to the full capability shuttle that “met to some degree the requirements for a continuing manned program and for further progress in space and space vehicle technology.” But NASA in its interactions with the committee took the position that none of the alternatives merited approval. The NASA posi­tion “effectively left only two alternatives for the next ten years: either (1) proceed with the shuttle now or soon, or (2) drop manned spaceflight activ­ity after Skylab A and the possible Salyut visit. . . Most of the Panel rejected these ‘all or nothing’ views.”13

The committee gave particular attention to three alternatives, although several others were briefly mentioned in Flax’s report. The three were:

1. To defer decision on the shuttle: “This alternative contemplates the pos­sibility that with further studies, analyses, and technology advance­ment, uncertainties and risks in the shuttle technical and cost areas can be reduced to a point of greater acceptability and that the national cli­mate for generating the requisite of commitment to the program may be improved over the next year or two.”

2. To develop a ballistic recovery system: – This approach would forego “tech­nological innovation in launch and recovery” by developing a spacecraft that would be launched, as had Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, on an expendable launch vehicle and would return from orbit using parachutes to slow it for a water or land landing, rather than flying back to a run­way landing. The leading candidate was the “Big Gemini,” which was “billed as a growth version of the Gemini recovery capsule, but, which to all intents and purposes, is a new spacecraft design based on Gemini technology.” This new spacecraft could carry nine people to orbit and back, rather than the two-person crew during the mid-1960s Gemini program. Such an approach, thought the committee, “would be justified only if a slow-paced manned spaceflight program were contemplated (2 to 4 manned flights per year).”

3. To develop an unpowered but winged orbital vehicle, a “space glider Such a vehicle would have a much smaller cargo bay (10 x 20 feet rather than 15 x 60 feet) and less payload capacity (10,000 pounds versus 65,000 pounds) than the NASA-proposed shuttle. The space glider would be launched on an expendable booster, probably a ver­sion of the Titan III, and be able to return from orbit to a runway landing. The committee was positive in its view of the glider because such a vehicle “could provide a more convenient and lower cost means of recovering men from space missions; it would insure greater safety in unscheduled aborts from orbit; it would entail making progress in reentry vehicle technology. . . It would allow the acquisition of experi­ence in payload recovery, . . . maintenance, refurbishment and replenish­ment; and finally, it would lead to the accumulation of a body of data on the techniques and operational characteristics and costs of reusable orbital recovery vehicles.”14

As the Flax committee was carrying out its deliberations, NASA’s Fletcher and Low had met with Flax and, separately, Fubini, to get as much perspective as possible on the committee’s thinking, on the grounds that both the committee’s views and Fubini’s individual perspective “will have a lot to do with the kind of shuttle we will be able to sell to OMB.” In Low’s judgment, Flax was “in complete agreement with NASA’s position, but has a great deal of difficulty with the scientists on his committee,” while Fubini “is pushing strongly for a glider as opposed to an orbiter.” These meetings led to an October directive to manned space flight head Dale Myers that “he must study all of the alternatives in great detail so that those that are discarded will be discarded not through arm-waving, but through facts.” Myers and his space flight teams at the Manned Spacecraft Center and Marshall Space Flight Center were convinced that some form of large shuttle was the only reasonable path to pursue. Even after Low’s directive, they spent little time studying concepts such as the space glider or the “Big G,” which they did not believe were productive ways to pro­ceed. Myers would later comment “we probably were the guys that were dragging our feet.”15