July-August 1980:the NASA budget of 1981

There is no better way to measure the shape of a future aerospace programme than to examine the funding profile of its research and development plan. In a labour-intensive agency where more than 8 dollars out of every 10 support manpower needs it is as much a reflection of personnel requirements as it is of the technology base. So, when NASA was allowed to request a significant increase in its proposed fiscal year 1981 budget, hopes were high that confidence in space operations had been regained. Not since Lyndon Johnson has a U.S. President backed verbal rhetoric with cash on the table but President Carter seems to have a reason now for giving NASA the money it needs to move ahead. The nature of that reason,however, is one not likely to give NASA much cause for rejoicing. In the wake of a worsening political balance between the United States and less friendly powers, Carter has revitalized a segment of space spending devoted to military programmes aimed at bolstering confidence in the armed forces. But more than that, for even before Soviet infantry divisions rolled south across the Afghanistan border, limitations contained in the SALT-II agreement called for a better surveillance of Russian hardware. And that, in turn, called for more money to develop and launch a new generation of reconnaissance, ferret, and observation satellites.

Last year, long before Carter’s foreign policy advisers warned of an imminent Soviet initiative, the need to convince Congressional anti-SALT forces that America would very soon have the tools to monitor and verify terms and conditions of the agreement led to massive increases in defence money allocated to space. It was vital to speed work based on plans and proposals mooted during the Ford administration's tenure,but for which there was now a tangible cause; without such means of verification many votes would be lost in the bid to ratify SALT-II.

As events turned out, those boosts were needed to show increasing concern for America’s defences in the wake of Soviet action. Between 1978 and 1980 the amount of money allocated to space by civilian and military authorities increased by 33% but NASA got an increase of only 15% while the Defence Department’s space money went up by 58%. Set against the dollar, that 15% hardly kept pace with inflation while the Defence Department segment gained on the cost index by a significant margin. The reasons are of course easy to define and reflect an increasing concern for the military role of manned and unmanned space systems. Accordingly, within the climate of increasing financial resources for space, the civilian NASA hardly keep up with rising costs. And that is a disastrous situation when the agency is on the verge of introducing a completely new concept in space transportation and should be thinking of ways to maximize the investment. It is the Shuttle that seemingly keeps NASA against the wall because massive increases in development money starve other programmes, and it is the reusable launcher that bolsters defence projects claiming major increases in that sector. The net result is that within an ostensible healthy space industry,civilian projects get beaten to the post at every turn while investment for active military systems goes up.

It is important that everyone associated with the business of designing, building, launching and operating satellites for exploration or Earth applications understand the consequences of a shift from scientific to military activity. For while NASA continues to operate, laudably, in the spotlight of public attention, several military developments are veiled under broad categories not directly associated with space activity. So it is with pressures for more Shuttle money undeniably linked to a need to get it flying for military payload schedules that the agency is starved for funds for projects necessary to sustain momentum in the civilian sector.

The story of Shuttle funding over the last three years mirrors concern expressed in NASA much earlier in the last decade. Nearly ten years ago high management personnel warned Administrator Jim Fletcher of the danger in “bone-cutting” the Shuttle estimates. Readers will recall that at the end of the 1960’s commissioned studies of Shuttle type spacecraft showed a probable development cost of around 7-8 thousand million dollars for the current partially expendable, system, not the fully reusable system the agency wanted from the outset,instead. Office of Management & Budget restrained the agency from an all-out start until it came up with an estimate no greater than 5,150 million dollars in 1972 money. Now, the gap between the figure NASA origally stated and that it internally feared would be the real cost has emerged in a flurry of requests for supplemental funds hitting the 1979 and 1980 budgets, inflating the 1981 request beyond all expectations, and severely limiting the possibilities for projects in the next few years. Earlier reports show dramatic increases between the sum NASA thought it would need for Shuttle development and the money it finally spent, borrowing from other categories until, in 1979, that too ran dry.

In FY1976 the agency spent 0.08% more on Shuttle R&D than it said it would at the beginning of that year; in 1977 expenditure was up 7%; in 1978, 11.5%; and in 1979, 30.7%. The last report examined the FY1980 request which by the middle of the last year had already grown by an estimated 34.4% A brief review of those profiles may help here. For FY1979 NASA requested $857.2 million to spend on Orbiter, main engine, solid booster and external tank development, actually spending $1,120.7 million by way of supplemental and borrowing from the production fund, a separate part of the Shuttle budget. (It is interesting to note that this figure is up yet again on the estimate given in the former report but is now considered final because the fiscal year ended November 1 last, which accounts for the slight inaccuracy earlier since that report was written before the end of the financial period). For fiscal year 1980, the period ending November 1 this year, NASA has inflated its original development request for $511.3 million first to $687.3 million and then again to $942.1 million. This represents a FY1980 expenditure of 83.2% above the figure estimated one year ago. The frequency with which the supplemental have been requested has caused alarm in some Congressional circles about the stability of NASA funding estimates. For an agency with such a tidy financial record, they say, it is surprising to see such a tirade of new requests. The history does indeed create interesting reading.

After submitting the formal FY1980 request in January last year, including a sum of $185 million for FY1979, the agency came back through President Carter on May 14 with a further request for an extra $220 million, adding an additional $300 million when the FY1981 budget was presented January last. Not surprizingly, Administrator Frosch does not “expect the 1980 budget year to go down in history as my favourite.”

But the real reasons for this inflation between estimates and dollar expenditure stems from fixed funding levels early in the 1970’s when the then Administrator and his President played caretaker roles unwillingly tied to the flagging national economy. As it is, there have been some appalling increases in raw materials and services for which the agency is particularly sensitive, inflationary factors impossible to foresee a decade ago when Rockwell got the Orbiter and Shuttle integration contract.

From an estimated annual wage increase of 4.5%, the Space Systems Group has experienced annual personnel increases of an average 10%. In a contract where 80% of the cost-before-fee price goes on salaries and wages, that is potentially dangerous. In 1972 when Rockwell started formal work on the definitive Shuttle, the Consumer Price Index quoted by the Government anticipated an average increase of 3% (hence the 4.5% Rockwell prediction for wage rises). But in fact, the 1970's averaged price increases of more than 8% each year, confounding the original Shuttle development tag. Moreover, the Government told Rockwell that added security taxes would rise by an expected 10% per annum whereas in reality that figure has been doubled to pay for increasingly accommodating welfare commitments. In Florida, a decision by the Government to use Kennedy Space Centre for a wage determination process has forced NASA to pay wages 54% higher than elsewhere in Brevard County, again forcing massive inflation.

But the real reason for cost increases in the Shuttle fund is basically due to four primary causes: a serious weight increase in Orbiters; trouble with tile fabrication and emplacement;serious main engine problems which still threaten flight dates;and unparalleled commodity cost increases. Last year was the worst the agency expects to weather on Shuttle budget tussles, as reflected by the three supplemental in the twelve months ending January 1980. Examples show the severity of cost increases. In the year ending April 1979, aluminium sheet, bar and plate costs rose 35-46%; Martin Marietta reports 2219 aluminium sheet plate and forgings has gone up by 74.2% in the four years ending April 1979; in the same period, Rockwell found fittings, fasteners, bolts, electrical connectors, and seals had risen by up to 63%; solid rocket booster component costs have increased by 38% in three years; equipment for the Shuttle launch pad at KSC has risen by 20% and shipment costs of major elements like the booster segments has risen by 34%.

Main engine troubles have been well documented already in several items carried by Spaceflight but suffice it to say that the failure on February 1 to get the full duration firing of a three-engine cluster will probably add further delay to an already extended schedule. Tile fabrication continues to be the major pacing item for first flight. But here too unexpected trouble with the type of work each contractor was expecte to accomplish has led to a kind of domino effect. To begin with, Lockheed set out in 1973 its funding and delivery schedules for Rockwell to receive batches of 250 tiles in kits from which they could sand and shape the individual bricks. Under a $20.6 million effort, Lockheed was only to be required to supply rough-fit tiles. But the original plan to use flat, square-shaped, tiles was replaced first by a need for better shaping and then for each tile to be unique to its assigned location on the Orbiter. These changes pushed Lockheed’s contract up to $122.7 million. Each tile now had to be contoured and machined on numerically-controlled equipment at Lockheed. A major problem was presented by the work process; a challenge to management and personnel profiles. Lockheed was to separate data from Rockwell on each specific tile into special routines, converting the master dimension data into extremely accurate numerically controlled cut package tapes for the NC mills required to shape each tile differently. Rockwell delivers data to Lockheed in two forms: layout diagrams for the complete array of tiles and drawings of each individual tile. The details of each tile, however, are set up on magnetic tapes and in master dimension drawing books so the fabrication of tiles must necessarily proceed on figures provided by the customer. Errors unavoidably creep in and subtle changes in the geometry of specific tiles inevitably brings a high rejection rate.

Each of the approximately 34,500 separate tiles has its own IBM computer card and the dimensions are further complicated by a need to compensate for shrinkage during glazing, which is always an approximation. Each tile has a size tolerance requiring it to be within 0.4 mm of the specified dimension. There is increasing interest within NASA on the new materials proposed by Lockheed. Fibre Reinforced Composite Insulation (FRCI) is currently seen as providing longer life for tiles exposed to hot areas on the Orbiter. By replacing boron oxide contained in the tile chemistry with a germanium oxide,temperatures increase from a design limit of 1,260°C to almost 1,600°C.

In adopting materials capable of withstanding higher temperatures the unit life of each tile should increase appreciably. Also, development of a new low-temperature glazing process should produce much less distortion in the finished product,retaining the same survival bands but improving the quality. Called RCC Class 2 (Reaction-Cured Class), the curing temperature could be reduced from 1,204°C to 1,010°C. Moreover, a new boron rich refractory fibre composite material developed with strong support from the NASA Ames Research Centre promises to provide a three fold increase in strength, an increase of 55°C in survival temperature, no crack propagation and direct bonding without the need for an isolator pad. Compared with the conventional basic material (LI-900),the new boron fibre FRCI has a tensile strength better by a factor of three, with a higher coefficient of expansion, thereby putting the coating into compression and reducing the probability of cracks. It is the brittle nature of the basic material that has brought so many problems to tile fabrication and emplacement, threatening to collapse under the more extreme dynamics of a fully stressed Shuttle flight.

Serious overweight problems with the first two operational Orbiters has been discussed by this author in an earlier report and suffice it to say now that NASA has decided to develop a supplementary propulsion unit based on the Titan liquid propellant system fixed beneath the External Tank. With this in place, defence milestones will be met in flights from Vandenberg Air Force Base beginning no sooner than 1984.

If plans now laid by the space agency reach fruition, Columbia will move to the Vehicle Assembly Building in August followed by roll-out to the launch pad a month later. The first flight is now expected during the first quarter of 1981 and would be followed by four or five development missions to explore every fold of the Shuttle’s performance envelope. Manned Spacelab flights should be under way by mid-1982. Delivery of the second, third and fourth Orbiters is presently scheduled for March, 1982, summer 1983, and fall 1984, respectively.