WSJ editorial about recent rocket launch failures.
May 21, 1999
Bring Back the Rocket Boys
By Homer H. Hickam Jr., a retired NASA engineer, is the author
of "Rocket Boys: A Memoir" (Delacorte, 1998), upon which the film "October
Sky" is based, as well as the forthcoming novel "Back to the Moon."
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Americans crossed their fingers every time a
rocket took off from Cape Canaveral. The results seemed almost random.
Rockets fell out of the sky in great flaming chunks or sputtered out of sight,
perhaps into space, more likely downrange to fall ignominiously into the
Atlantic. We were never certain of what they were going to do, mainly because
we didn't fully understand the technology involved. But by the mid-1960s, when
Wernher von Braun's Saturn boosters started to fly, the U.S. had nearly
perfected the art of making rockets, at least the ones that used liquid and solid
chemical propellants. With these chemical rockets, we could easily operate in
earth orbit, and even fly men to the moon.
Now, at the end of the century, it seems we've gone backwards, once more
flying with our fingers crossed. In August 1998 a Titan 4, the Air Force's
biggest rocket, blew up. A few days later, Boeing's new Delta 3 splattered itself
across the Cape Canaveral sky. Things simmered for a while, but then, in quick
succession beginning early last month, four more American rockets failed.
Another Titan 4 made it off the pad, but its payload, a spy satellite, went into a
useless orbit. This was followed by a Lockheed-Martin Athena 2 rocket, which
didn't release its payload and fell back to earth. Then the Air Force,
demonstrating tenacity if not proficiency, launched yet another Titan 4 a few
days later, carrying a defense communications satellite into the wrong orbit. A
couple of days after that, another Boeing Delta 3 also limped into the wrong part
of space.
The result: billions of totally wasted dollars and the loss of some very important
military and communications payloads. Perhaps worse, the U.S. has lost ground
in the highly competitive launch industry, estimated to be worth nearly $100
billion over the next decade. The Europeans already dominate this industry, and
the Chinese are coming along fast. Meanwhile, America is mired in failure.
What's going on here?
A quick review of the particulars of each failure does not reveal any definite
pattern. Of the three Titans, an electrical short caused the first one to explode
and the other two failed because their upper stages, each of a completely
different design and manufacturer, didn't work as advertised. Of the two Delta
3s, one had an error in its computer software, and the other had a new upper
stage that lost power. As for the Athena 2, it didn't make it because its payload
cover got stuck. All six represent one senseless glitch after another.
The obvious conclusion: The rockets are failing because of poor quality control.
The actual rocket designs are fine--after all, the technology has been with us for
over 40 years--it's just that their manufacturers haven't bolted them together
correctly. Ultimately, this is a failure in management and therefore can be fixed.
If the problem isn't solved, the military, which depends on the spy and
communications satellites the Titans launch, is going to be blinded, and
America's commercial rocket manufacturers and launch teams are going to be
out of business.
But I have a larger concern. Why are we still using these archaic chemical
rockets at all? The engines in them are essentially the same ones we started
launching in the 1950s. They're enormously complex and cranky and have
barely enough energy to accomplish their missions. The fact is we will probably
never regain our lead in commercial and military space unless we do what we
do best: leapfrog the rest of the world with new technology.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has had no part in the recent
failures. Its shuttle fleet has been flying successfully since the Challenger
disaster in 1986. Still, I believe NASA is failing the country. It took the world
just 42 years to go from the first powered flight to the jet age. In space, during
the same amount of time, we've kept using the same old technology. This is
deplorable. NASA today is in the hands of probably its most capable and
visionary administrator ever, Dan Goldin. But Mr. Goldin has had his hands tied
by the Clinton administration, including a very hands-on Al Gore, with a NASA
policy that is sadly out of balance.
The space agency is bogged down in building an enormously expensive
public-works project (and Russian welfare program) called the International
Space Station and using its obsolete but still capable shuttle fleet to do it. As a
result, NASA will devote no more than 3% of its budget over the next five years
on so-called Advanced Space Transportation technology, and most of that
money will go toward building better chemical rockets in an attempt to wring
the last drop of performance out of the old machines.
I won't argue the space station's merits (which I think are lacking), but I do
question its stranglehold on NASA's budget. NASA is supposed to be America's
dynamo for space development, not a zero-gravity version of Amtrak. Under
Messrs. Clinton and Gore, the space agency has seen its budget slashed for six
years in a row while more has been demanded of it. NASA has, in effect, been
turned into an operational entity, one devoted to flying missions using the
technology at hand rather than engineering new and better ways to get into
space. The present course will strand the U.S. as a space-faring nation.
I have a better idea, one that not only will open up the solar system but also give
this country a new purpose and a new social energy while delivering enormous
new wealth to the world.
I live in Huntsville, Ala., known as Rocket City, USA. This is the home of the
Marshall Space Flight Center, Dr. von Braun's old headquarters. The giant
Saturn chemical rockets that took Neil Armstrong to the moon were designed
and built here. Unfortunately, after Apollo, we were ordered to stop and have
progressed little since.
There are two ends of a rocket that the American people love: the front end,
where the astronauts sit, and the tail end, where the engines are bolted. After the
launch of Sputnik in 1957 this country became enamored of the tail end, making
heroes out of American rocket engineers. A whole generation of kids, including
me, wanted to join them and began the tough job of educating ourselves for the
job. But this emphasis changed--to the country's ultimate detriment--in 1961
when Alan Shepard rode one of Huntsville's rockets into space. After that, our
national focus changed to the astronauts who ride the rockets. If we are to
succeed in space, we need to go back to the era of the Rocket Boys and build
ourselves some big, bad rockets with 10,000 times the energy of the chemical
rockets we still send putt-putting into the sky.
I recently visited the NASA Advanced Transportation office in Huntsville and
talked to George Schmidt, a true rocket scientist, about the propulsion systems
that we need to get out of this rut. Mr. Schmidt struck me as being right out of
the von Braun mold: practical, intensely curious, passionately dedicated to his
work and just enough of a rebel to make it all happen. He showed me a few of
the revolutionary rocket engines on his computer screens, and I came away
impressed and hopeful, not because these systems are so exotic or futuristic but
because we are quite capable of building them right away.
Among the engines being considered are those using nuclear fission, antimatter
annihilation, and fusion. These engines are to today's chemical rockets what the
Concorde is to your father's Chevrolet. They can really scat with huge cargoes,
zip up to the moon in hours, jump out to Mars in days and get to the outer
planets and their very interesting moons in weeks. They have enormous
amounts of energy and could put any payload we want into orbit with power to
spare.
This isn't science fiction. Dr. Schmidt and the other rocket men and women in
Huntsville are convinced they can build these engines. To prove it, they're
building demonstration hardware, actually cutting metal. Given the right funding
and emphasis, we can quickly put this country in a dominant position in space.
If it isn't done, we'll continue to rely on the same old creaky chemical rocket
technology for decades. This may mean that we will never truly take advantage
of the solar system and will always be on the edge of disaster in space.
Since the end of the Cold War, it seems this country has been adrift, not quite
certain of what its grand purpose should be. I propose that we take it upon
ourselves to move out into the solar system and conquer, settle and prepare it
for all the world to follow. I therefore call on NASA today to turn over chemical
rocket development to commercial interests (which are doing it anyway); build a
smaller, cheaper, smarter space station; prepare to retire the shuttle fleet; and lay
out a 10-year program to produce a working advanced propulsion space drive
based on fission, fusion, or antimatter physics. Our elected representatives and
the leaders of NASA should move in concert immediately to put these drives in
NASA's budget with a fixed schedule to build, test and perfect them.
We need a lunge forward in space to secure its riches. If, in a decade, we can
get our first advanced propulsion drive, however small, booming around space,
I believe there will be no holding Americans back from truly conquering this
enormously rich frontier. This Rocket Boy says, "Let's go!"
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