Nostalgia for the Future: NASA'S Bid for a Space Industry

                 Brad Linaweaver and Avery Davis

PAGE 1
 Like some marble statue, Columbia
gleamed white in the sun.  Only part of it
could be seen from the press site, the rest
obscured by the protecting gantry, but it
was enough to draw breath from a journalist 
or two on first sighting its purity of
aesthetic expression.  Surely such a
spacecraft must be a work of art - promising
to fly as high as the dreams that gave it
birth.
 Waiting for blast-off! How that phrase
resonates down the corridors of this century. 
The amazement lies not so much in
yesterday's science fiction being today's
engineering, as in the transition occurring in
the waking memory of so many. Multitudes
of doubters have been confronted with
history rushing to keep up with the once
maligned sf.  If there is a music of the
spheres, then perhaps also there is an irony
operating on as high a plane.
 Blast-off is a term peculiarly applicable to
the Space Shuttle.  Lift-off is how we should
refer to the Apollo missions, those
remarkable moon crafts riding into space
on the sturdy backs of von Braun's brute
Saturn V's, whole towers of metal creeping
up the sky with a ponderous majesty.  The
Space Shuttle is a different breed of
spacecraft, for reasons to be enumerated in
this article.  But for starters, Columbia was
made to go up fast.
 How out of character for this paragon of
speed to be delayed on the pad the morning
of the first launch attempt, Friday, April
10. If only nine days earlier, no one could
have resisted making the obvious joke.
Since the actual delay had to do with the
fifth computer (the back-up computer) being 
out of phase with the other four, maybe
this difficulty with the software was a glitch
thrown into the proceedings by an April
Fool's Month.
 One million people came to see the
maiden flight of the Space Shuttle. The
resultant traffic jam proved more than the
local authorities had anticipated. Once off
the congested roads, the basic
resourcefulness of people came to the fore.
They had come prepared to camp the
night. All up and down the shore of the
Banana River were cars, trailers, trucks,
tents, and photographic equipment aplenty. 
The latter were lined up as mute
witnesses to the important event that was
soon to follow.
 The NASA grounds were full of vehicles
with car passes. Press vehicles had to run
this gauntlet to make it through to the splendid 
view - and relative elbow room - offered 
by the press site.
 "T minus nine minutes and holding."
Everyone heard it repeatedly. The time of
the blast-off was to have been 6:50 a.m.
Along about 9:00, some of the more
pessimistic photographers in the press area
were packing their equipment. The optimists 
waited. At 10:20 the launch was
scrubbed.
 They would have to start a new cycle.
The next launch window was Sunday morning. 
If NASA is the marriage of science
and engineering, then it is also public relations 
and sophisticated advertising. A
million groans were not ignored, but the
safety of the astronauts and success of the
mission had to be paramount. If humanly
possible, NASA would try again that
weekend. A million would-be space cadets
made ready to try again as well.
 We returned to the press site at midnight
on Saturday, a few hours ahead of the traf'
tic piling up again. We almost hadn't made
it through the first time, though waving our
press credentials at every opportunity gave
us an edge. With a second chance, we
weren't going to take any undue risk.
Besides, this was no time for sleeping
(although a few hours could be grabbed as
need be). Better to stand at the edge of
Mosquito Lake, anticipating how the sound
would be amplified over the water on a
Palm Sunday morning.
 After the launch we would learn that both
our hearts had sped up at the moment of ignition, 
as though the excitement of
astronaut Robert Crippen (on his first flight,
with a heart rate around 130) had reached
out and touched us. The old hand, John
Young, had a rate around 90. But Young's
excitement would display itself upon exiting
the ship after touchdown, as he happily
punched the air and acted as though he
couldn't wait to take the ride again.
 Such celebrations lay in the future, as we
waited for the clock to reach 7:00 a.m. on
April 12, 1981. NASA had used its time
well to make the computers behave during
the re-cycle. "The show must go on" applies 
to the technician as readily as to the
actor.
 When the countdown made it past "T
minus nine minutes," a cheer arose from
the viewing area. At T minus five minutes,
there was another cheer, and again at T
minus two and T minus one. Then it began
in earnest - closer came the number ten,
to be followed by the countdown we have
whispered in our childhood fancies a hundred 
times over. At the number of four, the
voice announced there was ignition. The
spectacle began.
PAGE 1

PAGE 3
 We watched it end back home. Reduced
in size on the television screen, the coming
down tn Caiifornta didn't begin to compare
with the visceral impact of the going up
from Florida. But then we saw the ftrst part
live, and that somewhat biases our perceptons. 
Still, it was a spaceship taking off in
the beginning, with all the connotations of
old pulp covers; it was a plane coming
down,
 The beauty was in the pin-point accuracy. 
If there had been a red 'X' painted
on the landing strip, the Columbia would
have touched it, a metaphor for the precision 
of the mission.
 At the press conference the astronauts
fielded questions of a generally positive
tone, even waxing poetic over the view
from Columbia of the emerald seas of
Earth. By and large, the press treated the
Space Shuttle in an optimistic light. How
often have we heard the cliche that the
media only cares to report bad news?
"What about all the good things?" those
same plaintive voices wail, no doubt thinking 
of deeds performed by hordes of social
workers. It is in the commonplace and the
mediocre that the "good news" advocates
find their examples.
 The lie is put to their charge by the
coverage given a space shot. The good can
be every bit as newsworthy as the bad, provided 
there is something exceptional about
it. A great achievement is hard to ignore.
 The sound of a blast-off is loud, but not
even it can drown out critics of space expeditions. 
Supporters of a space program
(be it governmental or privately funded)
sometimes grow tired of their own litany,
eagerly listing the spinoffs as though they
were the justification for the human race
taking its next important step in the evolution 
of an interstellar species. Talking about
the dollars and cents is essential,
nonetheless. There must be reasons to go
to space in the here and now if the rhetoric
of, say, Proxmire is to be deflated. The
good senator does more than oppose
government financing for space: he jeers at
the very idea of man going to space in the
first place. We suggest that he reflects the
anti-technology attitude.
 NASA is in the unenviable position of
begging government favor. Many divergent
interests carefully watch its accomplishments. 
The Air Force distributed a
folder of material to the press entitled
"Department of Defense Support of: Orbital 
Flight Test #1." Imaginative minds in
the Pentagon (yes, there are some) are
already considering the particle beam and
laser weapons systems the Space Shuttle
will enable them to develop and deploy.
Meanwhile, the scientists are concerned
with the knowledge they may acquire
through using the shuttle for research. In
the current economic climate, it is likely that
science and the military will reach some sort
of compromise, as they so often must. The
Space Shuttle is the most economical
spacecraft ever developed, but it will still
cost a pretty chunk of change to use.
 NASA is proud of Columbia. It marks a
major step forward in cost effectiveness for
the agency. The orbiter maybe used about
a hundred times, the boosters about ten. To
have a tremendous rocket vehicle that was
used only once (as in the days of Apollo)
was a symbol of one-mission-at-a-time
thinking. That space travel is the cheapest
form of travel known was lost on the man in
the street. His idea of space travel cost 
included the expense of breaking away from
Earth's gravity well. The adventure of going
to the moon was sufficient to keep public 
interest and support alive, however. The
Space Shuttle promises a greater adventure: 
a Mars ship could be constructed in
space, designed for use in space only (aside
from the landing shuttle), and no fuel
would be wasted fighting Earth's gravity.
Such a trip would rekindle public interest in
space overnight. But how soon will it be
done? Dare we hope by the end of the century?
 In the meantime, there are immediate
projects on the drawing board. As has been
said many times before, the Space Shuffle
Is the first space truck. The economic advantages 
are obvious: crews will be able to
go into space to repair unmanned satellites
in orbit. If need be, satellites could be
returned to Earth for overhauls. Nearly
every type of satellite will be orbited and
maintained by shuttles: communications,
meteorology, environmental protection,
navigation, fishing, farming, mapping,
oceanography, and of course surveillance.
Most important of all will be hungry Solar
Power Satellites that in time could solve the
energy problems of the world by sending
the product back via microwave or laser.
What's more, such salellites could lead to a
self-supporting program.
 The really interesting area is in what the
Space Shuttle promises to science.
Astronauts are scientists as well as good
pilots of spaceships. NASA has looked for
people, however specially trained for the
task at hand, who are basically generalists,
able to draw upon a wide variety of fields.
With permanent space laboratories as part
of a comprehensive space station program,
specialized scientists without intensive
astronaut training will conduct experiments
in space. The same goes for the expertise
required by industrial projects. And 
eventually come the tourists! More than 
instruments will ride the shuttles.
 A permanent station to be put in low
Earth orbit will be the SOC, or Space
Operations Center (Skylab need never
have fallen). Its primary purpose will be
scientific. In addition to carrying out 
experiments, this station will be a base for the
construction of more ambitious structures
further out in geosynchronous Earth orbit.
This will be the start of permanent space
habitats. (Consider what that will teach us
about self-contained ecologies.) As
unglamorous as Columbia might have appeared 
to some - jumping up, orbiting
low, then coming back down like a pogo
stick - the grand, mad dashes into the void
will come out of a down-to-earth shuttle
program.
PAGE 3

PAGE 2
 You saw it before you heard it. Even the
most experienced journalist must be
without words... at first. The flame started
at the bottom, the ship began to rise, exhaust 
fumes welling up... all before the
sound struck the chest. It was a deep
thunder, not as bone-crackingly loud as a
Saturn V going up in the Apollo days, but
still a sound that spoke to the marrow, and
reverberated in the body. The sight that 
accompanied that sound - the shuttle climbing 
the sky on a pillar of long, bright flame
- made the onlooker smile in joy or gape
in wonder, but the face could not remain
unaffected.
 How it sped on its way, leaving behind
the purest white contrail, as if a cloud had
been turned sideways and set upon the
ground. We could see the orbiter, the main
tank to fuel its engine, and one of the
thruster shells clearly as the ship rotated in
flight until the orbiter was lost from view
behind the tank, The visibIlity was excellent. 
Before the onlookers could believe
it was gone, all that remained was the
billowing white column. The contrail snaked 
off... we had lost sight of Columbia.
Then suddenly the miracle of the craft
made itself plain. Someone shouted,
"There it is, off to the right!"
 It had gone so far, so fast, that now it was
a daytime star, a dot of light that appeared
to be moving down the sky, but that was
only because It was so far along on its trajectory 
that the distance tricked the eye.
 "Jeezus, look at that thing go!" "Go,
baby, go!" "Whooeeeeeee!" "Wow!" Cries
of exclamation filled the air, as the echo of
thunder died away. Then it was time to
look at monitor screens, to see the boosters
jettisoned, leaving the main tank and Columbia 
herself to escape the atmosphere.
Time for more instant replays than a week's
worth of football games. Time for read-outs
and statistics and a hundred voices talking
at once.
 Everyone knew it was perfect - as
Young would later describe the ship: "It just
performed superbly." There was a good
will at that press site unadulterated by
cynicism. People of such widely divergent
interests had come to experience the same
thing: politicians (space advocate Jerry
Brown among them), popular entertainers
(John Denver, Pat Boone, Nichelle
Nichols, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas),
science fictioneers Jack and Eva Chalker,
Joe and Gay Haldeman, C,J. Cherryh,
David Kyle), Air Force brass, and even a
troop of cub scouts. The crews from CBS,
NBC, ABC, the BBC, and Atlanta's CNN
were as caught up in the event when it finally 
happened as the kids in the Star Wars T
shirts. On television, even Dan Rather smiled.
 There was much to be pleased about as
the Space Shuttle demonstrated for the
world to see what a true aerospace vehicle
means: to takeoff like a rocket, maneuver
in Earth orbit like a spacecraft, and land like
an airplane. First of all, as if to make up for
Friday's delay. the mission worked even
better than NASA had anticipated. Commander 
Young said that it was so nominal
that it was phenomenal.
  This time the five guidance, navigation
and control computers were in 
synchronlzation. The rocket engines
developed more thrust than they had
calculated, which means Columbia could
have carried five hundred pounds more
payload into orbit. This presages well for
the next mission. As for the recovery of the
solid rocket boosters, they floated fine and
will be re-used as planned. (The remains of
the external tank cascaded down within ten
miles of the targeted area, which is very
good indeed,)
 Once in orbit, the reaction control
system, used for maintaining spacecraft 
attitude, also outdid expectations by using
less propellant than had been allotted. It is
the age of economy-minded space missions, 
or as Young said: "You don't want to
run out of gas on your way to orbit."
 The best news concerned the tiles. After
some insulating tiles fell off the OMS pods
(Orbiting Maneuvering System) during the
launch, worry was expressed about the tiles
forming the protective layer on the belly of
the craft. Without them Columbia would
have become an unwanted meleorite upon
re-entry, al la Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope."
With 34,000 tiles to dissipate temperatures
up to 2300 degrees Fahrenheit, their function 
to protect the orbiter's aluminum body,
these silica fiber blocks offered better 
protection than any other material considered,
 The design of the Space Shuttle was
especially difficult because so much of what
it had to do was new, and they had to get it
right the first time. Columbia was born of a
new kind of approach.
 It used to be that rocket vehicles were
made by expending prototypes, the
engineers learning from smoking failures
on desert sands. In the early days there was
no other practical way to handle the wild
fires in a rocket's tubes. The trouble was
with guidance. Each subsequent launch
would incorporate fixes from previous
failures, this cycle to be repeated until a
launch achieved complete success.
 The unprecendented difficulty of the
Space Shuttle was the need to design a
rocket vehicle that would succeed on its first
flight with astronauts aboard. The shuttle
was a new configuration, the orbiter with 
liquid fuel engines piggy-back riding on an
External Tank, with two solid fuel rocket
boosters strapped to the ET for extra
oomph! This was the first manned flight to
use any solid rockets - when they start up,
they can't be turned off.
 The most dangerous part of the mission
was probably re-entry and landing. After
the tiles did their job, it was up to John
Young to handle the manual part - a dead
stick glide in a ninety ton plane, glowing hot
underneath from the friction of re-entry.
Using S turns to slow down, the last leg of
the trip was an unmotorized exercise in
pure flying for man and computer. No
wonder Young looked so happy when he
came out. He had had fun!
 The Columbia exhibited an excellent
glide ratio (i.e., more lift and less drag).
This means that the shuttle should be able
to land on conveniently short runways instead 
of requiring the long strip they used
this time. It also increases the number of
contingency landing sites in event of an
emergency.
PAGE 2

PAGE 4
 Perhaps the most intriguing project for
the near future of the Space Shuttle 
program is the Space Telescope. It will be the
most powerful ever built not because of
size, but due to its location. Limited by the
atmosphere through which they must peer,
the largest ground based telescopes cannot
see more than two billion light years. In orbit, 
the Space Telescope will see fourteen
billion light years, photographing objects 
fifty times fainter. The boon to astronomy will
be incalculable. It will see quasars well
enough to investigate their properties.
Might not such data unlock the secrets of 
little known energy processes? The telescope
will also be used to look for planets orbiting
nearby stars. Some consider that the
greatest benefit will be to learn more about
the age of the universe. ST will mark as
great an advance for modern day
astronomy as Galileo's telescope did for his
time. And all this will come from an 
unmanned telescope, controlled from the ground,
but launched into orbit and serviced by the
Space Shuttle. This one is scheduled for
1983.
 At last mankind is getting a permanent
foothold in space. As that orbiting telescope
looks farther than the eye can see, the
question is raised: how soon will we follow
its gaze? We must never forget how diverse
are the motives that will inspire the exodus
from Earth: the scientist lusting after
knowledge; the colonist hoping for a second 
chance; the military rattling its sabers
against new horizons; the businessman
seeking celestial profits; and finally the
pilots who simply want to guide their
wonderful ships to alien shores. For
whatever the reasons, the human race is
m'aktng the journey!

         -30-


 Brad Linaweaver has writttn previously
for Fantastic ("The Competitor," July,
1980). This is his first contribution to 
Amazing. During the period of the Viking Mars
Lander in 1976, he made speeches in favor
of the space program for the National
Space Institute. He has written for
numerous libertarian publications.
 Avery Davis Is a research engineer with
the Georgia Institute of Technology. As
part of his job, he participated in static 
firings of the Main Propulsion Test Article
(three Space Shuttle main engines and an
external fuel tank) at NASA's National
Space Technology Laboratory.
 Both live in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Earth, 
Milky Way.
Page 4

Amazing copy rec'd May 6
file n-l8cor


Space Shuttle correcs 


ly happened as the kids in the Star Wars T-


mander Young said that trouble was so
nominal it was phenomenal.


in orbit. If need be, satellites could be