AIAA San Francisco Section Newsletter February 1994 QUO VADIMUS?: An Unscientific Survey - Part I Part I - Worrisome Perspectives Brenda Forman An Unsettling Prelude: Reader beware: this is an Unscientific Survey. It makes no claims to ethnic, geographic or socioeconomic balance. It is merely your faithful columnist roaming her rollodex and asking some two dozen of her more thoughtful, articulate and experienced space friends the following question: "Where do you think the U.S. civil space program will be in the year 2000?" I mounted this little survey because I've been suffering increasing fits of gloom of late over that question. So I decided to find out what some other canny observers might think. As you might expect, the predictions ranged over a spectrum from rosy to dark. But one consistent feature did emerge, and it is not heartening. With only one exception ( a professional journalist), my respondents were willing to be identified by name ONLY if they voiced a relatively optimistic view of the space program's future. If instead they saw problems brewing, or if they believed the program to be in dire straits, they expressed not just reluctance, but outright fear, of being recognizably identified. Thus, several of the attributions for the quotations that follow will sound remarkably anonymous. But believe me, these are real people with impressive resumes, collectively representing a formidable amount of first-hand experience over many years. It is therefore doubly sad that they explicitly fear serious retribution if they criticize the program in public. This troubles me greatly. If honest, deeply concerned critics of the program are genuinely afraid of publicly telling the truth as they see it, it bodes ill for the program's future health. Unhappily, however, I do not know how to fix this problem. Whither Space Station? The predictions I got were by no means entirely gloomy, although "optimism" is this context turned out to be rather a relative term. In general, it boiled down to survival -- survival, furthermore, at a considerably lower and less ambitious level than anything in the program's past. But the modesty of even relatively optimistic expectations was indicated by the fact that nearly every one of my respondents, optimists and pessimists alike, assumed the space station would be gone by the year 2000. John McLucas, whose remarkable career has spanned essentially every major event in space history, was one of the few who disagreed. He said we would have a four-man space station -- but added that we had "really missed the boat on space station. What you really need is a few cubic feet up there and over time you make it into what you want. As long as you say it has to be $30B or nothing, you never get anywhere." Even McLucas' guarded optimism, though, was in the minority. The opposite viewpoint was succinctly stated by Theresa Foley, former editor of Space News: "In the year 2000, the U.S. may have a few shuttle missions flying per year and a space station that's a hanger queen. And not much else." One prominent space consultant said that although he personally hoped the station would survive, he thought it "probably has one more year to go." Even Jerry Grey, Director of Aerospace & Science Policy for the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, and one of the more optimistic respondents, thought that the station will have been killed by the year 2000 because "as soon as this current round of discussions regarding the redesign is finished, people are going to realize that it will be too expensive. It would be good to cooperate with the Russians but it will cost us more than it would if we did it on our own." Predictions as to the cause of the station's expected demise included technical, budgetary and diplomatic problems. On the technical front, a NASA space scientist said that "there are enough holes here and there being covered up by management decisions instead of technical studies that things might look ragged in about two years. The question is, will that be used as a lever to beat the process, or will it be taken as just the price you pay for your foreign policy goals?" Others were concerned that budgetary difficulties would overwhelm the program long before completion. A NASA official worried that "space station will be in serious cost trouble in the spring, because we really are in the 'Pacman' condition. Beggs said space station was a bit-the-agency program, but I don't think he ever really figured these odds." A former astronaut, now working in industry, thought that "Congress will lose its will and won't want to go into the public pocketbook for it. NASA's dollar estimates will be found wanting and Congress will say, there you go again!" The Russian Connection: As for the move to link up with the Russians, a European source summed it up: "There are two schools of thought: 1) Everything done this year will strengthen the program, and 2) Everything done this year will undermine it. I think the jury is still out on that." Some saw the move as the station's salvation. A retired space official declared that 'The stroke of getting with the Russians was brilliant." A former high NASA official remarked that "it's the only thing that would have kept the station from being canceled," while a former Bush Administration official remarked, "Maybe that will be the kick in the pants to get this thing built." Others were less sanguine. One former high NASA official remarked that "this sort of ethereal handshake with the Russians will only end up in a quagmire." A second former high NASA official fumed that the deal was "insane," noting that the station "is a jobs issue, and now they've essentially turned that over to the Russians!" A former astronaut now in the business world found it sadly ironic that after years of competing with the Russians, "NASA is putting all it eggs in the Russian basket. We are totally at the mercy of the Russians -- and if the Russians can't deliver, even NASA admits they don't have a program." One well-placed government official saw serious danger in the fact that the station's fate was now intimately linked with the Russians' future actions in areas unrelated to space. "The Administration bought into the station exclusively for foreign policy reasons," he says, specifically a Russian commitment to maintain support for democracy and to comply with missile technology controls. What happens if the Russians don't keep their side of the bargain and the White House retaliates by withdrawing support for the station? "I see the potential for this whole thing unraveling -- and it all comes down to Russia." In Sum: All in all, therefore, the station was widely perceived as confronting major hurdles on numerous fronts and its ability to successfully negotiate them was perceived as shaky. Perceptions, of course, are not reality (although they can and do influence events) and by definition, this little survey dealt only with perceptions. It is even conceivable that the station will emerge victorious after all and that it will be proudly flying sometime early in the next century. As of this moment, however, a sizable group of extremely knowledgeable observers seems to regard that as unlikely. How About Launch Vehicles? Opinion was more widely diffused on the launch vehicle front. People were concerned. Some were even exasperated. But it did not have the life-and-death feel of the space station issue where some respondents seemed to equate the station's survival with that of the entire civil space program. A prominent space consultant thought we'd still be using upgrades of the vehicles we have now, e.g., an improved Atlas, a Delta model and possibly an LLV (Lockheed Launch Vehicle), but not an entirely new launch vehicle. "AA new vehicle is too expensive, and it's too late to come up with a vehicle to do battle with Ariane." Some thought we might be making modest progress. Jerry Grey thought that by 2000, we will have begun using the "space station dividend" (from that program's cancellation) for technology development leading to SSTO. A former astronaut now working in industry believed that, "We will be better along for some form of SSTO. We'll be building the first truly cheap operational systems." Alan Ladwig, Senior Policy Advisor at NASA Headquarters, hoped that "by that time, we will have been successful in initiating work on a set of different launch capabilities, with progress on what is going to replace shuttle." Others said they had essentially despaired of the U.S.' future in space launch. Yet another former high NASA official exclaimed, "The launch vehicle situations is worse than it's ever been.. I don't see how we can resurrect it!" A retired space official noted with exasperation that "I'm afraid we won't have done anything on a new booster. If we had a brain in our head, we'd get together with the Russians on Energiya!" A European source put it neatly: "If past experience is any indicator, in the year 2000, the U.S. will still be studying what their next generation launcher will be. And speaking as a European, that's just fine!" In Sum: This was clearly an important issue but it didn't elicit the sort of passionate response that the space station did. There was mild hope in some quarters that the launch vehicle issue might have move forward slightly, but as many or more who thought we'd be more or less right where we are now -- expect that it would be seven years later. And Space Science? Here again, even optimists had only modest expectations and even the rosiest predictions boiled down to little more than survival at a lower. One former high NASA official who is extremely pessimistic about the station still manages to remain fairly hopeful about the science program. "The science programs will survive because they have a strong lobby," he maintains. "There will be a limit to the extent that science continues to be cut to save space station and shuttle. We'll have to think small for awhile. But there are a lot of good people in that program and I think they will adapt." John McLucas was more guarded in his optimism: "Science has a constituency - but it will go at a very mild pace. People will say that space will be there next year so what's the hurry?" On the other side of the issue, deep pessimism ruled. A European source believes that space science will have as many difficulties as the space station. "Cassini [the mission to Saturn and its moon Titan] might go down, and that raises serious questions for the future of any international cooperation in space." Sadly, some believe that even supposedly favored smaller/faster/cheaper missions are doomed by the inexorable pincer movement of budget cuts and space station costs. One NASA official says, "I don't think we'll ever get a Pluto Fast Flyby. Where do you get new-start money out of this budget?" The former Bush Administration official defines the crux of the issue as the lack of any consensus as to the program's goals. Without that, he says, "all that stuff becomes just science. You say you want to analyze lunar soil. Immediately, the question is, WHY? Somehow we are going to have to see space exploration as a national priority, not a crisis but something enjoying national support." In Sum: An air of discouragement seemed to pervade the responses, coupled with apprehension from some respondents that the station's darkening fortunes would drag the science program down with it. Where To From Here? One possible conclusion from the above is that the civil space program must change radically or face a future in which its support rests not on its technological prowess or its ability to inspire but instead on the number of jobs it represents and its political "pork" content. There are, of course, many such programs on the national political terrain. We might legitimately wish, however, that the space program aim higher and better. Next month, therefore, I'll try to pass along some of my respondents' ideas as to how we might get there from here.