AN ECONOMICAL APPROACH TO SPACE TRANSPORTATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP71B00822R000200150012-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 38
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 28, 2002
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: January 1, 1967
• Content Type: PAPER

r
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
AN ECONOMICAL APPROACH TO SPACE TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Edward N. Hall
Assistant to the Chief Scientist
United Aircraft Corporation
AAS 67-133
.,oveSt-for Releise,200 /09/03 : CIA-RDP716641622PMMI-161316V.6112V
1?.11111 1, 2, 3, 1967 STATLER HILTON FO Lt
DALLAS, TEXAS
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
AN ECONOMICA1e APPROACH TO SPACE TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Edward N. Hall
Assistant to the Chief Scientist
United Aircraft Corporation
AAS 67-133
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP711300822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
AN ECONOMICAL APPROACH TO SPACE TRANSPORTATION
It is generally agreed today that the exploitation of space is limited by
the very high cost of placing objects into orbit. At the present time the
U.S. launches about one-half million pounds of stuff per year at a cost
of approximately $7 billion which works out to $14,000 per pound of pay-
load in orbit. Existing plans for the next decade in both government
agencies concerned do not indicate a profound reduction. Much low-r
costs will be essential before humanity can realize some of the grezA
potentials of space.
There are two major barriers to the development of low-cost space
transportation - philosophic and technical. Heated controversy has
raged, with justice, on the technical aspects; but the philosophical has
achieved broad acceptance and suffers from complacency and lack ( f
challenge. It therefore constitutes the more serious problem. I feel,
moreover, that attempts to conjure up technical solutions in the absence
of careful treatment of philosophic considerations are and will be doornec
to failure. Although we have created a host of new attractive words re-
lating to philosophy of the development process and have applied these
assiduously, little progress has been made. It may well be that these
words and techniques have taken too little cognizance of the profound
changes wrought in our society since World War II. During this period,
for the first time in history, it has become possible to satisfy the basic
needs of our people - food, shelter, clothing - by the efforts of a
small number of men. Education, guidance, and employment of th:. rest
of our people to fulfill higher needs has become paramount. Our (Lastiny
will hinge on how we meet this challenge. Are we to become a nation of
rebellious, disenchanted beatniks eschewing technical risk and ens -trin-
ing outmoded administrative dogma, or will we accept the immense and
unprecedented challenge confronting us to provide meaningful dignified
tasks while deliberately altering our environment on a scale never be-
fore possible?
In the light of these changed circumstances, established criteria o mer.t
must be reviewed and carefully modified. Among the words and techm-
ques that fall into this category, I would place planning, the systems
approach, cost effectiveness, the learning process, and competition.
Renoir stated that perfect planning was death. I think he was right. The
implication of his statement, however, is not to avoid planning - but to
assure that it is imperfect and that those involved recognize this. With--
out planning, modern major research and development efforts would of
course be impossible. This function enables us to identify major lasks
early, iblali1i9aXt g 531.ciletion?f1 21102/92/11.8raleA-RDIa7f1BOOlgaRaffottsmomst en-
courages comparison of alternative approaches. With respect to this
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
last., it must be recognized that engineering is an art and that problems
falling in this realm rarely have unique solutions. Hence R&D project
planning must involve discretion and risk. In employing planning, it is
essential to recognize that if the objectives are not to be obsolete when
achieved, the planning must be sufficiently imperfect to allow for flexi-
bility and change during the course of a project. A thorough compre-
hensive plan cannot incorporate knowledge of techniques which arise as
the program progresses, and thus inevitably it must serve as a point of
departure or enforce stupidity. Perhaps the most deadly aspect of
planning stems from the fact that accuracy improves as risks are eli-
minated. The serious student of the art of planning is therefore
generally the advocate of developing obsolete equipment. It is easy to
misconstrue planning as "scheduled history, " and our present passion
for elaborate computer-operated bookkeeping heavily underscores this
illusion.
Systems engineering is another popular approach which has been applied
with indifferent success to space transportation. There is nothing now
about the systems approach; it was surely applied to the erection of the
pyramids. On the positive side, it provides aid for establishment of
germane interactions of system elements. More importantly, it can
act as the tool for quantitative appraisal of diverse approaches, and
this enables us to develop a broad assessment of effectiveness. The
dangers in mishandling this technique are scarcely less formidable,
however, than the advantages they offer. Although it is highly proba3le
that any significant action will cause reactions and interactions with
almost every person and device on earth, time and ignorance constrain
us to establish more or less arbitrary limits to any given engineering
problem. The value of the solution is strongly dependent upon the
rational selection of such arbitrary limits. All too frequently, insufii-
cient attention is paid to this, and the job becomes essentially infinite
in scope, necessitating an incomplete, obsolete, or chaotic solution.
Most of our city planning efforts have followed this pattern. The effec-
tiveness of a system is generally sensitive to various key component
performance characteristics which in turn have to be assumed. In-
evitably a large element of discretion must be employed here. Perhaps
the most difficult hurdle to the use of the systems approach, and systems
engineering in general, lies in the fallacy that precise simulation of
elemental characteristics in a system model incorporating assumed
interactions will inevitably lead to acceptable systems solutions. The
ability of the modern digital computer to handle massive amounts of
postulated performance data for such simulation has led to a tendency
to accept elaborate computerized simulation as a substitute for
development. This is, of course, fallacious. We can only crank
into the computer information assumed on the basis of current knowl-
edge. Any complex advanced device - be it an airplane, an engine,
or a space vehicle - will involve complex interactioag44048
may be toafikroivalcEarrRebiatter2a0Q2iPMAGABEIMPOV
-2-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
a systems approach can, moreover, act heavily to the detriment of a
development program. The ostensible necessity to demonstrate corn-
.patibility of a postulated device with all contiguous elements tends to
inhibit innovation and condone complacency. The plight of the American
railroad is in some measure due to this.
During recent years, "cost effectiveness" has become the sine qua on
for evaluating the worth of a proposed development program. Here again
we find that this is necessarily a relatively crude tool and its maniptia-
tion must be handled most carefully. The term "cost effectiveness" is
philosophically more satisfying than other criteria. It takes the forrl of
a quotient which we instinctively tend to feel is appropriate to this type
of function. Since we have become adroit in estimating manpower and
material requirements in terms of dollars, the cost element of the
criterion can be evaluated and expressed in simple units. The term
"effectiveness" is more difficult to define. However, we have generally
chosen to calibrate this also in terms of dollars, which presumably
relate to the incremental value of what is to be presented to mankind.
Thus we divide dollars by dollars and generate a dimensionless para-
meter which through implied definition should provide a very basic arid
valuable tool for evaluation and selection of proposed major developraent
activity. Since this has become the foremost yardstick for selection of
prospective major engineering development programs in this nation, it
is highly appropriate to examine this very carefully. Let us take "cost"
first. The problem of estimating the costs involved in the vast deveop-
ment undertakings of this era is exceedingly complex. In deference to
this fact, the nation has established a complex ritual through which the
prospective price of most major development programs is developed,
refined, and approved. Inevitably such a ritual must depend heavily
upon experience. Initial cost estimates for the development of some
complex device are developed by costing and summing events depicted
in the development plan. The archives are then studied carefully for
corroboration of the validity of costs derived.
How good are the archives? The attitudes and procedures within govern-
ment agencies concerned are not static, and this in turn profoundly
affects what appears in the archives. From the close of World War. II
until the mid-1950s, it was a firmly established practice to charge off
the great preponderance of development costs for major programs
against production funds. As a consequence of this, these figures must
be viewed most critically when employed as precedents. The mid-1950$
witnessed a discontinuity in this procedure. The urgency which the nation
belatedly brought to bear on the rapid development of long-range baListic
missiles led to disruption of established procedures, adoption of new
techniques, and the discard (perhaps unjustifiably) of many old ones.
The organizational patterns adopted strongly favored "systems" engineer-
ing vs. component development. This led directly to a vast drying up of
the funds Afiliaiii&P-FloPizaelegt3Aeig00.21/89/08qctlAcRELFMBIOtl8t2ROb192DN800121tit'it
- 3-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
surreptitiously, during the previous period. As a consequence of this,
essential component developments quite often could only be funded a in-
trinsic elements of major system development programs, an unhappy
fact, which raised the costs and reduced the effectiveness of such projectt-
markedly. Thus early records are wholly misleading because of cot t
category juggling, and later figures are worse because of grossly in-
efficient conduct of advanced development.
During the last decade, reliance upon ad hoc committees for evaluation
of technical validity, schedule accuracy, and prospective costs of great
development programs has reached new heights. Typically, a designated
program director develops specific sets of plans which are then repQatei-
ly reviewed by successive echelons of eminent committees. The effects
of this procedure have been profound. The programs approved tend to
have a common coloring in technical content and are almost always iaggec
with unrealistic costs. Eminent technical committees tend to agree on
the feasibility of only that which is understood in some detail by every
member. Since the members generally represent diverse skills, only
elements which fall within the relatively mundane portion of the technical
disciplines involved can be agreed upon as worthy. Thus, generally only
technical goals of a quite short-range nature can be approved. The fact
that the members of such evaluating committees feel strongly that their
technical reputations are involved, further inhibits any proposed venture
into new fields of technology. Only a small percentage of new develop-
ment ever pays off as (planned, and therefore the prophet who predicts
disaster for all novel departure will be right most of the time.
In addition to these technical inhibitions, the technique of successiv,:-.
committee review suffers intrinsically from financial myopia. The rules
strongly proscribe any allocation of funds to unforeseen contingenci2,s by
the program director in his basic plan. Nevertheless, any worthwhile
development must involve such contingencies because if it did not do so,
all would already have been known and development would be unnecessary.
If the total program as visualized by the program director involved a
billion dollars expended over five years, contingency expenditure would
necessarily relate to this figure since most of such costs stem from the
fact that major elements of the program have to mark time while urfort?
seen technical difficulties are solved in the afflicted areas. In this in-
stance, the cost of a pause would approximate $1 million per day. During
successive review, such preliminary plans generally have been treated
in an almost standard way. The committee involved duly notes that
previous similar development plans finally cost two or three times the
original estimates before realization and required perhaps 50% more
time than anticipated. This has led to the committee arbitrarily in-
creasing the director's estimated costs, usually by a factor of two, and
a stretchout of his schedule by perhaps 50%. In the course of repeating
this process by successive committees, original estimates are frequently
multipliARRS9vgdcir?t aP4-KIEVANN2FOMMIONO 2-13in -
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
happily, this provides no solution to the dilemma of accurately planning
development work. The unforeseen contingencies are still not pin-
pointed, and the unhappy program director is asked to prepare new plans
embodying the much higher costs and stretched time scales specified.
If we assume that at some point the new plans are accepted, a bit af r?.-
flection will indicate that the contingencies now encountered will cast
many times the originally foreseen values. The program director, in
compliance with direct orders, has augmented his program plan by ex-
tensive study, redundant approaches, back-up components, etc. This
means that the cost per day of his program at any point in its history
will have increased by some substantial factor. Thus, marking time
when some unforeseen difficulty arises will be several times as expen-
sive. As a result of all this, the amount by which actual expenditures
tend to exceed planned expenditures is greater than ever. It is easily
seen that such a philosophy leads to continually rising costs for e's, er
less significant achievements. In summary, we are faced with the
difficulty that recorded expenditures in the era up to the mid-1950s are
incorrect because the project engineer of that time knew that honest
disclosure of development costs would lead to termination of his program.
and he therefore recategorized such costs as production. Costs en-
countered since that time are even less trustworthy, because of a
rigidly enforced regimen of unrealistic administration. Thus, for pros-
pective major development programs today, admirable though the
philosophy of cost effectiveness be, the derivation of meaningful cost
data is exceedingly difficult.
Effectiveness, the other major element of this prime criterion, it, per-
haps even more difficult to identify. As long as we discuss phenomena
occurring within a continuum, the derivation of prospective effective-
ness by extrapolation of past performance seems valid. Today, with out
-
greatly augmented ability to modify great segments of our ecology, such
continuity of effect cannot be automatically assumed. In dealing with
massive exploitation of space, we are surely facing a great discontinuity
in terms of potential benefits to humanity, and therefore we must appty
the "effectiveness" element of "cost effectiveness" most carefully. As
with the cost element, careful interpretation of past experience cm
alone provide clues to the techniques which must be employed. Perhaps
the most radical aspect of the character "effectiveness" is its potential
persistence. The effect of great developments persists indefinitely, anc
thus the magnitude of such "effectiveness" may approach infinity. When
we attempt to render this quantity more tractable by arbitrarily 1 miting
its duration to perhaps 5 or 10 years, we are indeed able to generate
finite values for "effectiveness" - but are they meaningful'? Is it of
any significance to assess the value of the invention of the wheel in terms
of its return to humanity during the first 10 years after its advent?
Perhaps on this basis our remote ancestors would have concluded that
it was not worth -Gag effort that went ilitso it
Approved For Kelease 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71B00822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
One of the first massive investments in technology in the course of .he
development of this nation was the effort poured into the establishm_mt
of rail transportation. This involved many billions of dollars durin_;
the 19th Century when such magnitudes were quite impressive. The
driving force for much of this was facilitating the movement of supplies
for the Civil War armies, and consequently philosophic debate was
limited. It is interesting to conjecture what might have happened had
there been no Civil War. Based upon extrapolation of existing overland
traffic, all horse drawn, it would have been impossible to justify btild-
ing these railroads which proved vital to the development of the nat-on.
Millenia of such extrapolated traffic would have been required to ju.3tify
?the expenditures involved. Had the philosophic moods of the present
prevailed, it would no doubt have been conclusively proved that railroads
should not be built because they could not be justified on the basis of cost
effectiveness. In recent years the nation's advanced industries have been
undergoing what has been aptly termed the cybernetic revolution. In the
course of this, the large general-purpose digital computer has occupied
an evermore important role. One typical use of the computer has been
the parametric exploration of proposed designs. As an example of this
in the shipbuilding world, the effectiveness of ocean-going freighters has
been explored by computers as a function of the variation of a large
number of key parameters. These include such things as length, beam,
type of powerplant, gross weight, speed, etc. In a totally unrelated
series of activities, the aircraft. industry has indulged in studies which
have led to the development of the so-called jumbo jets. There is no
doubt that these jumbo jets will be able to accommodate transoceanic
cargos at much lower costs than preceding aircraft generations, and
that at some speed of surface vehicle, and some unit value of cargo,
they will become more cost effective than ocean-going freighters.
Nevertheless, regardless of how we caress the computer, and in site
of the fact that some companies now claim they can generate several
thousand designs per hour this way, it is quite evident that the computer
will never come out with a ship design even remotely resembling the
747 or C5A. While effectiveness can be explored with extreme thorough-
ness today within regions of a technical continuum, transcending d:s-
continuities require human discretion. Perhaps one of the most interest-
ing examples of improperly assessed effectiveness is the airplane itself,
Who, during the historic first flight at Kitty Hawk, could have precicteci
the effectiveness of the airplane, in myriad affairs of humanity, di.ring
the next 60 years ? Irad the fate of the airplane been subjected at t ,at
time to the clear, cool, unimpassioned process of evaluation charz_c-
terizing today's choice of what offering of technology is to be assailed,
it would have died aborning. Throughout all of these examples, and the
many which w.e do not have time to consider, the same troublesom:,
thread runs. Effectiveness, in terms of use to mankind, of truly worth
while development persists through centuries and millennia and co,ise-
quently assumes a value, in terms of dollars for human effort equiva-
lence, OREcingiiroMmega9M9/.03 : CIA-RDP711300822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Therefore, while cost effectiveness in terms of value to humanity per
dollar expended is an attractive concept, it is also a very dangerous cne.
It can legitimately be applied to poor development work, where the gatns
evolved will indeed be limited to the 5 or 10 years considered by mosi
studies. Or it may be applied to relatively insignificant development
work where we do not transcend the limits of some technical continuum,
?and where extrapolation of past experience will provide an accurate
mirror of what is to come. Where does the development of low-cost
space transportation fit into this spectrum? In the case of the railroLd
and the airplane, the postulation of effectiveness in terms of potentia;
contribution to the well-being of humanity for a limited period, as based
upon extrapolation of past activities, would have doomed them for eter-
nity. Yet in space, which in many ways represents a greater disconti-
nuity with the past than either of these great inventions, we are proct ed-
ing along these very lines. In the face of this, it is remarkable that _.-)ur
efforts in space persist even with minuscule advances. In spite of th_..
great cybernetic tools with which we have analyzed all of the obvious
facets of the potentials of space, we have not been able to justify the
costs involved in developing low-cost transportation. Is it possible that
with all of these wonderful instruments at our disposal, our activitie.3 in
space have been defined almost entirely fortuitously and that the tool_;
have been largely employed to rationalize this course of action? Tht re
is some good evidence to this effect.
The first payloads were necessarily and appropriately boosted into space
by slightly modified ballistic missiles. Since there was no alternate
mode of accomplishing this, and much technical curosity could be cate-
gorically satisfied in this way, this was highly appropriate. To en-
courage the growth of our space capabilities while lacking any real f ;el
for .eventual usefulness, a widely understood objective was establish2d,
capable of focusing the energies of a substantial segment of our technical
population. The goal of placing a man on the Moon by 1970 has served
indeed to guide engineering and science into development of analytic,t1
techniques, fabrication methods, and operational procedures pertim nt
to space activity. The goal itself, I feel, was of little importance.
With success having been achieved in the coalescence of a respectalle
national effort, perhaps the time has come to select more meaningfill
goals, in the sense of contributions which space can make to the we 1
being of humanity. Since the inception of the nation's space effort, all
missions undertaken have had to be compatible with the modified
ballistic missiles which have served and continue to serve as our space
launchers. As a consequence of this, because of the very high cost of
launch and the inaccessibility of the device after it has been launched,
consideration has been given only to the execution of missions involving
orbiting of relatively small, very high cost equipment of great assumed
reliability and of some minimum persistence of activity in space. rhe
bounty46.141,Audifopfiefitreat1-Wrtgven. with these severe limitations, some
useful returnsEave beensgtineor. /9Ati. gifigili@gOig-A09192%15flOt112e8f,elds
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
of communication, navigation, and observation including, particularly,
weather reporting. It is important to recognize that these were all
established when the technology of space launch vehicles was in its
infancy and indeed represented simply the modification of existing
military devices. Limitation of space missions to constraints consistent
with simple extension of this line of technology would in some ways be
comparable to diverting the efforts of the nation for perhaps 50 years to
improvement of the horse car as the advanced form of the railway train,
or the massive exploitation of the triplane as representing the future of
air transport. In spite of our magnificant tools of analysis, or perhaps
because of them, very little effort has gone into the development of true
low-cost space transportation systems.
The necessity to coordinate large numbers of technically prominent
organizations and people in the execution of modern major developrrint
programs has focused a great deal of attention on the art of management.
Surely the ability to apply discretion in the application of such things, as
systems engineering, planning, and cost effectiveness falls within the
purview of this art. One may perhaps regard management as an adaptive
control system, sensing a series of output functions and processing and
acting upon these datL This makes a nice block diagram, but it is im-
portant to appraise what it senses and how it treats the data collected.
Years of observation have convinced me that Figure 1 (A) & (B) below iLt. 3
trate the major elements of management technique in large American
development programs today:
10
.Actual Cost
Experienced
Initial Cost
Estimate
Merit
1 10
Degree of Innovation =
Novel/Total Effort
Internal
Criteria
1 10
Initial Cost Estimat--. ?
Lowest reasible Coot
(A) (B)
Fig. 1 Internal Management Criteria of Merit
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP711300822R000200150012-8
-8-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
It seems clear that if indeed Figure 1 represents major elements -.)f
successful management, the best development program manager i ; he
who eliminates innovation and multiplies anticipated costs by ten. Th'.'E
ridiculous conclusion is reinforced by the unfortunate circumstanc:t thit
when one is flying on Figure 1 (B) beyond the abscissa value of 5, the
controls are reversed; and the more outrageously badly initial cos _s are
estimated, the better the manager looks. Although it must be admitted
that this includes a small element of the facetious, the need to use merit
indicators relating to phenomena outside of the project or organization
involved is clear. Cost effectiveness, systems engineering, and planning
as practiced incestuously by program staffs, their consultants and
affiliated eminent committees, do not meet this need.
It is difficult to identify any substitute for real competition to proviie
the incentive to accept risk, court failure, and tolerate mistakes. The
learning process is all but completely stifled without these three harpies
and we in this country have gone to great lengths today to cage and ;tide
them. Progress in terms of erudite papers presented is striking; i
terms of effective development, it is surprisingly stagnant. A great
deal of good development evolves from ill-understood innovation cas t in
the role of an invitati6n to serendipity. Rigid adherence to management,
based upon internal criteria, goes far toward the elimination of this as
well. There is no question that competition is expensive, permits ever-
lap of effort, and engenders short tempers; but it alone provides the
priceless incentive to seek out and meet real needs before the other
fellow. The Air Force and Navy have been castigated for rivalry in the
development of airplanes. We have said with justice that this is exp_tn-
sive and wasteful. I firmly believe that this nation has developed the
best airplanes on earth because of this rivalry and if it cost many times
what it has, it would be well worth it. How does one fit into cost effec-
tiveness the value of such real incentives as fear of being outdone? The
converse of this wasteful story is that of the U.S. Army tank. In this,
the history of development is not tainted by passion, inefficiency, ani
rivalry. Competition has not been permitted. And yet, I do not thin:.
that the world regards the American Army tank as a thing of beauty rid
a joy forever. To be effective, unhappily, competition must be real -
it cannot consist of heavyweight brochuremanship, libraries full of
urbane studies, incestuously amplified responses to RFPs, nor subtl_!
attempts to substitute elaborate simulation for development effort.
The competition of our space program with that of Russia is inadequate.
The industrial potentials of the two nations are not comparable, the
objectives of the rivalry are politically selected, and the status of the
race is too easily clouded by emotional nationalism and the ease of
suppression and distortion of news and its implications. At least two
actually independent agencies, prosecuting independent and rival
programs, should be established within the U.S. to exploit space
(perhaps NASA and USAF). Absolutely minimal efforts to "coordinate"
? Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
should be made, and the competitive spirit should be strongly enco-irag( d,
This could be one of the few ways to render space activity sensitive to
society's needs and to provide management and the nation with external,
meaningful, easy-to-interpret indications of progress. It could be nop.cl
that such an approach would result in efforts to contend with real fere-
seen needs of humanity rather than extrapolating directions of deve op-
ment, fortuitously adopted and rationalized indefinitely, as constituting
lowest risk and greatest cost effectiveness. It could go far toward
placing in limbo the philosophy of "How do we achieve greatest savilgs
(of what)?" and substituting "How do we most happily employ our cc n-
stantly expanding pool of trained manpower and superior equipment ?"
On the technical side, it is important to recognize the nature of the cost
structure of boosting and operating payloads in space today. The ap-
proaches we have selected are so complex that without a grasp of wat
constitutes the major contributors to the extremely high cost of space
transport, any attempt to economize is doomed to failure. The actual
energy involved in placing a payload into low orbit is about the same as
flying it across the Atlantic in an airplane, and thus the intuitive feeling
is fallacious that great improvement in costs necessarily await develop-
ment of stunning new powerplants. The two major costs which dwarf all
others today stem from extremely poor utilization of very expensive
launch facilities at Cape Kennedy and Vanderberg Air Force Base, ,,nd
the pattern of repetitive, relatively ineffectual testing which has corne
to characterize space hardware. It seems clear that we have fallen into
this situation by extending the technology of the single-shot ballistic
missile and fighting off any temptation to adopt a rational alternative by
massive philosophic roadblocks mostly in the form of "cost-effectiv,ness'
studies. Currently, the annual payroll of Kennedy plus Vandenberg Is
approximately $400 million. By extrapolating this and factoring in
anticipated space launch rates, one has to conclude that this item alone
will continue indefinitely to absorb hundreds of dollars for each pound
of payload launched.
All good transportation systems involve a careful balance between s-fety,
reliability, capacity, and cost. The air transportation system of this
nation might illustrate how this compromise is achieved. Safety is
attained when hazard to passengers, crew, payload, and the nation at
large is minimized. Commercial airlines do not seek this solely,
even largely, by placing undue stress upon reliability. Reliability
simply denotes the ability to perform as predicted. It is the rare
transcontinental flight during which no component failures occur. Thus?
reliability need not be extremely high. Safety is primarily assured Ly
rigid adherence to the principle that components shall not fail cata-
strophically, and that the device be capable of mission completion or
intact abort after failure. I don't think the profit and loss statements
of the airlines would be attractive if the passen er
failure of AppansiekE0PReterraat4914:13e:sch-yRYEZ nAkb#Altvs
-n_
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
would be so even if they were told that a rocket would pull them out of
the comfort able airplane fuselage in an escape capsule (sometimes a
full 76.2 milliseconds before the explosion occurred.
The capacity of a transport system is a sensitive function of utilization,
load factor, ratio of payload to gross weight, speed, and size. These
are not completely independent parameters and indeed, because of this,
flexibility and versatility are cardinal requirements. Because the
ir-
plane can accommodate a wide variety of payloads and fly in and out of
airports all over the world on demand, utilization and load factors 2_re
good. Economy has improved with size, but this is largely a reflection
of lower labor costs per passenger or unit cargo, in both direct and
indirect categories. Many current commercial airliners are approach-
ing 40% utilization and this, coupled with reasonable load factors, yields
excellent economy of operation in spite of rapidly increasing capital costs
per vehicle. Speed, 'a function of technical refinement, contributes to
economy (cost effectiveness) by increasing passenger and ton miles
produced per hour at a greater rate than that at which operating and
fixed costs climb. Payload to gross weight has frequently declined as a
function of time during the last two decades, but here again system
economy has improved, a phenomenon which would be impossible except
for reductions in relative test and maintenance costs and substantial
gains in amortization of investment in terms of ton miles produced per
lifetime. Utilization is incredibly poor for all major elements of ol:r
space programs. Launchers serve in the role intended a very few hours
in any given year. Launch vehicles are somewhat difficult to place in
this context; but if one considers that a functional flight involving less
than a half hour of boost is the total effective contribution of such a
device, then this divided by the time elapsed from the moment of its
acceptance test at the contractor's plant seems to be the quantity we
seek. It is, of course, appallingly low. The load factor of our present
generation of vehicles seems reasonably good. We seldom launch them
without a full load of something, but when this something is sand or
other inert material, does this contribute to low cost operation? Because
of the severe constraints to which space payloads must accommodato in
terms of geometry, weight, power requirements, etc., it is a time--
consuming process to nurse all payloads to meet operational criteria
simultaneously. As payloads rise with the introduction of larger
boosters, this situation will deteriorate and I expect load factors of the
future to decline perceptively. The payload-to-gross-weight ratio cf
current equipment is very poor, and this does indeed reflect limitations
of technology, the specific impulses offered by current propellants and.
mass ratios reflecting today's structures. It is difficult to raise this
parameter much, and it will be necessary to contend with this situation
for years to come. It is not, however, necessarily a crippling deficiency
in terms of gross costs encountered. Rather, it merely underscores
the absolute necessity to amortize the structure of these boosters aver
many flig4proeemrdei4aresscoxite0/030.
fOTAIRGIn1E07822111701312G1M0041 vect h
-11-.
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
slightly modified single-shot ballistic missiles. All of these chararteriE.-
tics impose a sharp limit upon capacity. Although during 1966 the ir:-
vestment of the United States in space reached $45 billion from the d.l.te
of its inception in 1955, which is more than the total value of the rights
of way of American railroads, we are taxed to place a half million
pounds into orbit annually. As transportation systems go, this is no
even a prototype figure, and the effectiveness of current payloads
reflects this. It will be seen, then, that because of adherence to a
fortuitously chosen technology we have, in space, warped the balance
between safety, reliability, capacity, and cost. We rarely meet our
scheduled launch dates. We can place very little payload into space Jer
year. It is extremely costly to do this. And it is evident that we have
sacrificed all of this for the achievement of very marginal safety.
If we can overcome our carefully laid philosophic barriers, is there a
technical solution to the acquisition of a mature space transport syst,-m?
Every major aerospace contractor in this nation has answered this
question affirmatively. The solution takes the form of a reusable ve
The word "reusability" is intended to imply a device which takes off and
lands repeatedly with the necessity for no more than the type of inspe c-
tion that characterizes airplanes between flights. The mere recovery- of
the components that make up the device, with the need for elaborate re-
assembly and inspection, would accomplish little or nothing. We must
invest in these vehicles the versatility and flexibility which characterize
the airplane in order to enable it to transport diverse payloads over
varying routes in many types of adverse environments. To accomplish
this, it will be essential to return to established engineering principles
universally applied to development of economical, critically loaded
vehicles.
Historically, two approaches to this have been successfully pursued,
the choice being dependent on the cost, size and complexity of the
device in question. For relatively simple, low-cost items such as a:r-
craft forward firing rockets, the establishment of a qualified design
through thorough, sequential, and destructive testing of a large number
of missiles is followed by continuing destructive acceptance tests of a
significant percentage of all units produced during the lifetime of the
project. Such a procedure is regarded as inappropriate for space
boosters on the grounds of economy and industrial capacity. The classic
alternative to this procedure, adhered to by airplane builders, invoh es
establishment of a qualified design through subjecting the entire assembly
to a broad envelope of combinations of adverse circumstances, to
establish a well-defined region of safe flight. Such a flight test program,
thoroughly exploring the interaction of all major subsystems and com-
ponents over wide ranges of ambient parameters, frequently involves
thousands of hours of flight test, and thousands of engineering changt s
prior to the qualification of a specific design. Each individual item
produced ti,ortrawkiivriMetatmAN/94149t: CH4rR9HAB9148gaggitila9let5Q412rEtc
Approved For Release 2002/09/03: CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
establish that its deviation from approved standards in all significant
respects is not excessive. In sharp contrast to this, the flight test
program for a typical space booster may involve less than two hours
of highly stressed "powered flight with deviations from design point
operation generally only occurring inadvertently. Under such circum-
stances, no true envelope of safe flight operability can be established.
For this reason, comparisons of flight test costs for expendable as
compared to reusable vehicles arc generally unrealistic. The conten-
tion that it costs less to ineffectually flight test expendable vehicles
than to effectively qualify reusable vehicles is indeed true, but has
little pertinence. Such rump qualification procedures inevitably resu_ t
in the prolongation of flight test over the life of the program in the foam
of greatly augmented acceptance and operations costs. A key quality of
the typical reusable device which permits it to be subjected to thorough
and extensive flight test, is the ability to perform intact abort after
failure of key components and subsystems. This characteristic deriving
from a careful reliance upon selected redundancy and stern adherence
to the requirement that component failure modes be non.catastrophic,
permits thorough exploration of operational envelopes without the penalty
of unacceptable risk. It is difficult to see how this quality can be en-
gendered into the type of space booster selected for current and pros-
pective space operations by this nation.
Exorbitant costs in dollars and reliability for achievement of minimal
safety follow directly from these considerations. The acceptance tet,t
of the reusable vehicle is thorough and realistic, since the interaction
of essential components and subsystems can be directly observed uncer
true, extreme flight conditions. Over a period of time acceptance test
elements which are found to be irrelevant are omitted and information
from these tests as well as that deriving from field operation is em-
ployed for the progressive refinement of design which characterizes
this class of vehicle, and tends to cut operational costs profoundly as a
function of time. In sharp contrast with this, each flight of an expen-
dable device is preceded by an extremely elaborate acceptance test.
Because such a vehicle has never been flown before and cannot abort
intact, recourse must be made to elaborate simulation methods in
assessing the complex interactions of major subsystems and compo entt:
Such acceptance testing is far more expensive than that associated with
reusable devices because it must be completed in full before each
flight and because much more elaborate equipment is required for sxnu-
lation than free flight. It is much less effective than that associated
with reusable devices because the simulations involved are necessarily
far from perfect, and the feedback process whereby the design of
reusable vehicles is progressively refined in the course of time is
almost lacking; or to an extent, reversed. This unfortunate reversal
of diminishing test costs with time occurs when unanticipated problems
are observed in the course of operational flights. Since these are
rarely sikirtpepiteldlEotcRGIOEMPlZekniterfiTs.A6PWar
0 151)012_8
crenera. ly
- I 3-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
result i augmentation of the initially elaborate and relatively
ineffLctIt-e st procedures followed.
Some recent studies have indicated that the cost of space payloads has
now become so overwhelmingly greater than the cost of construction
and operation of the boosters associated with them, that efforts to im-
prove space transportation economy should be focused on these pay-
loads rather than on boosters. The relative costs quoted in these re-
ports are accurate, but a careful consideration of the derivation of
these may be in order.
Since no official projection exists of the United States space program
beyond a few years, a Rand study (AIAA paper 66-862) will be emplrwed
as a possible model. This prognostication places 72 million pounds into
low earth orbit between 1970 and 1999 employing current and advanced
versions of Saturn boosters. Payloads include both manned and un-
manned spacecraft, and indeed the unit costs of these are surprisingly
? high - about $27, 000 per pound (average) for unmanned and $10, 000
per pound for manned. These data are based on infoiination provided
in Tables 1 and 2 (pages 15 & 16) derived mostly from Aviation Week.
If we assume that 50 million pounds will be placed in low orbit and
22 million in equivalent orbital weight will be employed to place 5 million
pounds in escape trajectories, and that spacecraft will continue to cost
the same per pound as current species; total spacecraft cost would be
635 x 109 dollars. Booster cost given by Rand is 109 x 109 dollars but
presumably does not include support operations. If we add such support
costs at $2 billion over the 30-year period and the construction of
three more launch site 39's at another billion, total launch costs would
approximate $112 billion. These launch costs then would amount to
112/747 or just about 15% of the total. This seems to confirm the asse--
tions that launch costs constitute a relatively negligible element of total
cost, and that efforts to reduce costs of space operations should be
concentrated on spacecraft.
But is this reasonable? Have we perhaps lost our sense of proportion
and are depending too heavily upon internally developing criteria of
merit? It will be seen from Table 1 that the established Lunar
Orbiter program will end with five spacecraft costing $43,500 per
pound. This is about six times the cost of an equal weight of pure
gold. Is there anything intrinsic in the make-up of this device that
assures such costs into the indefinite future? Almost certainly the
answer is "no. " The extremely high costs indicated in the two tables
result primarily from efforts to achieve mathematical indications of
almost impossible reliability and the perpetuation of extremely elabo-
rate but nonetheless questionable testing. An indication of this is found
in the fact that according to Technology Week of February 13, 1967,
components built, but not used, could be assembled into a sixth space-
craft for abo Atz) rtizio %led 1:14P REgealEu260 2R003):f CiA.F6071PBOO BE2R4b0 20 6-115#30 12-8
Table 1
SPACECRAFT UNIT COSTS
<
m
TOTAL
a
SPACECRAFT
TOTAL
SPACECRAFT
SPACECRAFT
WEIGHT
NUMBER
COST
WEIGHT
UNIT COST
X
m
fri
(lb)
($ millions)
($/lb)
Sr RVEYOR
2750
7
488.9
19,250
25,4Y.
Ar..N AR ORD _.'i
R
800
5
174.6
4, 000
43,-;
' OSO
490
8
94.8
3,920
24,200
too OGO
1000
6
219.1
6,000
36,500
sct OA?
3900
4
436. 9
15, 600
28, 000
BAOSATELLITE
1200
6
136.5
7,200
19,000
? IMP
158 (vg)
10
56
1,580
35,400
203TM. EXP.
495
2
6. 8
980
6, 900
UISIS
110
13
28. 6
1,430
20, me
CO
o Totals
co
1, 642.2
59, 960
(73.1
0
0
Calculation of Avs_r_.a22s_Urzi._. Costs
1642. x 106
Average Spacecraft Unit Costs - = $27, 400/1b
59, 960
63 Source of data: Space Aeronautics January 1967
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Table 2
>
-o
TS
n
0
FISCAL YEAR
SPACECRAFT
GEMINI COSTS
(Millions of Dollars)
LAUNCH VEHICLES SUPPORT
TOTAL
SOURCE
-II
o
n
1962
X
39.20
13.60
2.16
54.96
AvWk
1/21/63
MU 1963
205.05
79.11
3.94
288.10
"
1/27/64
ca 1964
to
280.52
122.70
15.68
418.90
!.
2/1/65
m 1965
n.)
165.30
115.40
27.70
308.40
VT
1/31/66
o 1966
o
98. 87
72. 90
25. 50
197.27
"
1/30/67
n.) 1967
o
9.15
2.90
9.55
21.60
1/30/67
co
Sfotals
0
TPercentages
798.09
61.9%
406. 61
31.6%
84.53
6.5%
1289.23
100%
0
CO Calculation of Unit Costs
oo
10 vehicles $79. 8 M per vehicle
8000 lb/vehicle 80, 000 lb total spacecraft
7
$79.
Spacecraft Unit Cost - 8 x 103 $10, 000 per lb
80 x 10
Co
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
ability to inspect, maintain, and repair these devices in orbit could
provide another order of magnitude of reduction in basic cost. Such a
potential could only be provided through employment of reusable launch
vehicles in operational patterns analogous to those of aircraft.
If all spacecraft costs could be decreased by an order of magnitude a.s.
apparently those of Lunar Orbiter can, the total program cost for the
Rand 30-year effort would drop to $175billion and the launch cost would
constitute 64% of the total. Reduction by two orders of magnitude would
render spacecraft costs relatively negligible and boost costs heavily
predominant. Moreover, if the nature of space missions changes, with
long-term economically meaningful orbital operations becoming pre-
dominant; the replenishment, maintenance, and repair of vehicles will
involve most transport effort. It is difficult to see how exploitation of
space for the advantage of society can proceed in any other way; and
under those circumstances, the cost of boost and alighting operations
becomes all important. Thus it can be seen that the argument against
development of low-cost boosters on the grounds that this constitutes
an insignificant element of space expenditure is by no means unassail-
able; and, indeed, unless the nation's space activities have led to a new
"breakthrough" (the first event to my knowledge worthy of this peculiar
term) which guarantees that spacecraft fabrication will be orders of
magnitude more expensive than that for comparable devices, into the
indefinite future, the assumption is probably groundless.
Can low-cost, flexible, versatile boost and alighting systems be devel->pe
Are there technically insurmountable barriers to their 'evolution? These
questions cannot be answered categorically at this time, but I firmly be-
lieve that the nation's continuing unique concern with the development of
ever larger, solely expendable booster systems will prove an impene-
trable barrier to the advent of any economical approach to space trans-
portation. Masses of literature have been written to demonstrate con-
clusively that reusable systems will inevitably prove less economical
than projected expendables. I believe that this persistent contention
represents an outstanding instance of confusion between ephemeral
considerations and fundamental technical limitations. When we strip cff
the costly aspects of an immature unchallenged transport system which
stem from low utilization, inefficient test procedures, cumbersome
patterns of operation, and inefficient use of manpower; we are left with
fundamental considerations of which two become all important: the
amortization of structure and the cost of energy conversion.
With respect to these two elements, we have already seen that amortiza-
tion of structure for single-shot devices is inevitably extremely high and
always seems to exceed $1, 000/1b of payload placed in orbit. The other
fundamental element of cost, energy conversion, has generated confusion
ever since tke adveent o gtzgid ed
ov t-orfU6 21Ftiftglos : 6oem2zRoor14 mem
one excludes Pel3cronomica y worthless exotic varieties, is of the order of
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
$2.00/1b of payload placed in orbit. When one regards this as an index
of propulsion effectiveness, it is easily seen that the persistent effo-t
to develop high-performance rocket engines, in the sense of improv_-
.
ment in specific impulse, simply reflects a way of contending with the
very high cost of structures associated with space transportation. The
actual cost of propellants involved is insignificant. The direct key,
then, to achievement of low-cost space transportation, after one disposes
of ineffective excessive test and poor utilization, lies in the ability to
amortize structure much more effectively. To date, substantial effirt
has been focused upon work to improve ratios of payload to gross weigh._
or, better, ratios of payload to dry weight of prospective boosters.
Since this figure for today's devices is abysmally low, substantial im-
provement is possible. However, it is doubtful whether we can improve
on current values by more than perhaps 100%. As opposed to this, when
we consider dollars per pound in orbit as a function of numbers of fiights
during the life of the boost vehicle, through employment of rational
assumptions one can conceivably cut this cost of amortization by two
orders of magnitude or better. A plot of dollars per pound in orbit as
a function of numbers of flights per lifetime of boost vehicle could snow
the effect of potential improvement in the ratio of payload to gross
weight as simply a slight broadening of the curve produced.
During the past decade every major aerospace organization in the
United States has studied reusable boosters which alone promises
massive reduction in this enormous cost of amortization of structure.
In a recent study sponsored by the government intended to indicate
directions of propulsion development which should be sponsored for
reusable boosters, 36 "advanced" composite engine configurations were
carefully investigated with the conclusion that none was significantly
better than powerplants employing well-established technology. A Etudy
of the reusable designs submitted over the past five years drives one to
the conclusion that with no great advance in technology, two-stage,
chemically powered, completely reusable devices can provide the means
for releasing the inhibitions which threaten to starve our space programs
into the indefinite future. A normalization of the majority of the designs
available for study indicates that a two-stage, all-reusable booster with
either airbreathers or mixed airbreathers and rockets for first stage,
and rockets plus sufficient airbreathers for systematic re-entry for
second stage, with a gross weight of approximately one million pounds,
can carry about 30,000 pounds of payload into low orbit and return.
More highly refined versions of this - embodying advanced lifting
structures, droppable tanks, and almost single-stage-to-orbit con -
figurations - might better this, but the simple pedestrian.design
embodying least advanced technology is revealing. In terms of anacr-
tization of structure, this would cost about $25.00/1b payload if we write
off the equivalent cost of each booster over 100 flights, or it would
amount to $2.50/1b if we perform 1000 missions for the equivalent basic
hardwarArrp4o4ed 16t:Crtlk4A$i260t1i99XYt4tlAfRrl:R7t1 gal/ kiiii(atii166fge tion
-18-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
to amortization of structure falls into the general ball park chara,-teriz-
ing all good transportation systems.
What is wrong with the reasoning? The major contention of the o7posi-
tion is that a "refurbishment" rate of 10-50% is all that could eve': be
achieved for such systems. This translates into 2-10 flights per
booster lifetime; and if this were so, the approach indicated is obviously
invalid. I think this assumption could well be realistic if one talks in
terms of recoverable devices; that is, vehicles which somehow struggle
down to the ground in a graceless attitude to a slightly controlled :rash
and are then torn apart, carefully examined by little men with micro-
scopes, and reassembled and elaborately tested before the next flLght.
This is not the concept to which I am alluding. It is essential that if
such devices are to prove economical they must take off and land ?.n a
pattern similar to that of commercial airliners. In achieving this, one
will not merely profoundly reduce today's astronomical costs of
amortization of structure but deeply cut into the tremendous costs
associated with excessive, ineffective acceptance testing, pre-flight.
testing, exceedingly poor utilization of launch facilities, sacrifice of
performance for achievement of specified trajectories by orbital trans-
fer in space, recovery of men and equipment after picturesque but
expensive splashdowns, a degree of unreliability which has frequently
delayed scheduled missions for many months at enormous cost, etc.,
ad infinitum.
It is interesting to note that the commercial airliner of today has a re-
furbishment cost well under 1/10 of 1% per launch, and to consider
why a space transporter could not approach this figure. The typical
powered flight time and the duration of the period when the structure is
subjected to high temperatures are both much shorter than those
associated with typical aircraft missions. It is true that the tempera-
tures to be experienced are much higher; but it must be recognizec that
the stresses involved in this segment of the flight will relate simply to
envelope materials which do not constitute the major element of the
cost of such vehicles. We have the choice of cooling critical elements
of this structure by radiation, ablation, or the use of propellant heat
sinks in various limited ways. Why are we so pessimistic regarding
the potential effectiveness of such systems when the little pertinent ex-
perience we have had with the X-15 looks reasonably optimistic? The
nation has committed itself to the development and operation of the SST.
The first-stage vanes and blades of the turbines for this vehicle will
experience conditions relative to temperature, stress, and oxidation;
somewhat similar to those pcs tulated for key parts of the outer surface
of the space transport. No one involved in this program, however,
expects these engine elements to have lives of minutes, necessitating
their replacement after each flight. Any company postulating such a
design would be'laLlghed out of the corn etition. Yet the Iim-saly'lt-Ledght
tts2E
during wiripto nos?",leant a-99 28:194,9r1: -N:171.1%)9PitlIRR9t9:Pd
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
to these stringent conditions will be very much lower. I think those
who feel this to be an impossible problem are encouraged in their co ,-
viction.s by the uninspiring attitude toward development risk which has
characterized our space programs.
In spite of the fact that significant efforts to develop adequate, refrac tory.
high-strength skins for radiation-cooled re-entry structures have so far
met with only partial success, I believe that several promising solut ons
to this problem are apparent. It is only in recent years that knowledge
of solid-state physics has reached the point where it can contribute
heavily in these difficult areas, and full advantage has yet to be takez,
of this new capability. Unfortunately, even a relatively superficial
treatment of this subject would warrant many pages of discussion, and
so I will limit myself to an indication of directions which look invitin,-.
Fiber technology and its end product, composite structures, have ad-
vanced markedly in the last few years. Unfortunately, a great deal of
stress has been concentrated on a material which promises little by way
of high-temperature strength and diffusion resistance. Other fibers
much more promising with regard to these two properties are known,
and the task of transforming these into engineering materials has not
been vigorously pursued. Inevitably, the Matrices incorporating these
fibers will require highly refractory properties. Techniques permitting
these materials to operate under high-temperature oxidizing conditio-is
without surface deterioration or fiber diffusion will require much im-
provement in the art of creating and positioning diffusion barriers.
Use of such materials as graphite for structural members could provide
another solution to improving the life of re-entry structures. Althouz,h
little success has been achieved in the development of coatings for re-
fractory metals to date, here again improvement in diffusion barrier
techniques could change this picture profoundly.
With regard to propulsion requirements for economical, safe, reliab e
space boosters, relatively little effort has been devoted to achievement
of the performance required. The heavy stress placed upon explorat.on
of exotic composite engine studies during the last five years seems to
have masked the fact that employment of refined, relatively conventional
powerplants in discreet rather than composite units will provide at least
adequate and probably best solutions for the reusable space transport.
If such vehicles are ever to achieve the flexibility and versatility of
operation which alone can improve load factor, utilization, and test and
inspection costs to the point where space can be exploited effectively; .
high performance, in the sense of thrust-weight ratios and .specific im-
pulse, is of relatively secondary consideration.
In all probability, over the next two decades attractive concepts for space
transports will involve two classes of engine: airbreathers and rockets.
By operatipliSpi44arF&RE46%%92102A13/631: telit441307'$B00822R1000246135%12ziP can
-20-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
provide economy in take-off, flexibility in selection of points of ernbk-tr-
kation and return, and marked improvement in ratio of payload t gross
weight as hypersonic airbreathers are refined. These objectives can bc
achieved without recourse to supersonic combustion which could .irobaatv
provide only marginal improvement, if any. The type of device -,risua.ILLed
for this work has been broadly characterized as the turborarnjet, and
careful studies have shown that foreseeable improvements in currently
known approaches can easily lead to better than a doubling in ratio of
payload to gross weight as well as providing enormous flexibility in
greatly extended downrange and cross range capabilities. The second
stage operation will almost certainly be heavily dependent upon rockets
although airbreathers will be needed here, too, to assure adequate
landing capabilities in conformance with air traffic control regulations.
The rockets required for this task, however, should bear little resem-
blance to those employed by the current generation of single-sho-, space
boosters. The major requirements for such rocket engines follow:
1) Broad Intrinsic Stability. The engine should operate stably
over very broad limits of chamber pressure, mixture ratio, fuel cora-
position, oxidant composition, and pertinent contamination concentra-
tions. This stability should prevail under both steady-state conditions
and a wide range of transient patterns. The stability required ht re,
indicated as freedom from undue pressure oscillations, should b
achieved through the design of its intrinsic basic elements and their
relation to each other. Dependence upon external sensing and correcting
servo equipment introduced solely for this purpose should be absolutely
minimized. Past experience has demonstrated that extensive reliance
upon such systems invites unreliability through the inevitable fragility
and precision of setting required for sensors, which lead to nurn:irous
instances of false signal-induced shutdown.
2) Benign Failure Modes. As contrasted with reliability, the
safety of any transportation system heavily depends upon noncatastropnic
failure of major elements. Achievement of high reliability levels alone
could simply imply that a fraction of payloads equal to one minus this
reliability, as well as a similar fraction of the vehicles involved, would
steadily be destroyed during the course of operations. It is strongly felt
that no transportation system should accept such a handicap. A.E an un-
fortunate heritage of the nation's ballistic missile experience, rr any
people are convinced that failures of rocket engines are necessarily
catastrophic. This belief is so strong that most rocket-powered trans-
ports developed or contemplated have paid small attention to im.prove-
ments in safety and reliability achievable through ability to operate with
one or more engines shut down. In large measure, this mental coupl..r.g
of unanticipated shutdown and catastrophe in the case of rocket engines
derives from the operating characteristics of the liquid-liquid impinging
jet, gas generator f'edicycle which has dominated rocket development
in re Alligq)184 /FPI REahaqesaqVg9VrieglA-EaRlionp2aliannitlfaes12olis from
? 1 -
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
design point values in manyoperating parameters tend to induce caias-
trophic failure. A rocket engine suitable for transport service sho ild
be required to demonstrate hazard-free shutdown or c onlprorn nd ;4-le
ope ration u tide r many conditions of single critical c omponent
The scope and pertinence of tests required to confirm the benign shut-
down quality will greatly contribute to transportation system safety
achievable.
3) Transient Overload and Self-Healing Capabilities. Propulsion
systems intended forttransportation functions have traditionally been
endowed with the ability to accept transient overloads with minimal
damage and hazard. Typically, such an experience simply results in
the shortening of the anticipated period between overhauls. Ideally it
would be desirable to confer a self-healing quality upon the engine to
minimize incidence of failure due to progressive weakening by trant,ient
overloads. The typical tubular-walled regeneratively-cooled thrust
chamber and throat of most of today's rocket powerplants constitute an
interesting instance of lack of this property. Adequate heat transfer
demands that these tube walls be thin and fragile. Any asymmetry if
injector discharge due to distortion, partial failure, or ingestion of
foreign material tends to focus higher heat fluxes on concentrated areas
of these tube walls. Typically, this can result in rapid burnout and
catastrophic failure. Substitution of a structure in which local regi-ms
of high heat flux will simply cause erosion to a new configuration of
equilibrium heat transfer without structural failure would be highly pre-
ferred.
4) Efficient Throttleability. Achievement of the broad intrinsic
stability requirement heading this list will assure the technical feasibility
of throttling. However, ability to perform the transport functions indi-
cated in the manner characteristic of all accepted transport systems
will require more than simple technical feasibility of partial power
operation. The ability to attain mission objectives in spite of single or
more engine failure has been regarded as essential to military aircraft
systems of the bomber and transport category. It would seem that this
type of requirement has not been established for transport booster
systems primarily because of an intuitive feeling that uncompromised
performance capabilities would suffer unduly. The development of
adequate rocket engines, however, will profoundly affect this assumption.
Necessarily, orbital boost vehicles will incorporate high mass ratics and
low structural weights. Also, ?the rocket engines employed will discharge
the major source of mass on board the vehicle - the propellants - at -
a very high rate. As a consequence of these considerations, achiev-ment
of the ability to safely abort or attain one's mission objectives with single
or more engine outage may be simpler than for typical airbreathing air-
craft. When the space booster is constrained to follow an accelerat on-
limited trajectory, as economy and physiology will inevitably deman:I,
within re]AffroivdfFor Reltase1208/2/09103:dCIAanDMB08822RDDIE106115031124/1 to
-22-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
the point where the thrust deficiency arising from failure of a single unit
can be made up simply by raising the thrust produced by the remaining
engines to their rated values. This capability is a strong function of the
number of engines employed, vehicle-engine geometric configuration_
and throttleability. This important aspect of orbital boost can be ex-
ploited most effectively if performance loss in terms of degradation of
specific impulse is minimized with throttling even at relatively low
altitude. In addition to providing the capacity to meet mission object ves
with partial powerplant failure, adequate throttleability should enable the
pilots of such booster craft to check out their engines before each flight,
systematically and without excessive propellant loss, in conformance
with intelligent established practices. While it is true that such takeoff
procedures* will decrease spectacular display and minimize heroic
qualities demanded of the crew, they are essential for transportation
system effectiveness.
5) Performance. Although four key transportation qualities have
been designated as indispensable, in some ways they may be summec
up as simply contributing to cost per ton or cost per ton-mile delivered.
For terrestrial transportation systems where amortization procedures
for financing hardware elements are well developed, cost of fuel and
ton-mile per hour capacity per capital dollar invested are established
criteria of merit. Unfortunately, gross expansion of many less funda-
mental elements of cost has distorted space booster financing to a point
where performance criteria are obscure. If one assumes, however,
that patterns of orbital boost operation will shake down in the future to
something resembling conventional transportation systems, similar
criteria to those of terrestrial aircraft will apply. Here economic con-
straint immediately eliminates consideration of very expensive pro-
pellants, and the requirement to develop many ton-miles per hour for a
given dollar investment in structure eliminates low performance pro-
pellants. Similarly, for orbital booster transport rocket engines, a
great culling of propellants to be considered can be achieved by elim na-
tion of obviously uneconomic candidates. Engines employing the selected
propellants remaining should be capable of operation at values of specific
impulse reasonably close to theoretical as established by specifications.
The major conventional element of performance other than specific
impulse should be treated with care. Whereas thrust-to-weight ratios
of typical airbreathing engines clearly constitute an index of superio:-
performance, this may not be the case for rocketry. Envelope
geometry, ruggedness, and amenability to effective incorporation into ?
superior vehicle designs are often more significant. Frequently, more-
over, simple thrust-weight ratios are hard to determine because of
arbitrary weight assignment of elements which might be either vehicle
or engine.
6) grAkrveeFalhiltaba%1200249/0.3P titrAtatiFrrlititY68432TROcitteb *el tiff -
breathing pattern of operation diverge so profoundly from that of rocket-
Approved For ,Felease 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
powered vehicles as in concept of engine life. Here again, primarily as
a heritage from powerplants designed to perform single-shot rnissio is
for ballistic missiles, there has been a tendency to accept limitations
on rocket life expectancies which are not intrinsic in the engine. As in
the case of other powerplants, many elements of life must be e-valuaed.
Total life expectancy in terms of numbers of starts and cumulative
duration, time between overhauls, average time of flight, and maxir mm
single flight time requirements have all been considered. Although the
heat fluxes encountered in some aspects of rocket operation exceed
those of more conventional energy exchange devices by a wide marg n,
stresses and temperatures experienced in structual materials involved
are all within realms of past experience. As a consequence, the lii
of a rocket engine should have certain similarities to that of other
powerplants. This should be particularly so when the first four reqdire-
ments discussed are achieved. Although it has become customary to
discuss life and single mission time of rocket engines in terms of secones,
based primarily upon past missile experience, this seems an unfortunate
habit in the context of transport applications. Surely rocket engine lives
can be extended to magnitudes of hours and tens of hours based upor
past limited experience. While numbers of starts have been regarded
as a more appropriate unit of life than simple duration (as for instance
hours in the case of a turbojet), this derived in large measure from the
consequences of the hard start characterizing most of these devices
developed to date. It is probable that if reciprocating engines were
always started at full throttle, their lives would also be more a function
of numbers of starts than of running time. Because of the duty cycles
typically associated with space boost operations, average and maximum
running times per mission can be expected to be on the order of minute3
rather than hours. It should be recognized, however, that this pattern
stems from the inevitably propellant-limited configurations of space
boosters, the thickness of the atmosphere, the fact that the earth has a
diameter of 8000 miles, and that its rotation is only one revolution per
day. The rocket engine itself should be capable of far greater durations
of average and maximum operating time per mission than will ever be
required. These two requirements, although they have been discussed
extensively, are probably of little significance and may well be set far
beyond the need of any currently anticipated missions. Time between
overhaul, however, is a very real criterion of merit and can contr:bute
significantly to economy and capacity. Since there has been no sub-
stantial employment of this criterion in past rocket engines, the approach
to be followed initially will have to be reasoned, but arbitrary. It seems
entirely reasonable that engines designed to accommodate the first four
requirements discussed should be capable of times between overhail on
the order of many hours. It should be recognized that this number, as
in the case of airbreathing engines, will inevitably rise profoundly as
refinements in design occur which can be accomplished only through the
processAiSfpgisPdegiVelaTeli
lyses, and irn.provement.
20d2/09/03: CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
7) Restart Ability. On various occasions, established trans-
portation systems have attempted operation with powerplants of
limited restart ability. The shotgun and cartridge starters applied to
reciprocating and turbojet engines were examples of this. These in-
stances simply served to emphasize the great attractiveness of un-
limited restart ability, and most operations have reverted to this
condition as soon as technology permitted. In the case of the rocke
engine, the feasibility of unlimited restart ability has been heavily ob-
scured by the general character of the powerplants which have been
developed. Most of these, because of very limited regions of stead.--
state stability and lack of efficient throttleability, have been constridned
to adopt starting transients of very short time duration with exceedingly
closely controlled mixture ratios as chamber pressure rapidly rosc.
Under such fast start circumstances, ignition energy requirements nave
tended to be so high that simple electrical devices employed for most
other engines have been largely eschewed. Instead, a great deal at
reliance has been placed upon carefully sequenced pyrotechnic devices,
the use of auto-igniting propellants, or employment of auto-igniting slugs
simply during the starting transient. There has been much confusi
over the meaning of the word "auto-igniting" and its odd, generally
obfuscating, semantic variations. In fact, all rocket propellants are
auto-igniting providing the temperature is high enough. Similarly, all
have ignition delay lags; and, unfortunately, even with those capabl.:. of
auto-ignition at relatively low temperatures, this time delay persists
and tends to sharply limit equipment design and environmental tempera-
tures permissible. Fortunately here again the ability to engender
Items 1) through 4) into the basic design of future engines will greatly
simplify the ignition problem. With engines meeting these requirements,
simple electrical systems should be capable of providing the unlim:ted
restart characteristic which has proved so attractive to other tran.s port
systems. Under these circumstances, the balance between positiv:. and
negative aspects of operation with auto-igniting propellants should e
restudied. As contrasted with ease and safety of ignition at high ambient
temperatures, and ability to contend with momentary flame-out, the
hazards of unintentional ignition inside and outside the engine as well as
ignition limitations should be considered for auto-igniting propellants.
8) Propellant Jettison Ability. Ability to successfully abort ,with
structure and cargo intact during essentially all of most booster fight
profiles may depend heavily on the engine's capability to off-load pro-
pellants rapidly. By careful consideration of engine stability limits and
cycle employed, it should be possible to jettison propellants rapidly, with
controllably limited thrust, by employing the turbines and pumps of the
basic powerplants when conditions demand this.
9) Environmental Limitations. The nation's experience to c ate
boos tin payloads into space contrasts very sharply with that of a typica_
trans 04R ctsiEgiii9asirsoolatzwea aCht-RDP,7 1430Cia212R00812 Oft.51013314 e
-25-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
maintained under carefully monitored conditions for periods of abut
quarter of a year prior to launch. In the sense that reliability is he
ability to schedule events, this is of course appalling. However, with
respect to powcrplant environmental limitations, such pampering is
highly misleading. If boost operations arc to progress to a point where
economy and capacity will permit major exploitation of space, power-
plants must be capable of operating under the broad ranges of environ-
mental conditions characterizing other transportation systems. With-
out recourse to extensive, very expensive, specialized ground installa-
tions, these engines should be capable of starting and operating over
wide temperature and humidity ranges, large variations of attitude,
incursion of salt air and spray, and with the ability to accept rapid
transients in all of these.
1 0 ) Instrumentation. The typical air transport displays a series
of engine operating parameters on its engine instrument panel. The
purpose of this instrumentation is to allow the discretion of the crew to
be employed as a contribution to transport effectiveness. Progressive
deterioration may be noted and approaching characteristic failures may
be sensed before they tend to become catastrophic. Contrasted v,ith
this approach, it has been proposed that many rocket-powered boosters
be equipped with "malfunction sensors, IT the purpose of which would be
to anticipate failure and initiate an engine shutdown transient prier to
its occurrence. Here again the philosophy involved merely reflects the
lack of benign failure mode which has characterized most rocket engines
to date. Superficially, it would seem that the combination of sufficient
malfunction sensors and the development of adequate high-speed servo--
loops to initiate shutdown would permit engines with catastrophic failure
modes to be employed happily. This is far from the case and unfortunate-
ly provision of ever larger numbers of malfunction sensors eventually
simply assures a reliability of zero for the system. The larger the
numbers of these devices, the greater the probability of failure on the
part of the sensor rather than on the part of the engine. This of course
is precisely the reasoning behind the type of instrumentation furnished
with piloted aircraft. If Items 1) through 4) are incorporated into future
rocket engine designs, the functions of rocket engine instrumentation
should be very similar to those of airbreathing instrumentation a_id
should probably consist of displays reasonably similar to those of jet
aircraft.
Putting together existing and slightly advanced technology in the key
fields of refractory high-strength structures and propulsion, we can
visualize in the near future types of vehicles well adapted to perform
space transportation tasks. Three vehicle types will be covered in
the following paragraphs to present some idea of potentials maximizinz
employment of existing and realizable hardware and covering a range
of sizes. In turn, each of these is broken down to show the effects of
va ryiliVrtrreigii?Eptiilielease.12P02/89163xelbtAt-RZIP71600822R000200150012-8
-26-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
In the first of these a concept is considered, termed the small recc,ver-
able booster/manned hypersonic test vehicle (SRB/MHTV), which is
designed to fulfill a very high percentage of currently foreseen laurch
requirements and to provide a logical step for development of Major
second-generation reusable boosters. To minimize development c..)st
and difficulty, this vehicle is designed to operate within the flight
envelope of the advanced X-15. Moreover, technology required for
the fully controllable benign failure mode rocket engines involved has
been demonstrated by work on the RL-l0 and R1.4-.20 engines. The
general configurations of this type vehicle are presented in Figure 2
below:
220K ENGINES IN FIRST STAGE RUN IN SECOND STAGE
GROSS WEIGHT 300,000 LB ORBITAL
PAYLOAD LB
ROCKET .---
.6?71.1.11tli.
SUPERSONIC
150 125 100 75
FEET
50 25 0
8100
8500
8200
Fig. 2 Basic Small Recoverable Booster Configurations
Each of these vehicles employs horizontal landing and take-off of first
stage; grosses at approximately 300, 000 lb; and can place something
more than 8, 000 lb into low orbit. Some penalty (about 15%) in payload
was accepted to permit use of engines in existence or under clevelo =lent.
The configuration designated "Rocket" employs two 220, 000-lb rockets
and two TF-30s for first stage, and three uprated RL-10s (20, 000-lb
thrust) for the second stage. The "Subsonic" configuration used six:
TF-30s plus four RL-2.0s (220 K) for first stage propulsion, and three .
uprated RL-10s for second stage. In the subsonic vehicle, the TF-30s
are operated as primarily propulsion for take-off and acceleration to
Mach 0. 9. Rocket engines are then started and accelerate the first
stage to 7, 000 fps when the second stage is released. Since the Ti"-30s
have a supersonic capabilitxtlithey are
ase,-2U 2/09/03, : CIA-R ri2413600111
rockets At N.P[RMI lvlac numoer an tnen c ose o -pro ect
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
them from the high-temperature hypersonic environment. The rocket
vehicle is accelerated to 7, 000 fps on its RL-20s, and the TP-30s -re
simply used for flyback. The "Supersonic" vehicle employs two 1-22.-2C.
rockets plus four J-58s (F-12 aircraft engine) in its first stage and a
set of three uprated RL-10s again for second stage. Here the J-58;
accelerate the first stage to Mach 3, when the rockets are started lo
continue acceleration to 7,000 fps. While the supersonic small re-
coverable booster does not show significant payload advantage, its growth
potential, as more advanced airbreathing engines become available, is
most attractive. A summary of the configurations discussed is shcwn
in Figure 3 below:
GROSS WEIGHT 300,000 LB
FIRST STAGE
earca-rowszewsna-mo
STAGE WEIGHT (LB)
PROPELLANT WEIGHT
ROCKET ENGINES
AIRBREATHING ENG.
SECOND STAGE
!WIT OS 2.1
. STAGE WEIGHT (LB)
PROPELLANT WEIGHT
ROCKET ENGINES
ROCKET
VEHICLE
245,100
163,700
2 AT 220,000
TWO TF3Os
TYPICAL
CONFIGURATION
SUBSONIC
VEHICLE
241,700
141,400
LB 2 AT 220,000
SIX TF301
46,800
41,100
3 AT 20,000. LB
SUPERSONIC
VEHICLE
244,$00
114,500
LB 2 AT 220,000 LB
FOUR 1.58s
49,800
43,800
3 AT 20,000 ? LB
Fig. 3 Summary of Configurations
47,300
41,600
3 AT 20.000 .L8
?UPRATED RL?10'S
The optimization studies of the SRB rocket thrust level are summarized
in Figure 4 on the following page.
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Mu 3 SUPERSONIC VEIIICLE
STAGING VELOCITY 7000 FPS GROSS WEIGHT 300,000 LB
1.2
1.0
RELATIVE
PAYLOAD
0.8
0.6
0.8 1.2 1.6 20 2.4
SECOND STAGE THRUST/WEIGHT
4 RL10's
3 RHO's 2 AT 220K
?r-
IT/W1I VAC
?1.2
1.4 1.8
Fig. 4 Optimization of Small Recoverable
Booster Rocket Thrust Level
28
A comparison of dynamic pressure and temperature loadings for the
advanced X-15 and the small recoverable booster is shown on
Figure 5 below:
ALTITUDE - FEET MOM
240
200
160
120
80
40
X?I5 HIGH o? PATH
?
00
EQUILIBRIUM
SKIN TEMP
BURNOUT i=50 PSF
1\
900?F
I200?F
GUST LIMIT
2000 4000 6000
VELOCITY 'sa FPS -
Fig. 5 Small Recoverable Booster Flight Path
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Aside from its role as a space launcher, the SRB/MIITV can be used to
extend the flight regime being explored by the X-15. The first stage
with no upper stage can attain a velocity of about 10, 000 fps. This cin
be extended to about 12, 000 fps if a fuel pod is substituted for the second
stage. If the second stage is replaced by a manned research vehicle (a
rocket-propelled lifting stage weighing roughly 60, 000 lb), the flight
velocity spectrum can be extended to beyond 20, 000 fps. For all con-
figurations except the rocket vehicle, the flight spectrum of a manneci
research vehicle can be further extended to orbital velocities if refuc ling
or a more advanced airbreathing engine is used in the first stage.
In its role as a test vehicle, the SRB/MHTV can significantly increa e
the test time available at any sustained Mach number over that attainable
with the X-15. This application, of course, requires throttling of th
rocket engines to maintain a steady-state flight condition. Figure 6
below shows the test time available at a given sustained velocity. All
three versions of the basic SRB/MHTV plus a fuel pod fall within the
shaded band. At 4,000 fps, for example, the improved X-15 offers a
little over one minute of sustained flight, while the SRB/MHTV can
provide about 13 minutes of sustained flight. At 8, 000 fps, the X-15
capability has diminished to practically zero while the MHTV can stall
provide seven minutes of operation. The test time available above
8, 000 fps is still substantial, decreasing linearly with velocity until it
finally goes to zero at about 12, 000 fps.
SUSTAINED VELOCITY-MIN
15
10
5
0
0
1
SRB/MHTV
... ::
i ...
WITH
PROPELLANT"
.
POD
X-I5
IMPFROVED
X-I5
2 4 6 8 10
SUSTAINED VELOCITY "d1000 FPS
Fig. 6 Available Test Time
12
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
-30-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
A supersonic enlarged ? .,ion of the small recoverable booster using
220,000-lb thrust rocke;. Qngines in both stages has been explored.
This is the most interesting of the three earlier configurations oecaw:e
of the great improvements possible through application of known air-
breathing technology. A gross weight of 700,000 lb was selected which
is compatible with four 220,000-lb rockets and six SST engines for fi:st
stage operation. Payload indicated in Figure 7 below is the weight
delivered to orbit by an expendable second stage, but could consist of a
resuable re-entry vehicle with cargo and passengers.
GROSS WEIGHT 700,000 LB
FIRST STAGE
STAGE WEIGHT ..(1.13) 526,400
PROPELLANT WEIGHT 241,000
ROCKET ENGINES 4 AT 220,000 LB
AIRBREATHING ENG SIX SST TYPE
ORBITAL PAYLOAD 28,400 LB
SECOND STAGE
STAGE WEIGHT LLB] 145,200
PROPELLANT WEIGHT 130,200
ROCKET ENGINES 1 AT 220,000 LB
Fig. 7 Supersonic Medium Recoverable Booster Configuration
Figure 8 on the following page illustrates the gains in payload which
can be achieved through application of advanced airbreathing engines,
refuel, and sled launch techniques.
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
-31-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
21,000
co
17,000
0
?-
g
13,000
9000
GROSS WEIGHT 300,000 LB
I
I
?1-
1
1-
I.
c
1
I
?I
0
1
1
r
1
1
c
1---
i
1?
I
0 BASIC
0 SLED
0 REFUELED
PAYLOAD
LAUNCH
.
I
I
CURRENT
ADV !CURRENT
1 M=3
ROCKET SUBSONIC
ADV .ADV
ADV
M=3 M=4.5 M=6
SUPERSONIC
Fig. 8 Payload Growth Potential
The, configurations discussed above are relatively mundane and wer
deliberately selected to illustrate advances in space transportation
which can be achieved at low risk. Employment of refined lifting
bodies, droppable tanks, and appropriately sized turboramjets and
rockets could yield very significant improvements beyond those -
trated. Of major importance, however, is the conclusion that unless
active programs are initiated to develop reusable elements, none of the
attractive directions of technology indicated can be effectively inves-
tigated or exploited.
The primary obstacle confronting establishment of programs in this
field is the conviction that the value derived from such vehicles will
not equal the enormous development costs foreseen. To buttress th.s
argument, large numbers of space operational models for the next
80 years have been prepared and discussed at length. This in spite of
the fact that the key determinant of the character of these models is the
cost and restrictive character of the space booster.
that such elliptical reasoning will resolve nothing.
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71130,0822R000200150012-8
It seems evident
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
Let us examine the potentials of the reusable booster in the broadest
sense along the lines we have come to love, cost effectiveness.
wealth of analytical talent has been brought to bear on estimating the
development costs involved. All of the techniques described in previous
paragraphs have been extensively applied, and the conviction now exists
that perhaps $20 or $30 billion would be required. I do not propose to
quarrel with these figures because I think they have very little signifi-
cance. The number could be $40 billion, which is below what we .ia.ve
already expended on space, and still I think it would not significantly
change the quotient of the cost effectiveness fraction.
The key criterion here surely is effectiveness. We have cast space ir
the role of providing reconnaissance, communication, navigation Lid,
and romance as its sole products into the indefinite future. On the
basis of such a prognostication, there is indeed no good reason to pro-
ceed with development of economical space transportation devices. Is
this all space. has to offer?
With the explosion of population, erudition, and material demands which
characterize our current society; vast problems are becoming apparent,
stemming from unprecedented projected needs in transportation, p:)wer
capacity, food supplies, and ecological contamination. The worldl,
powerplant, in attempting to meet meteorologically rising electricity
demands, is converting to nuclear power at a surprisingly high rate.
Demand is doubling about every seven years, and the ability to provide
energy to this schedule will tax the imaginations of humanity. Sufficient
fertile and fissile ore exists to fulfill needs for centuries to come.
Available techniques promise to contend successfully with contamination
problems associated with spent nuclear fuels; but the rate of conversion
of low quality and fertile fuels into fissile materials with breeder cycle .3
now contemplated may prove a bottleneck, and the flexability of appLica-
tion of the power produced at these large nuclear installations may
substantially limit man's freedom of action. Fusion has been suggested
as an alternative, and it appears favorable except for one characteristic.
It now seems probable that the minimum size of a fusion plant is thet of
a small star. While at first blush this seems to present us with difficulty,
in reality the solution it suggests may be most attractive. We have such
a fusion machine just 93 million miles away, already proved highly
reliable in character, which may be precisely the right place to put
fusion machines. The output of this machine in the form of solar fh_x
is approximately 3.6 gigawatts/square mile of projected earth surfa-e.
If we contemplate exploitation of this by orbiting large flimsy plane
reflector arrays better than 5,000 miles above the surface of the earth,
the results are interesting. Such arrays could concentrate solar flu:,1
to orbiting paraboloid reflectors focused upon laser converters which
in turn could beam the coherent light, to which the flux had been con-
verted, to any selected target. Even accepting the Carnot cycle and
other losses associated with such a process, about 3000 square miles
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
-33-
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
of 1/3 mil aluminum mylar reflector could supply all the power need d
by this nation well into the 21st century. If the frequency of the cohe;-ent
light emitted is appropriate, we then have the possibility of impactin:
these beams on appropriately matched photovoltaic devices, the effi-
ciencies of which can exceed 90%, and by these provide huge amounts
of power at any point on the earth's surface with relatively small, ea..y
to move converter stations. The perpetually annoying problems of fuel
logistics, contamination, and inflexibility would disappear.
Let us look at the contamination problem as well in a new context. The
conversion of the world's stationary powerplants to nuclear fission (or
perhaps remote fusion) devices will eliminate most atmospheric and
waterway contamination. However, one of the largest blocks of ener:,,y
conversion used by man relates to transportation, and here nuclear
application does not seem attractive. In spite of the recent spate of
publicity concerning electrical propulsion for most transportation systems,
this too suffers major handicaps. It is clear that the internal combustion
engine, be it reciprocating or turbine, enjoys great advantages and that
much can be done to alleviate pollution associated with its use. It is ,llso
clear that hydrocarbons are for many reasons economically attractive
as fuels. It is probable that when all has been done which can be done,
combustion of the best hydrocarbon - methane - will still inevitably
result in the generation of tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide, but
probably little or no other significant contaminant. During the last feN
years there has been a great deal of controversy regarding the influence
of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its relative opacity to infrared with c )n-
sequent alteration of the earth's albedo certainly assures that increas_ng
concentrations in the atmosphere would raise the surface temperature
of our planet. This of course could be disastrous. Although about
one-half of the carbon dioxide generated on earth today is still apparently
the product of forest fires and vegetative decay, engine exhausts are
surely and rapidly becoming predominant. We do not know all the details
of the planetary buffering systems to control the atmospheric concen-
tration of CO2 but the oceans and green plants certainly contribute
strongly. In spite of these, many investigators feel that carbon dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere has increased significantly (by several
percent) during the 20th century. If this is so, it will probably rise
much more rapidly during the 21st century to become perhaps a major
menace to humanity.
It is known that many species of bacteria exist capable of reducing
tenuous atmospheric carbon dioxide to methane under the influence of
light. We can postulate that as man's knowledge of his environment
becomes more complete through matching the frequency of our orbiting
solar-pumped laser to that required by such bacteria and by suspending
these in sea water media saturated with atmosphere, mechanisms can
be devised to con.tr
ADD rovea ro
"ItVii@52b102/1019/0gcblAcRDP711B008t2RIX102081511012-8
providing huManity with a source of very high quality fuel (methane)
Jr"
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
? into the indefinite future. The mass of orbiting equipment recluire foz-
such a job is not inconsistent with the abilities of humanity but is, of
course, hopelessly beyond the capacities of any fire cracker opera-,ed
transport system. Let us briefly turn our attention directly towar-i
that other major and growing human problem, transportation itsel.J.
The airplane has emerged today as uniquely the best device for the
transportation of reasonably valuable commodities over stage leng:hs
exceeding a few hundred miles. Perhaps its greatest virtue is its ionv
range character. Here, however, its attractiveness and utility ar_: com-
promised by the unfavorable ratio of payload to gross weights sterriminc
from the vast quantities of fuels required. A machine capable of operating
supersonically or hypersonically over 5, 000-mile stage lengths with
payload-to-gross-weight fractions approximating one-half would manifestly
be enormously profitable and of great value to mankind. Several
approaches to this problem have been superficially explored employing
the laser rather than on-board fuel as the source of energy for propulsion.
Although the technical barriers confronting such an application are tre-
mendous (and therefore most interesting), fundamental physical oEstacle!
do not F,eem to exist. Above the tropopause, such vehicles would be
powered by orbiting laser systems, while during take-off and landing,
recourse could be had to small amounts of fuel or surface-based laser
beams. The effect of applying such a technique to space transportItion
economy is obvious and great.
Although man has succeeded in deliberately modifying terrestrial
weather to a very small extent, ability to cope with massive destructive
atmospheric phenomena will almost certainly await the advent of alvanced
gigantic powerplants. It will be necessary to operate these for extended
periods at tremendously high power levels to develop even a small
fraction of the energy involved in destructive storms. Success in this
application will also demand that such power be focused into limited
areas moving rapidly along unpredictable trajectories. Alternativ2s to
the space-based solar-pumped laser systems for this application are
difficult to visualize. Mastery here could provide man with greatly-
augmented food supplies as well as innumerable other benefits.
We have touched briefly on postulated solutions to four of mankind's mot
urgent rapidly emerging problems - power, transportation, contamina-
tion, and food. I am certain that space can contribute to many oth.srs as
well, including terrestrial excavation, wide range testing, high-
temperature chemical processing, mining the oceans, etc. , ad inf nittan.
Who is to gauge the "effectiveness" of such applications? If it is only ?
through space that man can exercise control of the greenhouse effect and
thus forestall his premature demise on this planet, is that worth 1 or
$20 billion, or should one avoid thinking about it because it is too
expensive? For the most part these postulated projects differ sigx.ifi-
cantly from what we have projected as uses for space by the great change
in char aikrtRiloitetdoRgrROetfACI Vc121/99RAS4A-FiQqailang
-35-
22R.Q09249,4?091214t- re
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
no precedent for serious consideration of such vast engineering pr
it seems highly probable that we must break out of our self-imposnd
confinement of the imaginations and consider them. We can readily-
identify factors in our society which will compel this change. Our
enormous unheeded growth in population, the fortuitous prolifera.ti,n of
technology,. and the coalescence of all mankind into one society hake
rendered alternative approaches obsolete. Mass, energy, and soc al
balance must be achieved internally within this society since external
sinks and sources, postulated and real, have disappeared. It is
probable that this profoundly new and different society cannot survive
so long as we honor arbitrary tacit limits placed upon our technica..
vision. The magic of 10 years and $20 billion as absolute limits fOr
integrated engineering programs susceptible to serious consideration
must dissolve. The nation's destiny demands that the scale of dollars
and time contemplated for serious consideration now be extended tc
limits consistent with our resources and intellectual capabilities.
Within such a monumental but crudely defined matrix of felt needs
tentative technical solutions, specific limited development prograrn-;
must, as always, be pursued along reasonably optimized plans. BLL it
must be recognized that this process is a local suboptimization, anc
consciousness of recognized long-range objectives should confer
'flexibility to alter or eliminate development programs and approaches
when appropriate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Division
Dr. Richard L. Duncan
Mr. Eugene R. Montany
Mr. Joseph Sabatella, Jr.
United Aircraft Research Laboratories
Mr. James L. Cooley
Mr. Albert A. LeShane, Jr.
Approved For Release 2002/09/03 : CIA-RDP71600822R000200150012-8
-3E1)-