WHY HAVE NASA?

 
                  Jerry E. Pournelle, Ph.D.
 Chairman, Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy
             Testimony to Subcommittee on Space
 
                       March 16, 1995
 
 
THE PURPOSE OF NASA                                 2
 
X PROJECTS                                          3
 
SIDE BENEFITS                                       5
 
LOW COST ACCESS TO SPACE                            6
 
SINGLE STAGE TO ORBIT (SSTO)                        9
 
SSX                                                 11
 
HAVEN'T WE BEEN HERE BEFORE?                        12
 
SPACE STATION                                       15
 
NASA DO'S AND DON'TS                                16
 
 
 
This document has been revised to include answers to some questions
asked at the March 16 hearings; in particular, why Shuttle made all the
promises now made by SSTO; why is the SSTO program different from the
Shuttle program?
 
A formal reply to questions sent after the session is attached.
 
 
                     THE PURPOSE OF NASA
 
NASA was a Cold War creation. Now that the Seventy Years War is over,
why is NASA needed?
 
The potential of space is very great, but at present there is high risk
and little immediate payoff. The major market for space services is
government; while private markets will develop, they haven't yet, and
probably won't until access costs are lower. There isn't a great deal of
private incentive to bring those access costs down because the markets
have not been developed. Lowering access costs and developing space
markets requires a long term commitment. The return from that will be
high, but it's in the future.
 
The discounted value of a dollar in 15 years is effectively zero. What
will you give me if I promise to pay you $1000 in 15 to 20 years?
 
It isn't reasonable for private companies to do long term investments.
Bell Labs where the transistor was invented was special and doesn't
exist any more. There is nothing else like it. We have no institutions
charged with long term technology development. This puts the United
States at a distinct disadvantage, because not all nations have our
limitations on futurist development.
 
We all know that sometime in the next century, space will be very
important to the international economy. It's not rational for any
private company to do space development research. Someone must. That
leaves government. Adam Smith held that enterprises in which the risk is
high, the return to all is great, and the benefit to any one investor is
problematical, are proper subjects for government attention. This is a
good example: the return is high, but more to the next generation than
this one.
 
The legitimate mission of NASA is to do long term technology
developments in aeronautical and space sciences; and to make the results
available to American companies for exploitation.
 
In other words, the purpose of NASA is to look ahead of the profit
window and identify promising aerospace technologies for future
development.
 
The way to demonstrate new technological discoveries and identify the
technologies needing further research and development is through X
projects.
 
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                         X PROJECTS
 
X Projects incorporate state of the art technology into a project which
focuses on a technological objective. Their mission is to stretch the
envelopes of technological knowledge. They may achieve other results.
 
    The primary mission of an X Project is technological.
 
        An X space ship would not have a mission or cargo requirement
        beyond what is needed to achieve the technological objectives.
 
    X Projects are not prototypes.
 
        We don't expect to build a lot of them.
 
     X Project craft are expendable.
 
        We don't want to crash an X ship, but it can happen, and we
        cannot be so concerned about the possibility that we don't get
        on with the project. Typically three X ships are planned. One is
        often expended. The second is then flown given the knowledge
        learned by the loss of the first. Sometimes additional models
        are built to reflect discoveries made by flying the first ones.
 
     X Projects are short term.
 
        Ships are planned, built, and flown. Then the project ends.
 
     X Projects build upon each other. They may overlap.
 
        The purpose of X projects is to demonstrate new technologies,
        learn about new capabilities, study operations with the new
        technologies, and discover new areas that need work.
 
     X Projects may not lead directly to prototypes.
 
        It is a mistake to insist that they do so. The best example is
        the X-1, which was intended to demonstrate the possibility of
        supersonic flight. Flying faster than sound was an elusive and
        costly goal. The X-1 was built with the single purpose of
        demonstrating that it could be done. There was no cargo other
        than the pilot. The X-1 did what it was intended to do. It also
        gave new insights into the problems of flying in transonic
        regimes. It was followed by the X-3 Stiletto, a plane that could
        not have been built when the X-1 was planned. The X-3 did lead
        to operational aircraft, including the F-104 Starfighter.
 
The X projects were greatly successful. They were effectively ended in
the late 1960's. The X programs were not canceled in the name of
economy. Knowledge gained through the X programs helped U.S. aerospace
firms to dominate the world industry. In the 1970's US high technology,
particularly aircraft, were the largest single cash export of the
nation. They were very important in making up the deficits in our
balance of payments.
 
The X projects were canceled because of arms control. The arms control
strategy held that rapid development of military technology was
undesirable since it led to `new rounds in the arms race.'1
 
Whatever the wisdom of the arms control strategy in the Cold War, there
is no arms race now. There is instead a new international competition
which resembles the Cold War in that it is `silent and apparently
peaceful, but could well be decisive'. It is a new Technological War,
and the United States has a great deal to gain from achieving not merely
a leading, but a dominant position in all areas of technology. In
particular, we can achieve a commanding lead in aerospace technology.
The way to achieve that is through properly organizing NASA into the
leadership agency in long term aerospace R&D, and reviving the X
programs.
 
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                        SIDE BENEFITS
 
There are side benefits to X programs.
 
One benefit that may not be obvious is career continuity. Because
commercial firms must look to short term profits, it is often necessary
to downsize in unprofitable years, and hire extensively when business is
good. The effect on high technology careers can be devastating. Our
recent history looks like a bad parody of manpower resource allocation.
 
It takes a while to learn how to do aerospace engineering and project
management. There is also value in having been part of a project team. X
projects provide a small but significant number of technological people
with continuity of employment doing something worth doing. Talent lost
to the aerospace industry is generally lost forever.
 
X projects are a source of hands-on experience. They are not jobs
programs; the X projects are themselves valuable. They are also fairly
short term, and generally carried out in places like Edwards Air Force
Base, China Lake, White Sands, and other areas unlikely to attract
people who want to build bureaucratic empires. X programs generate a
talent pool of experienced people likely to be hired away from
government service into private industry at need, but available during
periods of low economic growth.
 
Note again we are not advocating a jobs program; merely continuity of
employment for a small number of key people doing important work. Think
of a good X program office as the government's Skunk Works. Its very
existence is a major plus factor in international competition.
 
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                  LOW COST ACCESS TO SPACE
 
The key to space development is to get lots of people into space. Once
they can get there, they'll develop markets. Bring resources, energy,
and ingenuity together and the result has always been wealth. Space has
resources and energy. What it doesn't have is entrepreneurs with access
to the space environment.
 
There's no reason space cannot be a source of revenue. This is important
when government runs at a deficit. If we're going to borrow money from
our grandchildren, it's both reasonable and ethical to spend some of it
on genuine investments. Space can be, but has not been, a place for
genuine investment: that is, a potential revenue source, not a perpetual
sink.
 
The way to get lots of people into space is to bring the cost of space
access down by a factor of about one thousand. It can and should be
brought down to costs comparable to long distance airline operations. In
the next section we'll look at how that might be feasible. For the
moment, consider what would happen.
 
There isn't much market for space services because the cost of getting
there is so high. Even so, there are proposals for 800 + communications
satellites, to be launched and maintained at the present ridiculously
high costs, with the full expectation of profit. Weather satellites are
worth the costs of putting them up. There are national security payloads
that are worth present costs.
 
Not much else is. Hubble Space Telescope is returning some wonderful
pictures, and there are numerous science experiments that give us very
good data, but it's questionable whether the data are worth the costs.
On the other hand, if space missions cost millions instead of hundreds
of millions to billions, everything changes. The spacecraft themselves
would be cheaper, because there would be no need to design them to last
unattended and forever. Spacecraft tend to cost about the same as the
operations costs of getting them up. This is sensible, but in our
rapidly changing technology environment, the electronics in spacecraft
are generally obsolete long before the spacecraft has ceased operations.
 
Future space markets are totally dependent on access costs. They are
also unpredictable. Take an example from airplane days. Suppose in 1920
the Congress had tried to form an intelligent estimate of the economic
potential of airline travel; in particular the number of tickets that
might be sold. One probable route would be New York City to Los Angeles,
California. They might look at the number of people taking that trip by
train. They'd then factor in the ease of travel by air as opposed to
trains, and try to guess at a number. If they felt very bold they might
decide that as many as 500 a week would take the trip. Then they could
be extravagant and multiply that by two, to get 1,000 a week. They might
even go mad and estimate ten thousand a week.
 
They'd never come close to the actual numbers on any reasonable or even
sane set of assumptions, and even if they went mad and guessed the right
numbers, no one would believe them, and they'd still not have a handle
on the second order effects: the industries that are only made possible
by rapid travel capabilities.
 
It's the same way with space. When space access gets down to the price
of first class airline travel, it's nearly impossible to estimate the
volume of business.
 
The simplest business is tourist travel. I have asked travel agents to
consider an ocean trip to, say, Grenada, with the high point of the trip
being four to eight hours in space_a round the world trip with a
vengeance. How many would buy tickets depends on the ticket price, but
even at $50,000 a ticket, the estimates of the number of tickets that
could be sold are surprisingly high.
 
The story is the same with science and industry. Get the cost of space
access down and the volume of traffic goes up sharply. A few years ago
the cellular phone was science fiction. Then it was a status symbol. Now
we can contemplate every citizen having a personal telephone number that
 doesn't change no matter where the temporary or permanent residence. In
another generation that won't be a prediction but a necessity.
 
Twenty years ago G. Harry Stine described some potential space
industries in his book The Third Industrial Revolution.  I described
others in my A Step Farther Out. None of these marvels came to pass
because the cost of access to space remains so high; but given
reasonable access costs those industries would develop very rapidly.
 
The military implications of low cost access should be obvious.
"Information Warfare" is the new buzz phrase in the war colleges.
Whatever it means and whatever you think of Information Warfare, one
thing is obvious: if you are going to control information, you must
control access to space, and you'll need to get there a lot cheaper than
we do it now.
 
I have previously described the system I called THOR. Consider a
tungsten rod about twenty feet long and a foot in diameter. Put it in
orbit, and have a means to direct its reentry. Give it a terminal
guidance system_fins, or use a means to move the center of gravity_and a
Global Positioning System receiver. Don't bother with a warhead. The
result will be a missile able to hit any point on earth with an accuracy
of under 25 feet and a closing velocity in excess of 12,000 feet per
second. The result is energies comparable to tons of TNT buried under
the target. Few structures: bridge abutments, fuel dumps, anchored
warships including both battleships and carriers, fuel dumps, hardened
armor parks, etc., can withstand that.
 
Observation and communications satellites will be available to theater
commanders on the same basis as AWACS flights.
 
All this is not only possible but inevitable with low cost access to
space. The only question is who will get there first to take advantage
of the space environment. At the moment the United States has a lead in
space access, but other nations can do this analysis as easily as we
can, and many have done so. Several are looking at ways to gain low cost
access to space.
 
There is a way to reduce the cost of access.
                
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                SINGLE STAGE TO ORBIT (SSTO)
 
Airlines operate at a small multiple of fuel costs. This includes both
flight operations and amortization of aircraft. It takes about the same
fuel energy to put a pound in orbit as it does to fly that pound from
Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia. Since rocket engines are as efficient
as jet engines, there is no reason why space operations should cost more
than two or three times what long distance air travel costs. In
particular, you should be able to buy a ticket to orbit for no more than
twice what it costs to buy a ticket to Sydney.
 
Of course airlines don't push the airplane off the end of the runway
into the Coral Sea when the airplane gets to Australia; nor do they
rebuild it. They do routine service, refuel it, and fly it back. That is
what space operations must be like if we are to make access to space
affordable to the American people.
 
The obvious way to go to space is to fly to space and return; to operate
like an airplane. That wasn't possible with the materials and engines
available in the early days of rockets. Nearly everyone is agreed that
it is possible now.
 
We know that SSTO is possible, and we know how to build a single stage
to orbit ship. However, we don't yet know how to design operational SSTO
craft. We know we can build SSTO ships, and there are probably several
ways that will work. Fundamental designs include: ships with wings;
ships without wings; lifting body ships that take off vertically and
land horizontally; ships that take off vertically and land vertically;
ships that reenter nose first; ships that reenter tail first; and
variants of the above. Fuels range from hydrogen to propane. There are
several possible engine configurations.
 
Most_probably all_of these will `work' in the sense that the ship will
get to orbit; what isn't known is how much cargo the ship will carry.
Note that I say cargo rather than `payload'. Payload is a term that
comes from the days when we threw the ship away: there was structure,
which was bad, and payload, which was good. In those days ships were
designed to maximize performance, and performance was measured  by
payload to orbit.
 
That is no longer the best way to design ships. SSTO ship designs should
be driven by operations, not performance. Take space construction as an
example. We can design ships to deliver one large payload; but suppose
we can build the structure at far lower total cost by taking up smaller
payloads at vastly lower costs per flight. Even if doing so requires
redesign of our primary structure the resulting savings can be in the
billions. This is what I mean by operational rather than performance
driven design.
 
At the moment we can't really estimate operations costs, because we
don't really know what SSTO payloads will be. The rocket equation_rocket
science, if you will_says that the amount of useful cargo in a Single
Stage to Orbit ship will be a third decimal fraction of the Gross
Liftoff Weight (usually abbreviated as GLOW). That is, if I have a ship
that weighs 500,000 pounds at takeoff, about 450,000 pounds of that will
be fuel and oxidizer. Of the remaining 50,000 pounds, between 30,000 and
50,000 pounds will be ship structure and the fuel required to bring the
ship home. What's left over is cargo delivered to space. That cargo can
range between zero_none_and about 20,000 pounds, depending on how light
we can make the engines, tankage, and structure of the ship.
 
However, it's not really as simple as that, because we aren't sure that
we'll need the full 450,000 pounds of fuel and oxidizer; it depends on
drag. Drag is the term used to describe air resistance as the ship
rises. Drag is critical because it affects everything else. The lower
the drag, the more quickly the ship will lift. The faster the ship lifts
 the more quickly it gets to higher altitudes. The higher the ship gets,
the more efficiently the fuel burns in the rocket engines, and, since
the air is thinner, the lower the drag.
 
In other words, my assumptions about drag are crucial to determining my
predicted cargo.
 
We do not have accurate predictions of drag. We're going to have to fly
some ships to get the required accuracy.
 
Similarly, we don't know some crucial facts about stresses which
determine the structural mass of the ship. We need to fly ships to find
out.
 
There are other unknowns. The bottom line, though, is that we need some
more flight data before we can design operational Single Stage to Orbit
ships. Until we have real flight data, the cargo_payload weight, if you
prefer_is determined by the assumptions you plug into your computer
model, and no one set of assumptions is markedly better than another.
 
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                             SSX
 
We need an SSX-1; an experimental single stage to orbit space ship. That
ship should be built to have these characteristics:
 
     Be Savable
          It should survive an engine out on takeoff.
 
     Fly Often
          It needs to be flown many times, including going to orbit
          twice in one day.
 
     Fly Soon
          Build the SSX with known technology. Its purpose is to
          identify what we need to know, not to be part of a longer
          technology development. We need some hard numbers about thrust
          and drag and control surfaces and command authority and other
          such technical matters. We need those numbers soon.
 
     Fly Higher and Faster
          SSX need not get to orbit, but it should fly high and fast
          enough to experience reentry conditions; and it should be
          designed so that if all goes just right it will make orbit.
          Orbital flight should not be precluded by the design. On the
          other hand, we shouldn't be concerned about cargo or
          `payload.'.
 
Note that an SSX can be incrementally tested. The first flight can be
partially fueled and last only a few seconds. After analysis of flight
data you can fly again, this time higher and faster. The test series
gives new data at each stage. By the time you do a maximum fuel and
thrust test you will know a great deal more about the ship's
capabilities.
 
Make the SSX savable, build it with a high safety factor, then reduce
structural weight as flight test data show what are critical stress
areas and what are not.
 
An SSX-1 program would cost about $1 billion and take about four years.
While a billion dollars is not trivial, it's a pretty small investment
in what we all know will, some day, be a business comparable to air
travel.
 
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                HAVEN'T WE BEEN HERE BEFORE?
 
 
Shuttle Promises
 
The original proposal for Shuttle as a National Space Transportation
System used many of the arguments now heard for Single Stage to Orbit.
Shuttle didn't lower launch costs. Why will this be different?
 
Not Shuttle II
 
We don't here propose that NASA build Shuttle II, or any other kind of
`National Space Transportation System.' We don't believe that any single
SSTO design can possibly become the national launch system any more than
any single airplane design could become `the national air transportation
system.'
 
Shuttle was designed to employ about 20,000 people. It met that goal
admirably; you can't fly Shuttle with fewer people. It just can't be
done.
 
Airlines typically operate with about 110 employees per airplane, and
about half of those sell tickets. High technology systems like SR-71 had
about 50 people per airplane. Shuttle has nearly 25,000 (including
contractors) for 4 orbiters. At an average of $100,000 per employee, we
have a fixed overhead of over $2 billion a year. Assume ten flights per
year and the cost is $250 million per flight before adding in variable
costs like fuel, new engines, and other operations. Since Shuttle needs
all those people, there's no chance of getting the cost per flight lower
than, say, $350 million. Actual operations costs appear to be
considerably higher than that. If Shuttle had 50,000 pounds of payload
per flight then the minimum cost of a pound to orbit is about $7,000.
Most estimates are that it's higher.
 
 
            Operations Not Performance
 
Shuttle was designed under the older rocket design philosophy of
maximizing performance. In the days of throwaway rockets and
disintegrating totem poles this made sense; but it doesn't any more. We
should instead design to minimize operations costs. If this means
smaller payloads per flight, then so be it. Our new SSTO vehicles --
there will be more than one kind -- should be designed for operational
simplicity and minimum operations costs.
 
 
 
        X Systems, Not A National Transport System
 
We do not here advocate a new National Space Transportation System, or a
new National Launch System. We don't believe there ought to be such
things, and if there were, NASA shouldn't build and operate them. That
isn't NASA's value to the American people.
 
Imagine a `National Air Transport System': a single kind of airplane for
all aircraft applications from crop dusting to long distance passenger
sevice to logistics support of South Polar operations. Clearly that's
absurd. It's equally absurd to postulate a `National Space
Transportation System.'
 
 
                There must be no Shuttle II.
 
What we advocate is advanced R&D culminating in X ships; in particular
the SSX. SSX will investigate technologies required for operational SSTO
ships. We've listed the SSX characteristics before, but it's worth
repeating them:
 
     SAVABLE
         Multi-engine ship that can survive engine out on takeoff.
 
     FLY SOON
         Get the ship flying within four years. Sooner if possible.
 
     FLY OFTEN
         Fly it a lot, through a number of flight regimes. Get it to
         space twice in one day.
 
     FLY HIGHER AND FASTER
         As high and fast as we can with easily obtained technology.
 
In addition to the SSX-1 program, there should be a parallel effort to
develop a new engine. The new engine should be reliable and reusable
like the RL-10; throttleable, again like the RL-10; and cheap. The RL-10
is not cheap at present because we buy very few of them, and there's no
incentive to make them cheaper. It wouldn't be hard to get their costs
down: simply commit $40 million to buying RL-10 engines and ask for
competititive bids on how many can be supplied for that price. You will
certainly get more than 100 for that price.
 
NASA can then use these engines in X Space Ship programs. It cannot be
too often stated that X ships are neither operational ships nor
prototypes of operational ships.
 
 
        
        Let Industry Choose the Operational Ships
 
NASA shouldn't be an operating agency. NASA shouldn't be flying the
ships. Why should NASA dictate ship design? NASA should develop new
technologies, and let industry design and operate the ships. Certainly
NASA ought to cooperate with industry in selecting what technologies
ought to be developed; but that's not at all the same as doing the
actual designs.
 
We already know how to build Single Stage to Orbit ships. We don't yet
know the best designs for operational SSTO. Let NASA investigate the
technological unknowns. Industry will do the rest.
 
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                        SPACE STATION
 
Space station as presently conceived has few potential tenants.
 
It remains one of our few high technology R&D programs.
 
The proper way to think about Space Station is as a learning process: as
a series of X projects designed to develop space construction
technology.
 
In particular, Space Station should be designed to make use of on-orbit
assembly by assembly crews: not by Ph.D. astronauts, but by the
equivalent of deep sea oil riggers. Working on an oil rig platform is
hard and exacting work, and deep sea assembly is every bit as
technically challenging as capturing a satellite in zero gravity; but we
 don't insist that everyone who works on an oil rig have a Ph.D. in
Aerospace Science from MIT. Space station should begin the process in
which all Americans get a chance at space access.
 
If Space Station becomes a series of space construction X projects we
will learn about station construction; US industries will regain the
lead in orbital technology. That is the proper use of Space Station.
Stop worrying about its missions and who will make use of it; use it as
a means to regain American leadership in space construction experience.
Space is an environment we need to know more about. Use Space Station
for that.
 
Simultaneously, we must continue the X programs that lead to low cost
access to space; and we have to learn how to supply space installations
at reasonable costs with operationally affordable payloads. Seen
properly, Space Station is part of our overall strategy to gain a
commanding lead in space operations technology.
 
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                     NASA DO'S AND DON'TS
 
NASA should stop worrying about Shuttle Replacement. Something will
replace Shuttle, but it won't be a single "National Transportation
System" nor should whatever it is be operated by NASA. Many parts of
NASA have been obsessed to the point of paralysis by what they perceive
as the problem of Shuttle II. They should be told to stop thinking about
it and get on with the primary mission of  NASA.
 
NASA should be forbidden to plan Shuttle Replacement Systems. That is
the only way to end NASA's obsession with Shuttle II.
 
NASA should get out of the flight operations business. This means
Shuttle I. It also means Shuttle II. As a general proposition, by the
time we know enough about space transportation systems to design an
operational system, we know enough to turn that problem over to the
engines of free enterprise. In the past NASA has stifled free enterprise
by trying to keep a monopoly on space operations_to own the "National
Transportation System." That must never happen again.
 
NASA should remember that it is also the primary long term R&D agency
for aeronautical systems. NASA and before it NACA had a long and
admirable record of facilitating aeronautical developments through
provision of wind tunnels, ranges, and other test and analytical
facilities. They should renew those activities.
 
The NACA model should also be the model for space development.
 
NASA can, by focusing on R&D in space technology, be instrumental in
aiding US industry to provide the American people low cost access to
space; and to giving US industry, and thus the United States, a
commanding lead in what Speaker Gingrich has called "The Greatest
Frontier."
 
 
_______________________________
    1 This strategy, along with our objections to it, is explained and
      discussed in The Strategy of Technology : Winning the Decisive War
      by Stefan T. Possony and Jerry E. Pournelle, University Press of
      Cambridge Mass., 1970. The Strategy of Technology has been used as
      a textbook at USMA, USAFA, and the Air War College.

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