Heppenheimer looks back at the shuttle's technical antecedents such as the X-15 rocket plane and rocket booster technologies, and illuminates the principal personalities involved in the space shuttle decision and their motivations. He traces NASA's evolving program goals, the technical calculations, political maneuvering, and fiscal constraints, and explains the myriad designs that preceded the shuttle concept. In closing, he looks in detail at the circumstances leading to the politically charged development decision of 1972.
Heppenheimer looks back at the shuttle's technical antecedents such as the X-15 rocket plane and rocket booster technologies, and illuminates the principal personalities involved in the space shuttle decision and their motivations. He traces NASA's evolving programme goals, the technical calculations, political maneuvering, and fiscal constraints, and explains the myriad designs that preceded the shuttle concept. In closing, he looks in detail at the circumstances leading to the politically charged development decision of 1972.
Long before the NASA was the throes of planning for the Apollo voyages to the Moon, many people had seen the need for a vehicle that could access space routinely. The idea of a reusable space shuttle dates at least to the theoretical rocketplane studies of the 1930s, but by the 1950s it had become an integral part of a master plan for space exploration. The goal of efficient access to space in a heavy-lift booster prompted NASA's commitment to the space shuttle as the vehicle to continue human space flight. By the mid-1960s, NASA engineers concluded that the necessary technology was within reach to enable the creation of a reusable winged space vehicle that could haul scientific and applications satellites of all types into orbit for all users. President Richard M. Nixon approved the effort to build the shuttle in 1972 and the first orbital flight took place in 1981. Although the development program was risky, a talented group of scientists and engineers worked to create this unique space vehicle and their efforts were largely successful. Since 1981, the various orbiters -Atlantis, Columbia, Discovery, Endeavour, and Challenger (lost in 1986 during the only Space Shuttle accident)- have made early 100 flights into space. Through 1998, the space shuttle has carried more than 800 major scientific and technological payloads into orbit and its astronaut crews have conducted more than 50 extravehicular activities, including repairing satellites and the initial building of the International Space Station. The shuttle remains the only vehicle in the world with the dual ability to deliver and return large payloads to and from orbit, and is also the world's most reliable launch system. The design, now almost three decades old, is still state-of-the-art in many areas, including computerized flight control, airframe design, electrical power systems, thermal protection system, and main engines. This significant new study of the decision to build the space shuttle explains the shuttle's origin and early development. In addition to internal NASA discussions, this work details the debates in the late 1960s and early 1970s among policymakers in Congress, the Air Force, and the Office of Management and Budget over the roles and technical designs of the shuttle. Examining the interplay of these organizations with sometimes conflicting goals, the author not only explains how the world's premier space launch vehicle came into being, but also how politics can interact with science, technology, national security, and economics in national government.
Highlights the history of the Space Shuttle, presented by the History Office within the Office of Policy and Plans of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Describes the different missions of the Space Shuttles and contains a bibliography.
Basing his work on virtually untapped NASA archives, T. A. Heppenheimer has produced the second volume of his definitive history of the space shuttle. Volume Two traces the development of the shuttle through a decade of engineering setbacks and breakthroughs, program-management challenges, and political strategizing, culminating in the first launch in April 1981. The focus is on the engineering challenges—propulsion, thermal protection, electronics, onboard systems—and the author covers in depth the alternative vehicles developed by the U.S. Air Force and European countries. The first launch entailed a monumental amount of planning and preparation that Heppenheimer explains in detail.
This NASA report presents a fascinating history of the decision to proceed with the Space Shuttle program. Contents: Chapter 1 - Space Stations and Winged Rockets * The Collier's Series * Background to the Space Station * Winged Rockets: The Work of Eugen Sanger * The Navaho and the Main Line of American Liquid Rocketry * The X-15: An Airplane for Hypersonic Research * Lifting Bodies: Wingless Winged Rockets * Solid-Propellant Rockets: Inexpensive Boosters * Dyna-Soar: A Failure in Evolution * Chapter 2 - NASA's Uncertain Future * Technology Bypasses the Space Station * Apollo Applications: Prelude to a Space Station * Space Station Concepts of the 1960s * Early Studies of Low-Cost Reusable Space Flight * Two Leaders Emerge: Max Hunter and George Mueller * NASA and the Post-Apollo Future . * Chapter 3 - Mars and Other Dream Worlds * Nuclear Rocket Engines * A New Administrator: Thomas Paine * Space Shuttle Studies Continue * Space Shuttle Policy: Opening Gambits * Paine Seeks a Space Station * Space Shuttles Receive New Attention * Space Task Group Members Prepare Plans * Agnew Leads a Push Toward Mars * Chapter 4 - Winter of Discontent * The Sixties * Mars: The Advance * Mars: The Retreat * The Turn of Congress * Paine Leaves NASA * Chapter 5 - Shuttle to the Forefront * The Air Force in Space * The Air Force and NASA * A New Shuttle Configuration * Station Fades; Shuttle Advances * The Space Shuttle Main Engine * Chapter 6 - Economics and the Shuttle * Why People Believed in Low-Cost Space Flight * The Shuttle Faces Questions * Change at NASA and the Bureau of the Budget * The Fall of the Two-Stage Fully-Reusable Shuttle * Chapter 7 - Aerospace Recession * The Boeing 747 * The Supersonic Transport (SST) * The Lockheed L-1011 * Aftermaths * Chapter 8 - A Shuttle to Fit the Budget * The Orbiter: Convergence to a Good Solution * The Booster: Confusion and Doubt * End Game in the Shuttle Debate * TAOS: A New Alternative * A Time to Decide * Chapter 9 - Nixon's Decision * Nixon and Technology * Space Shuttle: The Last Moves * The Hinge of Decision * Loose Ends I: A Final Configuration * Loose Ends II: NERVA and Cape Canaveral * Awarding the Contracts. The Space Shuttle took shape and won support, and criticism, as part of NASA's search for a post-Apollo future. As with the Army and Navy in World War II, NASA had grown rapidly during the 1960s. Similarly, just as those military services saw a sharp falloff in funding in the wake of victory, the success of the piloted Moon landings brought insistent demands that NASA should shrink considerably. In facing those demands, and in overcoming them to a degree, NASA established itself as a permanent player in Washington. During 1969, with Nixon newly elected and the first astronauts setting foot on the Moon, NASA Administrator Thomas Paine led a push for a future in space that promised to be expansive. He aimed at nothing less than a piloted expedition to Mars, propelled by nuclear rocket engines that were already in development. En route to Mars, he expected to build space stations and large space bases. Almost as an afterthought, he expected to build a space shuttle as well, to provide low-cost flight to these orbiting facilities. Soon after Neil Armstrong made his one small step in the lunar Sea of Tranquility, Paine received a cold bath in the Sea of Reality. Nixon's budget director, Robert Mayo, chopped a billion dollars from Paine's request. This brought an end to NASA's hopes for a space base and for flight to Mars. It appeared possible, however, to proceed with the space station and the shuttle, as a joint project. The shuttle drew particular interest within the Air Force, which saw it as a means to accomplish low-cost launches of reconnaissance satellites and other military spacecraft.
