This article originally appeared in the Feb. 10, 1986, of U.S. News & World Report.
America’s space program is probably destined for even bolder ventures despite the awful blast that turned Challenger into a thunderbolt of splintered metal.
What was to be the most glorious year yet in space came to an abrupt end the morning of January 28. As a shocked world bore witness, the crew of seven perished in a shattering explosion. All that was left was debris floating in the Atlantic and a plume of pure-white vapor frozen in a deep blue sky — the epitaph for a mission gone wrong.
“Man will continue his conquest of space, to reach out for new goals and ever greater achievements,” said President Reagan, who joined grieving relatives at a Houston memorial service for the fallen crew. “That is the way we shall commemorate our seven Challenger heroes.”
In the tragedy’s aftermath, however, all further flights were grounded until the cause is found. that could take at least six months. If the stubby-winged craft requires major design changes to make it safer, the program could shut down for a year or more while the three remaining shuttles are overhauled.
The first test of Reagan’s commitment to the embattled shuttle will arrive quickly. He must decide whether to ask Congress for a replacement. At a time of heavy budget cutting in Washington, the cost would be high — at least $2.2 billion. There are other problems, too. The project would deplete existing stores of spare parts needed by the other shuttle craft and require cranking up an assembly line at Rockwell International’s California plant. Even if work began immediately, it would be 1989 before a new shuttle would be ready to put on the launch pad. And with one less shuttle on hand, the launch schedule would be considerably slowed.
Ahead now is a period of grief, both for the nation and those ultimately responsible for the program. But past experience argues strongly that the critical examination of the shuttle in months to come may well lead to a renewed space effort. With firm support by Congress and the public, the shuttle — developed at a cost of about $14 billion — seems bound to fly again to pursue an ambitious new agenda of science, military and commercial projects.
Veterans of the glory days of Apollo, Gemini and Mercury quickly reminded the nation that the space program has a history of rebounding from adversity. Out of the tragedy of the Apollo launch-pad fire that killed three astronauts in 1967, for instance, came a redesign that helped man get to the moon. That same retooling produced knowledge that helped another Apollo crew limp back to Earth when an oxygen tank ruptured during a 1970 moon shot. “A terrible price was paid,” says former shuttle flier Joseph Allen. “The legacy was a space-craft that was extraordinary safe. This has to be the same now.”
For the time being, the military and industry, both major shuttle users, must find other means of launching payloads. But that will not be easy since there is an acute shortage of unmanned American rockets to take up the slack.
While the military has little alternative, industry may be forced to turn to Europe’s Arianespace consortium, whose unmanned rocket already is fully booked through 1987.
The Europeans now stand to exceed their goal of capturing a third of the world launch market over the next decade. Big potential American users now include RCA, Western Union, COMSAT and GTE, whose fortunes are closely tied to the satellite business.
U.S. space officials say they are determined to forge ahead once the shuttle receives a clean bill of health. “We’re dedicated to pressing on,” declares William Graham, acting administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Adds Senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), head of a subcommittee on space: “I don’t think this will lessen the feeling of support in Congress. If anything, it will strengthen it.”
“Advances in technology are always three steps forward and one step back,” says David Scott, who flew to the moon in 1971. “This was a big step back, but it’s not the end.”
A Troubled History
For an America that had become used to trouble-free shuttle lunches, the program seemed to be a conspicuous success in an era largely devoid of U.S. achievement.
Even critics conceded that it advanced the fields of life sciences and communications and moved man one step forward in his ability to reach beyond the moon in his exploration of the universe. But there is also a less positive side to the shuttle story. The program has been dogged almost from the beginning by massive cost overruns, lengthy delays and near disasters.
Even its origins were marked by confusion and disagreements over what role the shuttle should perform.
A fundamental question was whether it was essential to send humans aloft in the shuttle. The short answer always has been — and remains — no.
Much information can be gathered by robots and other hardware. The question is whether the shuttle’s achievements have been worth the economic, and now the human, cost.
“Brain Still Best”
The Reagan administration remains convinced the answer is yes. Says Marcia Smith, executive director of the President’s National Commission on Space, which will issue its report in the spring: “No machine can sense the nuances that the human eye can, and react when it finds something unexpected. The human brain is still the best computer.”
Alex Roland, shuttle critic and history professor at Duke University, argues that both human and economic costs are too high to make a further commitment to build new shuttles.
“The relative cost of sending humans into space is so much higher than sending machines,” he says. “I’m not convinced that all the things we are doing in space today require humans to be up there. The astronauts are aware of the dangers, but most taxpayers aren’t.”
The idea for a manned shuttle emerged in 1969 when the U.S. was winding down the Apollo period and planning new space adventures. A principal element of the plan was to put up an orbiting space station to keep people in space but protect them from the hostile, cold vacuum of the environment.
Originally conceived as a kind of utility truck to service the station, the shuttle ultimately evolved into something far different. Its design fell victim to the often conflicting demands of science, commerce and particularly the military.
“A lot of technical uncertainties didn’t have time to mature before the essential design was frozen,” says John Logsdon, a George Washington University professor and longtime student of U.S. space policy. “Development of the shuttle took place in an environment that may have led to problems later on.”
Partly as a result of their convoluted history, these complex and powerful machines can be troublesome. Although designed to endure the stress of launch and reentry, they are surprisingly subject to the whims of nature, particularly wind, rain and lightning.
The fragile tiles needed to shield the shuttle from the inferno of re-entering the atmosphere can pop off if water gets under them and freezes. Crosswinds on landings are a constant worry for pilots of the shuttle.Its glide ratio, says one engineer, is not much better than “a pair of pliers.” The braking system has been another near constant problem, with major overhauls needed after many flights.
Engine, Fuel Problems
Last year, NASA did a major study that found that the main engines had not withstood the rigors of repeated use and might need a complete redesign. The engines, built by Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell International, had problems including erosion, cracks and hardware fatigue.
The engines were designed to operate for 55 missions before overhaul, but NASA scaled back that number to 35 and found itself constantly having to do major work on the main engines between launches. The engine builders, said the engineers who did the study, “simply did not anticipate all the problems they encountered.”
Another warning signal came after a 1983 launch of the Challenger. Post-flight investigation revealed that the protective lining inside a nozzle on one of the two solid-fuel boosters nearly burned away. That could have thrown the shuttle sharply off course or resulted in the kind of mishap that consumed the same orbiter last week.
Moreover, the economics of the shuttle have never been efficient. In 1972, NASA chief James Fletcher predicted that shuttle launches would cost the taxpayer on average $10 million each. Today, based on one congressional study, the average cost per launch is $150 million.
Defenders point to the shuttle’s exemplary safety record over four years and 24 safe launches and recoveries. They add that exotic technologies like those used in the shuttle always entail developmental delays. The redundancies built into the system to thwart any glitches are a top priority for NASA. Yet no one doubted that, someday, disaster would strike.
“We were statistically certain we would eventually lose one,” says former NASA official David Williamson.
Military Blind Spots
The Challenger explosion carries serious implications for industry and the military, both of which have become heavily dependent on the shuttle.
From a military perspective, the diaster raises serious questions as to whether President Reagan will be able to meet the timetable for research and testing of his Strategic Defense Initiative, the space-based antimissile-defense plan popularly known as Star Wars.
A third of all shuttle missions through 1995 were earmarked exclusively for the Defense Department, and many of them were connected with Star Wars research. Private analysts such as Paul Stares, a space specialist at the Brookings Institution, says the diaster will also “cause more people to question the ability of an SDI defense to work without problems.”
From the Soviet Union came similar sentiments. Although Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent a telegram of condolences to Reagan, the official youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda described the shuttle as “an integral part” of the Star Wars system and asked: “Will the President’s antimissile system be reliable?”
More immediately, the Air Force now has no readily available means of launching a second of the important spy satellites that monitor compliance with armscontrol treaties, watch troop movements and observe Third World hot spots.
Only one of these KH-11 satellites is now in orbit, and if it malfunctions, say the generals, the U.S. would be left strategically “blind” in space.
The Pentagon can now be expected to press even harder for expendable launch vehicles (ELV’s) — the tried-and-true Delta of McDonnell Douglas, the Atlas Centaur built by General Dynamics and the Titan rockets of Martin Marietta. But while thes rockets are cheaper and unmanned, they lack the shuttle’s power to lift some heavy military payloads. There is also a serious supply problem. Stockpiles are low and production lines for some models have been long idle. Says analyst John Bosma, “All this has put the Air Force in a dangerous fix — all the shuttles confined to hangars and no ELV backups. Meanwhile, the Soviets can put up 10 satellites a week using old-fashioned rockets.”
Entrepreneurs in Orbit
Private industry, too, is going to feel the pinch. Business has frequently used the shuttle to orbit communications satellites, perform exotic-materials experiments in a weightless atmosphere and process pharmaceuticals. By the year 2000, revenues from commercial space ventures were expected to amount to as much as $50 billion, much of it deriving from remote sensing, advanced communications systems, satellite servicing and space-materials processing.
Companies such as McDonnell Douglas and Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing have joint ventures to purify in space a drug that stimulates red blood cells. Deere & Company has been studying the property of metals at zero gravity to improve its farm-machinery production on Earth.
Before Challenger’s loss, aerospace companies also had begun making commitments to space commercialization. Dozens of smaller research, support and venture-capital companies have grown up in the shadow of the shuttle.
The Challenger explosion further eroded the confidence of space insurers, who already had doubts about nearly every other aspect of the satellite-launching effort. As a result, premiums most likely will again rise.
Says James Barrett, president of Intec, an international underwriting firm: “The cost of the risk in space has proven to be much higher than most people expected.” Total insurance losses from failed satellites launched by the shuttle and unmanned rockets amount to $600 million over the last two years, he said.
Computer Clues and Controversy
At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, investigators began scanning photos, debris and miles of computer tape for clues to the cause of the disaster. Speculation centered on photographic evidence that fire spread from booster rockets to the main fuel tank, which exploded with what one observation pilot described as the force of a “small tactical nuclear bomb.”
Engineers are also examining the possibility that one of the struts attaching the shuttle to the external fuel tank became unhinged and punctured the tank, leading to a series of explosions that ultimately engulfed the Challenger itself.
However, it is also true that the Challenger’s cargo — a $100 million communications satellite and an instrument to observe Halley’s comet — was the heaviest yet carried. This record weight of 48,361 pounds may have contributed to strain on rocket engines or the shuttle’s structure.
Officials at the Johnson Space Center in Houston are confident that slow-motion enhancement of videotape and close analysis of computer data are going to reveal the answer, perhaps as soon as mid-February.
“Even if we can’t find necessary debris, we’re going to piece together the trajectory, the thrust profiles,” explains one engineer. “We’ll be able to sort out the sequence, then we can play it through simulations and work it out. I suspect it’s going to be something subtle. It’s not going to jump out at us.”
Whatever the cause turns out to be, those with close ties to the program remain convinced that the curiouslooking technological marvel called the shuttle will fly again.
Comments former astronaut Joseph Allen: “This was the day that everybody in the business knew was going to come. As Chuck Yeager says, ‘Progress is marked by great smoking holes in the ground.’ This is how knowledge moves forward. That has to be the legacy.”
More from U.S. News
The Challenger: A Lesson in Grief for the Young
Recalling the Space Shuttle Challenger’s Explosion
Photos: Remembering the Challenger Explosion
From the Archives: First U.S. Space-Flight Disaster Stuns Nation originally appeared on usnews.com
