As we near the end; I remember the beginning....

I have to put my shuttle memories in the perspective of watching the early
vanguard attempts and Explorer launches on TV while in grade school. I was
already into science fiction, and the whole thing seemed like space was an
impossible dream. The payload weight to orbit was extremely small, the
radiation belts were discovered - it seemed real space travel would never
happen soon. Some Nobel scientists (not engineers) predicted we might put a
man in orbit in 50 years, in 150 years we'd be on the moon. Then came
Mercury, Gemini and Apollo - we were into space - but with hugh expendable
boosters driving the cost.

The concept of a shuttle was not new - Mongram even had kits of early Wiley
designs. The shuttle would make space travel common and affordable.

I worked the shuttle proposal at Grumman. The original dream was two manned
stages, both of which were reusable. Economics soon forced this down to the
present design. But still this hugh vehicle with many crew members and large
cargo bay would go up and return. Think back on Explorer I.

Even after Grumman lost to North American there was still hope for a great
future in space. The shuttle would make possible large space structures,
power plants in orbit , manned space stations in LEO and GEO, Manned Lunar
Trasfer Vehicles to mention a few. Overall operations would require Space
Tugs, Orbit Maneuvering Stages and other support vehicles. There would be at
least 7 shuttles and launches were planned for Kennedy and Vandenberg. $10
Million cost per launch and 2 week turnaround would result in at least 50
launches per year. Then reality set in and the real dream was never
realized.

The first flight for me was the Horizontal Flight test of Enterprise. We
watched live on Ceiling Mounted TVs at work and all cheered the successful
separation and landing. The the first real launch and hoping all went well
on the return. At one point NASA actually considered an un manned first
mission to assure it was safe.

My wife and I got to attend one of the Challenger launches. The night before
you could see the pad with the bright spotlights - brought back memories of
the movies like Rockship XM that first got me into sci-fi and interested in
space. It was a morning and the sight of shuttle climbing into the clear
blue sky and the hugh flames from the boosters was spectacular.

Then one morning at work one of our security guards rushed into out lab and
annoounced - "my wife just called - Challenger exploded". We were almost out
of space travel. The Government had put all their eggs in one basket to take
advantage of economy of mass use. The Air Force scrambled to produce the
Titan IV, expendables were here to stay.

Some how LEO operations with the shuttle seemed filled with slow tedious
operations, and more and more of the same. The public excitement of Mecury,
Gemini, and Apollo was never again established. We built a hugh space
station that promised all sorts of scientific, medical and manufacturing
breakthroughs non of which ever happened. The news concentrated on fixing
toilets. There were some missions like the Hubble Repair that were truly
fantastic achievements - but again somehow the general public didn't
appreciate what was happening.

I also remmber one morning reading one of the news boards when a message
came in - NASA jusr lost contact with Colombia - turn on the news. Live
coverage from NASA presented a confused situation - contact was lost - we're
working the problem. There was no radar following the return - all we knew
was communications was lost. By that point amateur astronomers in Texas who
were tracking and photographing the reentry had already posted movies of the
breakup on the net.

Well now it's almost over. The design obviously had it problems - like no
real provision for crew escape, and it tied launches to a manned vehicle
that would have been cheaper on an expendable among others.

But now we find ouselves with no manned access to space. There were no firm
plans for after Apollo - just many Apollo Applications studies. We destroyed
the ability and knowledge base to build Saturn Boosters, and there's no real
plan for what to do now. It really is the end of an era.


Val Kraut