Although the flight of Voyager 2 past Uranus and on toward Jupiter represented a striking success, it was almost lost in the clamor triggered by the loss of Challenger. During the next several months, the agency's frustrations multiplied.
In 1986, Halley's Comet made its appearance again after an absence of 76 years. Halley was a valued astronomical performer. As the brightest comet that returned to the Sun on a predictable basis, scientists had adequate time to prepare for its reappearance. However, during Halley's dramatic swing across Earth's orbit, many American scientists lamented that no American spacecraft made a mission to meet it and make scientific measurements. Some U.S.launched satellites were able to make ultraviolet light observations, but only the ESA, Japan, and the Soviet Union had planned to send probes close enough to use cameras--ESA's Giotto probe came within 375 miles of Halley's nucleus. Critics charged that excessive NASA expenditures on the Shuttle had robbed America of resources to take advantage of unusual opportunities such as the passage of Halley's Comet.
In the aftermath of Challenger, NASA's hopes for recovery were further plagued by a rash of misfortunes. In May 1986, a Delta rocket carrying a weather satellite was destroyed in flight after a steering failure. One of NASA's Atlas-Centaur rockets, under contract to the U.S. Navy for the launch of a Fleet Satellite Communications Spacecraft, lifted off in March 1987, but broke up less than a minute later after being hit by lightning. During the assessment of the loss, a review board scolded NASA managers for making the launch into bad weather conditions that exceeded acceptable limits. In June, three rockets at NASA's Wallops Island facility were being readied for launch when a storm came in. Lightning hit the launch pad and triggered the ignition of all three rockets; frustrated engineers watched the trio shoot off in a hopeless flight over the Atlantic shoreline before crashing into the sea. In July, disaster hit NASA again when an industrial accident on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral destroyed an Atlas-Centaur upper stage on the launch pad, forcing cancellation of a military payload mission.
These embarrassments, and the brooding shadow of Challenger, dulled
the otherwise bright successes. Early in 1987, determined launch crews
had successfully put two important payloads into orbit. The GOES-7 environmental
satellite went into operation, returning vital information of the formation
of hurricanes in the Caribbean. An Indonesian communications satellite,
Palapa B 2P, originally scheduled for a Shuttle launch, went into orbit
aboard a Delta rocket launched from Cape Canaveral. While debate over the
nation's space program persisted, NASA continued its space-work on several
different projects. Taken collectively, they held considerable promise
for many areas of both astronautics and aeronautics.
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| Artist's concept of the Hubble Telescope after deployment from the Orbiter. The most powerful telescope ever built, it is intended to allow scientists to look seven times farther into space than ever before. The ESA supplied the solar power arrays for this international project. |
Astronautics
Resumption of Space Shuttle missions for which special payloads were developed may well trigger a renaissance in astronomical science, especially in the case of the Hubble Space Telescope. Weighing 12 1/2 tons and measuring 43 feet long, the Hubble Telescope with its 94.5-inch mirror is the largest scientific satellite built to date. All ground telescopes are handicapped by the Earth's atmosphere, which distorts and limits observations. The Hubble Telescope will permit scientists to collect far more data from a wide spectral range unobtainable through present instruments. The most alluring prospect of the Hubble Telescope's operation is the potential to search for clues of other solar systems and gather data about the origins of our own universe, perhaps solving once and for all the "big bang" theory of the universe as opposed to the steady state concept. Once in orbit, the telescope is expected to pick up objects 50 times fainter and 7 times farther away than any ground observatory; via electronic transmissions to Earth, the telescope can let humans see a part of the universe 500 times larger than has ever been seen before. A document issued by the JPL predicted that "primeval galaxies may be seen as they were formed, as they appeared shortly after the beginning of time." It is fitting that the Hubble Space Telescope is an international enterprise, with the ESA supplying the solar power arrays and certain scientific instruments as well as several scientists for the telescope's science working group.
Nor was the Hubble Space Telescope the only major effort in astronomy, astrophysics, or planetary research. NASA planned a new family of orbiting observatories, often developed with foreign partners, to probe more deeply into the background of gamma rays, infrared emissions, celestial x-ray sources, ultraviolet radiation, and a catalog of other perplexing subjects. There were also several bold planetary voyages to be launched. In collaboration with the Federal Republic of Germany, the Galileo mission to Jupiter (requiring a six-year flight after launch from the Space Shuttle) called for an atmospheric probe to be parachuted into the jovian atmosphere while the main spacecraft went into orbit as a long-term planetary observatory. The Magellan mission envisioned a detailed map of the planet Venus; Ulysses (planned with ESA) was designed to explore virtually unchartered solar regions by flying around the poles of the Sun. All of these missions were targeted for the late 1980s and early 1990s; creative scientists and engineers were also concocting ambitious projects for the twenty-first century.
During 1986 and 1987, Sally Ride, of NASA's astronaut corps, spearheaded a special NASA Headquarters task force charged with determining new priorities for the nation's space program. The task force eventually narrowed its recommendations to four principal possibilities. The first concerned Earth studies to gain knowledge for protection of the world's environment. A second proposal focused on accelerated robotic programs to explore the Moon and other bodies in the solar system. These two areas of activity were already implicit in many NASA programs underway or planned for the near future. The final two proposals were particularly exhilarating to partisans of manned exploration, since they projected a permanent human outpost on the Moon and subsequent manned expeditions to Mars. In the spring of 1987, NASA made a determined step towards lunar and martian missions by creating the Office of Exploration to begin planning for these programs. NASA's plans for an operational space station, while not crucial for these goals, were nevertheless important, since the station could play a major role in their support.
The first technically reasoned studies of a space station began in the late 1930s, when Arthur Clarke and his friends in the British Interplanetary Society began publishing proposed designs. Rocketry in World War II seemed to make these speculations far less sensational to the postwar generation. In March 1952, the popular American magazine, Colliers, startled some readers but fascinated others with a special edition on space exploration. One of the more dramatic articles featured a space station shaped like a huge wheel, 250 feet in diameter, designed to rotate in order to provide artificial gravity for the station's inhabitants.
During the next three decades, variations of the Colliers design and other space station structures appeared in a variety of popular and technical journals. Some early ideas, like the need for artificial gravity, persisted for a long time before finally disappearing (except for special requirements like centrifuge experiments). Others, like modular structures, free-flying "taxis," and a stationary facility for zero-gravity activities remained staples of space station thinking. With the organization of NASA in 1958, space station planning took on a more practical aspect as part of a national commitment to space exploration. Within two years of its founding, NASA had organized a committee within the Langley Research Center to study technology required for space stations.
The process of deciding the design of a space station and its uses consumed
over two decades and several million dollars. A significant milestone occurred
in January 1984, when President Ronald Reagan endorsed the Space Station
Freedom program in his State of the Union message. Meanwhile, NASA and
contractor space station studies proceeded through several variations before
one design was designated by NASA as the "baseline configuration." This
structure, which emerged during 1987-88, was scaled down in size because
of budgetary constraints and the reduced number of Shuttle flights after
the loss of the Challenger. A primary concern was to put a station
in operation by the mid-1990s. At the same time, NASA publicized what it
called a phased approach, giving the agency an option for adding several
large components once the basic space station was in place. The revised
baseline configuration called for a horizontal boom about 360 feet long,
with pairs of solar panels at each end to generate 75 kilowatts of power.
At the center of the boom, four pressurized modules, linked together, provided
the focus of manned operations in a 220-mile orbit above the Earth. The
American space station initiative included an invitation to foreign partners
to share in its planning and operation; refining the details of this partnership
engaged negotiators from the United States, Canada, Japan, and the ESA
over the next four years. The toughest negotiations involved ESA. The Europeans
wanted to insure free access to the space station and to guarantee some
technology transfer in return for their contributions to station development.
The foreign partners also strenuously resisted plans for significant space
station activities by the American armed services. The United States and
its international partners agreed to limit space station uses to "peaceful
purposes," as determined by each partner for its own space station module.
The final documents were signed by ESA, Japan, and Canada in September
1988. The United States was responsible for a laboratory module and a habitation
module for the crew. The Europeans and Japanese were each responsible for
the two additional laboratory/experimental modules; Canada was to supply
a series of mobile telerobotic arms for servicing the station and handling
experimental packages. Plans called for eventual use of manned and unmanned
free-flying platforms for special missions away from the station. Eventually,
the station might add solar-dynamic power generators and two vertical spines,
located on either side of the module cluster and joined by upper and lower
booms, providing additional attachment points for external scientific equipment.
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| One of the many studies for the Space Station. Solar power panels at each end of the elongated truss structure supply electricity for the cluster of living and science modules at the center. Lab work will emphasize microgravity experiments in pharmaceutical research, development of flawless crystals for advanced supercomputers, and life sciences investigations such as the study of the behavior of living cells. |
Aeronautics
Aeronautical research proceeded along several lines. The Grumman X-29
began flying additional missions to test upgraded instrumentation systems.
With Air Force cooperation, a considerably modified F-111 carried out flight
tests using a Mission Adaptive Wing, in which the wing camber (the curve
of the airfoil) automatically changed to permit maximum aerodynamic efficiency.
With the DoD, NASA launched development of a hypersonic aircraft, the X-30,
tagged with the inevitable acronym: NASP, for National Aero-Space Plane.
Plans called for a hydrogen-fueled aircraft that would take off and land
under its own power. The plane would streak aloft at Mach 25, and be able
to operate in a low Earth orbit much like the Shuttle, or cruise within
the Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds of Mach 12. Its ability to
sprint from America to Asia in about three hours encouraged the news media
to refer to it as the "Orient Express." A series of developmental contracts
awarded during 1986 and 1987 focused on propulsion systems and certain
aircraft components; an experimental, interim test plane was several years
away.
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| One version of the NASA-developed propfan, mounted on a production airliner for flight tests. |
Other flight research represented a totally different regime of lower speeds and emphasis on fuel efficiency. Even though jet fuel prices dropped in the mid-1980s, the cost was still five times the amount in 1972, and represented a significant percentage of operating costs for airlines. For that reason, airlines and transport manufacturers alike took an intense interest in a new family of propfan engines sparked by NASA's earlier Aircraft Energy Efficiency Program. Using a gas turbine, the new engine featured large external fan blades that were swept and shaped so that their tips could achieve supersonic velocity. This would allow the propfan to drive airliners at jet-like speeds, but achieve fuel savings of up to 30 percent. Different trial versions of multi-bladed propfan systems were in flight test beginning in 1986, with operational use projected by the early 1990s.
Investigation of rotary wing aircraft continued, even as the experimental XV-15 tiltrotor craft evolved into the larger V-22 Osprey, built by Boeing Vertol and Bell Helicopter for the armed services. A joint program linked the United Kingdom, NASA, and the DoD for investigation of advanced short-takeoff and vertical- landing aircraft. Based on the sort of concept used in the British Harrier "jumpjet" fighter, designers began wind tunnel tests of aircraft that could fly at supersonic speed while retaining the Harrier's renowned agility.
Several new NASA facilities promised to make significant contributions to these and other futuristic NASA research programs. NASA's Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Facility, located at Ames and declared operational in 1987, relied on a scheme of building-block supercomputers capable of one billion calculations per second. For the first time, designers could routinely simulate the three-dimensional airflow patterns around an aircraft and its propulsion system. The computer facility permitted greater accuracy and reliability in aircraft design, reducing the high costs related to extensive wind tunnel testing. At Langley, a new National Transonic Facility permitted engineers to test models in a pressurized tunnel in which air was replaced by the flow of supercooled nitrogen. As the nitrogen vaporized into gas in the tunnel, it provided a medium more dense and viscous than air, offsetting scaling inaccuracies of smaller models--usually with wing spans of three to five feet-- tested in the tunnel.
Nonetheless, large tunnel models and full-sized aircraft still provided critical information through wind tunnel testing. For years, the world's largest tunnel was a 40 x 80-foot closed circuit tunnel located at Ames. It was a low speed tunnel (about 230 MPH), but its size permitted tests of comparatively large scale models of aircraft. As Ames became more involved in tests of helicopters and new generations of V/STOL aircraft, the need for a full-size, low speed tunnel became more apparent. The result was a new tunnel section, built at an angle to the existing 40 x 80-foot structure. Completed in 1987, the addition boasted truly monumental dimensions, with a test section 80 feet high and 120 feet wide, three times as large in cross-section as the parent tunnel. Overall, the new structure was 600 feet wide and 130 feet high. The original tunnel's fans were replaced with six units that increased available power by four times and raised the speed of the original tunnel from 230 to 345 MPH.
The new addition, with a speed of 115 MPH, was an open-circuit tunnel, using one leg of the original tunnel as the air was drawn through the bank of six fans. The very large cross-section of the 80 x 120 tunnel minimized tunnel wall boundary effects, which could seriously distort tests of full-sized helicopters and V/STOL aircraft. Although the tunnels could not be run simultaneously, technicians could set up one test section while the other was in operation.
Spinoff
NASA had evolved into an agency of a myriad activities. During the peak of Apollo program research in the 1960s, NASA became committed to the "spinoff" concept--space technology and techniques with other applications. A series of organizational efforts to publicize and encourage practical application of new technologies had been consistent ever since. The Apollo era's legacy included considerable biomedical information and physiological monitoring systems, developed for manned space flight, that enjoyed widespread implementation in hospitals and medical practice generally. In other areas, development of the Saturn launch vehicles prompted widespread improvements in bonding and handling exotic alloys, cryogenic applications, and production engineering.
The energy crunch of the 1970s prompted NASA to consider ways of transferring
its considerable expertise in insulation materials, solar energy, heat
transfer, and similar topics to the market place. In the process of analyzing
a completely different problem, an investigation into the problems of hydroplaning
(the tendency of aircraft tires to skid on wet runways) resulted in the
technique of grooving runway surfaces. Similar treatment of high-speed
highways was an obvious application; all this led to something called the
International Grooving and Grinding Association, a conglomeration of some
30 obviously specialized companies in America, Europe, Japan, and Australia.
Such an association might sound amusing, but their treatment of airports,
highways, sidewalks, warehouse floors, and industrial sites has demonstrably
enhanced industrial and human safety.
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| In the energy-conscious era of the 1970s, NASA's operational experience found many new applications. This prototype water heater, warmed by solar cells, was installed on a home in Idaho. |
In a different context, NASA developed an entity called the Computer
Software Management and Information Center, known by a singularly impressive
acronym, COSMIC. Managed by the University of Georgia, COSMIC represented
over 1400 NASA computer programs that were either directly applicable to
customer needs or might be modified for specific requirements. The COSMIC
library had provided answers for structural analysis as well as vehicular
design; developed layouts for complex electronic circuitry; assisted architects
in assessing energy requirements and reducing plant noise, and so on. Patrons
of COSMIC thus saved invaluable time and millions of dollars by using available
programs rather than developing a new one or risking serious design flaws
by doing without.
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| A computerized structural analusis program perfected by NASA was used in the development of the Beechcraft Super King Air business plane. |
These and other programs represented a significant NASA contribution to economic and commercial development. The "commercialization of space," a theme of President Ronald Reagan's space policy in the late 1980s, promised many more benefits stemming from renewed Shuttle missions and an operational space station. Advantages in metallurgy, biology, and medicine seemed the likeliest to be realized in the near future. These programs implied more and more reliance on manned flight, a situation that continued to disturb the practitioners of space science, underscoring a dichotomy in the nation's program that has persisted for many years.
In 1980, NASA's budget stood at $5 billion, and rose to $10.7 billion
for the 1989 fiscal year. Manned space flight accounted for over half of
that budget, while space science accounted for $1.9 billion, or about 18
percent. This share of funding for space science reflected a consistent
pattern over the years, averaging about 20 cents of each NASA dollar. Critics
of the space program often cited this difference in funding, and grumbled
that so many Shuttle flights were scheduled for military missions. This
fact, coupled with the need of 20 or more Shuttle missions to deliver space
station components into orbit, meant fewer potential space science payloads.
Critics also pointed out that the cost per pound of Shuttle missions exceeded
early projections by a considerable margin, undercutting the original arguments
in favor of the manned launch system. The Air Force had already, in the
early 1980s, begun development of a family of expendable launchers, to
reduce costs and provide alternatives to the possibility of a grounded
Shuttle fleet. Many foreign customers found it economical to rely on the
Ariane launch vehicle, operated under the authority of the ESA. NASA itself
planned to use a new series of expendable launch vehicles to complement
the Shuttle. Complicating the picture was the potential competition from
a new Soviet shuttle vehicle, while ESA also had plans for a similar reusable
spacecraft. Finally, the U.S. space commercialization policy prompted several
U.S. companies to plan a variety of privately designed and built launch
vehicles, which would also compete with NASA's own rocket launchers and
the Space Shuttle.
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| With the launch of STS-26 (29 September 1988), the Space Shuttle Discovery marked NASA's first manned mission since the loss of Challenger and its crew two years earlier. |
In 1990, the 75th anniversary of its founding as the NACA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is a robust and diverse agency, experiencing continuing challenges in a diversified environment of air and space that it has helped to create.
