May 1980:the cost of the Space Shuttle

Sharply increased costs of the Space Shuttle, expected to run over $8,000 million in all, are creating a serious imbalance in the US programme through 1981.

While President Carter’s new budget provides $5,700 million, or $450 million more than 1980, nearly half the NASA outlays will be spent on Shuttle development and production. The reusable vehicle is now in its ninth year of development and has yet to fly.

Funding for space science and applications amounts to slightly more than $1,000 million or less than 20 per cent of the budget. Only three new starts are funded: a gamma ray observatory to identify high energy sources, an operational land observing system and an oceanic satellite shared with the Departments of Defense and Commerce.

Meanwhile the agency will launch only five missions in 1980, two commercially sponsored and a third a military satellite. Only two flights involve scientific interests, a solar observatory and a geostationary environmental satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NASA Administrator Robert Frosch labelled the 1981 budget “positive” and a "good beginning for the decade of the Eighties." A cursory examination of the figures, however,revealed that the agency is caught up in a tight squeeze while it struggles to complete the reusable Shuttle. In addition to increasing expenditures next year, the budget anticipates $300 million more than budgeted for Shuttle work in 1980. Frosch said “we must have those funds not later than 1 June.”

President Richard Nixon kicked off Shuttle development in 1972 when NASA estimated its cost at $5,200 million and forecast a first manned launch late in 1978. Overall costs passed the $7,000 million mark with "Columbia", the first orbiter,still in a Kennedy Space Center hangar. Frosch suggested the initial launch may occur late this year; if not, the budget includes sufficient funds to continue work into the spring of 1981.

The "most worrisome” problem, the NASA Administrator said (26 January 1980), concerns Orbiter’s thermal protection system consisting of 31,000 tiles applied to the outer skin which protect ship and crew from re-entry heating in excess of 2,500 degrees F. Tile installation was to have been completed in November 1979 under a revised work schedule. It is still incomplete (late January 1980). Astronauts and flight controllers put "Columbia” through simulated liftoffs and landings with minor equipment problems in December 1979 and January 1980, but even as these tests proceeded NASA exhibited new concern about the heat insulation. Doubt has been expressed as to the system's integrity and endurance under flight stresses. Up to 7,000 tiles may have to be removed and re-applied.

In lieu of Shuttle, the agency will continue to fly Scout,Delta and Centaur boosters. Three Centaurs are scheduled for 1980: one for a Defense communications satellite managed by the US Navy, and two for a new series of high capacity satellites for the 102-member International Telecommunications Satellite Organization. Delta will boost SMM, a NASA spacecraft to study solar flares, sunspots and other activity on the Sun’s surface, and GOES-D, the meteorological and oceanographic data collector for NOAA.

Because it now hopes to fly Shuttle within the next 15 months. NASA cut funding for expendable vehicles in its 1981 budget from $70.7 million this year to $55,7 million next. Centaur money drops from $18.3 million to $5.6 million while Delta increased slightly to $47.9 million, possibly insurance against more Shuttle delay.

Reversing a trend of several years, President Carter did not cut NASA manpower which will rise to 22,713 or 100 more positions. That change in direction, Washington observers noted, was influenced by the fact that 1980 is an election year. The budget also suggests that the cost of sustaining the NASA establishment consisting of Washington headquarters and 10 field installations continues upward. It requires $1,040 million in 1981 or about one-fifth of the total budget.

Space Science and Applications

In space science projects, the budget carries on development for an international solar polar mission at $82.6 million; the large space telescope at $119 million, development of a second Spacelab, $72 million and the Explorer series, $33 million. The lone planetary project, Galileo, will continue at $63 million while $19 million supports life sciences flight experiments.

Space applications costing $381.7 million include continued work on Landsat D, a magnetic field satellite, Shuttle payload development, Earth radiation budget experiment, halogen experiment, and a search and rescue satellite based system. The budget allocates $290 million for aeronautical research and technology and $115 million for space research and technology base. Energy technology receives $4 million. Costs of NASA’s space tracking and data systems increased again to $359 million, most of which supports day-to-day operations.

The first launch of the Space Shuttle had been targeted for 30 June 1980. Achieving this goal depended on the following events at the NASA Kennedy Space Center, Florida:

• Late March 1980 - Rollover of orbiter Columbia from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vertical Assembly Building.

• Mid-April 1980 - Rollout of the complete Shuttle stack (orbiter, solid rocket boosters and external tank) from the Vertical Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A.

• Mid-May 1980 - Conduct a Flight Readiness Firing (a 20-second firing of the Shuttle main engines on the launch pad).

• June 30, 1980 - First flight of the Space Shuttle.