Table of Contents
Author(s)
George W.S. Abbey
Former Senior FellowTo access the full paper, download the PDF on the left-hand sidebar.
I. America’s Space Program: An Overview
If one goes back a half-century in time, we find that 1961 was a year of some historical significance. The year brought forth events that have had a lasting effect on both the nation and the world. On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States. The election of the new young president symbolized optimism and youth in America, the rise of a new generation. The country was just coming out of the 1950s and had no idea what the 1960s would bring. In his inaugural speech, the new president set the bar high with his famous challenge, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” And there were indeed challenges to be met ahead. Less than three months later, on April 12, 1961, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union, Yuri Gagarin, was launched into orbit around the Earth. Five days later, on April 17, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles launched an ill-fated U.S.-sponsored invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. The Soviet Union’s spectacular orbital flight furthered the national concern that had been generated three and one-half years earlier when the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik, in October 1957. With this epoch event and the disastrous U.S.-sponsored invasion of Cuba, the new president’s administration, while harboring great expectations, had gotten off to a very rocky start.
The Soviet Union, our Cold War adversary, had clearly demonstrated its technical prowess and capabilities. It was not until May 5, 1961, almost a month after Gagarin’s epic flight, that the United States launched the first American in space, Alan Shepard—but only on a suborbital flight that went to an altitude of over 116 miles and traveled 303 statute miles downrange from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Nine months were to go by before John Glenn made the first U.S. orbital flight on February 20, 1962. Kennedy was feeling great pressure to have the United States “catch up to and overtake” the Soviet Union in the “space race.” The earlier shocks of Sputnik in 1957 and Gagarin’s history-making flight greatly embarrassed the United States. In addition, the Bay of Pigs fiasco put further pressure on the new president.
The president felt he had to initiate a program that the United States had a strong chance of achieving before the Soviet Union and that would clearly demonstrate America’s technological leadership. The president presented a special message to the Congress on urgent national needs on May 25, 1961. The message covered a number of critical areas. And then he spoke of space:
“Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the vice president, who is chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides, time for a great new American enterprise, time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.”
The president then identified his goals in space:
“I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:
“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar spacecraft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations—explorations which are particularly important for one purpose, which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively. It will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.
“Secondly, an additional $23 million, together with $7 million already available, will accelerate development of the Rover nuclear rocket. This gives promise of some day providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the Moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself.”
The “great adventure” had begun. That adventure for human spaceflight has continued for lo these last five decades, each decade bringing its own new challenges. In a little more than seven and one-half years after President Kennedy’s historic speech, on Christmas Eve of 1968, astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders were circling the Moon. And less than seven months later, astronaut Neil Armstrong was walking on the lunar surface. Five more landings on the Moon were to follow. And as the crew of the last lunar mission, Apollo 17, was on their voyage back to an Earth landing on December 19, 1972, the crew of the first manned mission to U.S. space station Skylab was well into their training for a launch in May 1973. In July 1972, five months prior to the launch of Apollo 17, the contract to build the space shuttle orbiter had been awarded to Rockwell International.
The year 1972 also heralded another historic event in the history of the space program. On May 24, 1972, shortly after the flight of Apollo 16, President Richard Nixon and Premier Alexei Kosygin of the Soviet Union signed the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes. Under the agreement, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to carry out projects for developing compatible rendezvous and docking systems of United States and Soviet manned spacecraft and stations in order to enhance the safety of manned flight in space and to provide the opportunity for conducting joint scientific experiments in the future. The first experimental flight to test these systems was to be conducted during 1975, with the docking of a U.S. Apollo-type spacecraft and a Soviet Soyuz-type spacecraft.
The following year, 1973, saw the successful completion of three missions to the Skylab space station, one for 28 days, a second for 59 days, and a third for a duration of 84 days. This year also saw another historic event in human spaceflight as the United States and Europe agreed in August 1973 on flying a European built research laboratory, Spacelab, in the payload bay of the space shuttle orbiter for cooperative scientific research missions, and agreed to fly European astronauts in space.
The first joint U.S.-Russian mission, involving the docking of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and an Apollo spacecraft using a commonly developed docking system, was successfully flown in July 1975. In addition to the successful docking, the mission furthered understanding between those involved in the preparations and execution of the flight. Lasting friendships were developed that were to be renewed in the 1990s with United States involvement in the shuttle-Mir program, and with Russian participation in the International Space Station (ISS).
The development and testing associated with the new space shuttle also dominated the 1970s. The new technology associated with the space shuttle main engine proved challenging as was the development of the new, large five-segment solid rocket boosters. A Boeing 747 aircraft was modified to carry the new shuttle orbiter. The first orbiter to be built, Enterprise, was carried aloft by a 747 in order to accomplish approach and landing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California in 1977. These tests were invaluable in proving the approach and landing characteristics of the new spacecraft. Gulfstream II aircraft were modified to fly like the new orbiter and to serve as trainers for the astronauts flying the new spacecraft. New and major facility modifications of the Apollo facilities in Florida were undertaken to support the new vehicle.
With the testing, preparations, and training complete and the new revolutionary spacecraft ready for launch, the first flight of the space shuttle on April 12, 1981, was a success. The shuttle was the first reusable orbital spacecraft. That flight was followed by a second test flight, the first reuse of a manned orbital space vehicle and the first test of the Canadarm, the shuttle’s mechanical arm. The next two flights would see the first landing of the shuttle at White Sands, New Mexico, and the flight of the first Department of Defense payload. The research and development flights ended with the successful completion of the fourth flight of the shuttle. The fifth and sixth flights of the Shuttle saw satellite deployments, multiple Comsat satellites on the fifth flight, and a tracking and data satellite on the sixth flight. The seventh flight of the shuttle saw the first American woman flown in space, multiple Comsat satellite deployments, and the first retrieval of a satellite. The first flight of an African American astronaut occurred on the eighth flight of the shuttle, along with a Canadarm test with large payloads and the first night landing of the space shuttle.
On the ninth flight of the space shuttle in November 1983—a scientific research flight—the spacecraft carried for the first time the European-built spacelab, along with two European astronauts. Spacelab was to fly on 21 additional shuttle missions between November 1983 and April 1998. By the time the shuttle made its initial flight in 1981, the United States had flown 31 human missions in space in the previous 20 years. The 1980s were to see 32 flights flown from April of 1981 through November of 1989. One of the 32 was the tragic tenth flight of space shuttle Challenger in January 1986, with the loss of the shuttle and the seven-person crew. Seven flights were subsequently flown in the 1980s after the loss of Challenger and the implementation of the corrective actions resulting from the accident.
In his January 25, 1984, State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan directed NASA to build a space station within a decade and to invite other countries to join the United States in the endeavor. The European Space Agency, Canada, and Japan were to all to join with the United States in the space station program with a formal agreement signed between the partners in 1988.
NASA originally estimated that the space station would cost $8 billion. It was envisioned as three separate orbital facilities: an occupied base for the crew and two automated platforms for scientific experiments and Earth observations. The cost estimate grew rapidly throughout the 1980s and redesign followed redesign. The automated platforms were deleted, and the occupied base was reduced in size. A capability to ensure that astronauts could return to Earth in an emergency had not been included in the initial design and had to be added to the configuration.
In July 1989, six months after taking office, President George H.W. Bush gave a speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. In that address, he committed the United States to returning humans to the Moon and going on to Mars, a program referred to as the Space Exploration Initiative. He also endorsed the space station as the cornerstone of that effort. NASA subsequently conducted a study in 1989 on the implementation of a very extensive program in response to the president’s goals. They projected the proposed program would exceed $500 billion in costs over 30 years.
Subsequently, in 1991, General Thomas P. Stafford chaired the Synthesis Group, which was comprised of engineers and scientists, not only from NASA but from across the government. They did a comprehensive study evaluating the implementation of the president’s proposal. Their report, America at the Threshold, recommended the creation, by executive order, of a multiagency National Program Office. This organization would include NASA and personnel from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy. They proposed a less expensive approach than had been previously recommended, a national approach that would make use of resources throughout the government to implement the president’s proposed program. Congressional concern, however, over a previous NASA study and its associated costs, and NASA’s poor record on controlling space station costs, had weakened any congressional support for President H.W. Bush’s plan, and it was not implemented.
By December 1990, the cost estimate for the space station had grown to $38.3 billion, and Congress directed NASA to again redesign it. NASA released its redesign of the station in March 1991 with a new cost estimate of $30 billion, including launches. There was, however, continuing congressional concern over the program and its cost growth.
In January 1993, as President William Clinton took office, NASA announced more cost growth in the program, and Clinton directed NASA to redesign the station to reduce costs. By the summer, a new design was beginning to emerge and it was released in September 1993. The Clinton White House announced, with the release of the redesigned station, that Russia would join the space station program as a partner. Russia had agreed to build several modules, including two that were integral to the station, and agreed to launch two Soyuz spacecraft a year to serve as “lifeboats” and several Progress spacecraft per year to help the station maintain its orbit. Their participation was divided into two phases. Phase 1 involved space shuttle flights to the Mir space station, with Russian cosmonauts flying on the shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, and American astronauts engaging in long-duration expeditions aboard Mir.
Phase 1 allowed the United States to learn from Russian experience with long-duration spaceflight and fostered a spirit of cooperation between the two nations. It proved to be instrumental in ensuring the success of Phase 2, the construction and operation of the station. The first shuttle mission to Mir was flown in February 1995, and the tenth and last flight to the Mir was flown in June 1998. In addition, seven American astronauts spent almost 1000 cumulative days in space aboard Mir during the course of seven long-duration expeditions.
All together during the 1990s the space shuttle flew 63 missions, ten to the Mir station and two international space station assembly flights. The remaining missions were devoted to science and such tasks as the deployment of major science facilities, satellite repair missions, and Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions.
The new decade saw the space shuttle completing the assembly of the international space station and performing a number of supply missions to the new station. The shuttle flew a total of 35 flights from 2000 through 2010. The majority of these flights were devoted to the international space station. Two flights were flown to service the Hubble Space Telescope and one flight was devoted to flying a “spacehab” module outfitted for science; the module provides the shuttle with supplemental cargo space. That flight—STS-107, or the space shuttle Columbia—came to a tragic end during reentry with the loss of the seven-person crew and the orbiter. Twenty-five flights were subsequently flown during the remainder of the decade after shuttle flights were resumed in July of 2005, following the implementation of the corrective actions resulting from the accident.
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