Because of these concerns, in October 1972 NASA put together a Shutthe users group to discuss periodically with the administrator and various program managers how to use the Shuttle when it came into being.28 Many groups were already wrestling with how to build the Shuttle and what to use it for, but no group was adequately addressing itself to the question of how it could be run to make the most of its potential. The single most important recommendation to come out of the meetings of this panel was to operate the Shuttle in such a way that the tool did not overshadow the application. Pursuing both questions, what to do with the Shuttle and how to operate it so as best to serve its users, NASA sponsored still another in the long chain of summer studies on major issues facing the agency. This study was conducted at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts, in July 1973.29 Again the National Academy of Sciences conducted the study, most of which was devoted to what the Shuttle, particularly the Spacelab it would carry on board, could do for the space program. By that time the scientists had developed a restrained, somewhat worried interest in the vehicle. There was more willingness than hitherto to assume that perhaps the craft could be developed and flown in such a way as to bring down the costs of space missions. There remained still the question of whether it really would be operated as a tool rather than as an end in itself. The scientists' fears in this matter were revived by NASA's insistence that a great deal of attention be paid to how the Spacelab, which the Europeans were developing for the program at a projected cost of several hundred million dollars, would be used. At the time most of the scientists could see little use for Spacelab and wondered if they were going to be pressured into using it simply to keep man-in-space in the picture. Although the life scientists and atmospheric physicists expressed interest in Spacelab, most of the study participants insisted that they would like to use the Shuttle as a truck to carry payloads into space, including the very heavy ones like space telescopes and high-energy astronomy payloads. The discussions brought into stark relief another very serious problem. The Shuttle itself would be capable of placing payloads in near-earth orbits; but that would take care of only part of the missions the scientists wanted flown. At one end there were the very small payloads of the kinds that had gone into sounding rockets. Study participants just did not believe that the sounding-rocket class of payload could be accommodated economically within the Shuttle cost structure. Nor, for that matter, did the Shuttle appear to be appropriate for small satellites of the kind that Scouts had been launching, especially payloads that had to go into unusual orbits or trajectories. Would provision be made to keep sounding rockets and a small expendable vehicle like Scout for these requirements? Also, what about payloads that were headed for synchronous or other high-altitude orbits, or for escape trajectories to the moon and planets? How would these be launched? If the Shuttle were to be used for the initial boost from the earth's surface, suitable upper stages would still be required to carry the payloads beyond the low-altitude orbit. Was NASA going to ensure that suitable upper staging would be ready for use with the Shuttle, or would there be an undesirable hiatus in such missions when the Shuttle came into operation? These questions NASA would have to address itself to as the space program moved through the transition period of the 1970s to the 1980s when the Space Shuttle would become the country's principal space booster. If the various collateral requirements were met, the Shuttle had a rosy future in prospect. If they were not met, NASA could expect trouble with its clients. The early years of American space science may be taken to be the 1950s and 1960s in which first sounding rockets and then satellites and space probes were used to extend scientific research into outer space. Space vehicles were expendable, new ones being required for each new mission. The decision in 1970 to proceed with the development of a reusable Space Shuttle signaled the end of the era in which only expendable boosters were used. It did not, however, signal the end of expendable rockets, since the Shuttle would probably not meet all near-earth launcher requirements and would certainly have to use additional stages to send spacecraft beyond low-altitude earth orbits. Nevertheless, the decision inaugurated a period of transition for the space program from conventional methods to the use of the Shuttle. During the period of transition space science and applications programs would continue much as in the past, but in parallel much work would be under way to prepare for the use of the Shuttle. If the Shuttle did perform as promised and did prove to be economical, it could be highly useful for space science. Its usefulness would depend on whether the program were operated so as to support the scientific objectives properly. Once the Shuttle program was under way, it remained to see how well the engineers could do in creating the vehicle and how wise NASA managers would be in using it. 22 Review and Assessment Iamque opus exegi, quod nec lovis ira, nec ignis, Viewing events in retrospect one cannot but be impressed with the seeming inexorability of human progress toward spaceflight, particularly in the 20th century. There is a temptation to claim that once Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Oberth, von Braun, and their followers took aim at outer space, the large rocket and spaceflight were inevitable. Certainly by the time Sputnik 1 went into orbit, a substantial groundwork had been laid by a large number of pioneers working assiduously through many decades. But the character of the space program that emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s was not so predictable. Many, if not most, of the early workers were primarily interested in interplanetary travel and high-altitude research, but for the most part had to rely on the military for support. In providing support the services naturally were considering the potential military uses of space, and indeed the first major rocket to go into operation was a weapon, the V-2. Because of the importance of atmospheric and ionospheric data for applications of radio and radar, and in the design, construction, and operation of various military systems, the services supported a considerable amount of high-altitude rocket research during the 1940s and 1950s. In the normal course of events one could thus visualize a U.S. space program, including space science, as evolving over the years, emerging quietly as a part of military research and development. Under such circumstances the ability of space scientists to devote their research primarily to the most important scientific problems would have been hampered by the requirement to contribute in a demonstrable way to more immediate military needs. In addition, as the experiences of the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel during the 1940s and 1950s showed, there would have been the constant threat of being pulled under the cloak of military secrecy-a restriction fundamentally incompatible with the scientific process. Such limitations on the U.S. space program were avoided when the administration and Congress, reacting to the Sputnik challenge, decided that in the best interests of the country most of the space program should be conducted openly under civilian auspices. Moreover the vagueness and grand sweep of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 gave the NASA administrator a great deal of flexibility in specifying the content of the NASA program. As one consequence, under NASA management the space science program became very much a creature of the nation's interested scientists. When the Soviet Union surprised the world by launching the first artificial satellite into orbit, the shocked reaction of the United States tended to distort the country's perception of what was happening. The weight of Sputnik 2 and 3 showed how advanced the USSR was in rocket payload capability, and it was easy to focus on this factor while underestimating the importance of the work that the United States had already done in the field. Looking back, it is now clear that America, while lagging in rocket propulsion, was more than competitive in communications, tracking, and telemetry, in guidance and control, and in sounding rocket research. Taking all factors into consideration the imbalance was not so great as had been imagined. Proceeding from its substantial state of readiness the United States built an enviable record of success in space over the next dozen years, culminating with the Apollo missions to the moon. Space science contributed its share to the overall success. Indeed, for most of the 1960s applications and science missions provided most of the return on the nation's investment in space, and it was not until the Apollo lunar flights that the manned spaceflight program began to generate the prodigious quantities of data that continued to flow from it during the first half of the 1970s. One can use several criteria in assessing the success or failure of the space science program. The simplest is whether the program achieved what its planners set out to do. By this criterion the space science program must be adjudged successful. In every area-earth and planetary sciences, solar physics, stellar astronomy and cosmology, and to a smaller extent biologysubstantial progress was made, bringing a number of important discoveries. Successful unmanned scientific spacecraft missions were legion, including thousands of sounding rockets; dozens of Explorer satellites; solar, geophysical, and astronomical observatories; Pioneer space probes; Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, and Surveyor spacecraft to the moon; and Mariners to Mars and Venus. Sharing in some of these successes were many other countries taking part in a quite extensive international cooperative program. A more substantive criterion of success is whether what was achieved was worthwhile. This is more difficult to judge, but that hundreds of first rate scientists chose to devote their personal careers, or a substantial part of them, to space science is evidence of the program's success. The numbers of scientists working in the field and the voices of scientists raised in strong support of important projects and equally strong protest against proposed cuts had to be important considerations to the administration and Congress in deciding the extent of support to accord to space science. Success in the space science program was not bought without some failures. Indeed, for the first two years failures seemed at times to eclipse successes, although before the end of the 1960s the success rate had risen well into the 90 percent range. Both failures and successes had their lessons to convey, and there was much to be learned by participants in the space science program, not only of a scientific nature but also concerning organization and management, and the perplexities of human relations. ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT A great many of NASA's working hours were taken up in problems of management. Patient attention to detail was required to make the agency's complex projects succeed. The space team did a good job, evoking worldwide praise for NASA. But it must be remembered that the team was more than a single agency, consisting as it did of thousands of engineers, technicians, laborers, scientists, and administrators from government, industry, universities, the military, and even other countries. Furthermore, accomplishments were much more labored than one might suppose from a distance. The picture of a well-oiled machine purring along without a clank or a clatter is inappropriate. The space program endured the same kinds of personnel problems, development snags, labor disputes, schedules missed, cost overruns, failures and temporary setbacks, and management mistakes that were the experience of the military and industry in the large weapon projects that might be pointed to as the closest analog to what NASA was trying to accomplish. That NASA had to struggle through the same difficulties that beset other large-scale programs in no way diminished the luster of space achievements. On the contrary, to meet and overcome such difficulties was the nature of the task. NASA was eclectic in its approach, borrowing management ideas from various sources, especially the military. The agency was willing to experiment, to pioneer in the use of new management techniques in government-industry relations, incentive contracting, project planning, technical and cost reporting, management reviews, and quality assessment and control. By remaining flexible, reorganizing several times in the course of a decade, it was possible to accommodate changing needs of the program. The management style of the agency reflected those of the several administrators who stood at the NASA helm through the 1960s. The first administrator, T. Keith Glennan, came to NASA with a controlled enthu |