CHAPTER 32: THE FUTURE OF SPACE PROGRAMS
© John F. Graham, 1995
Photos courtesy NASA
The future has always been humanity's biggest question. What will happen
tomorrow ? Will I have enough food to eat? Will I be able to provide for my
children? Will my children be able to provide for me when I'm no longer able to
work? These are the questions which concern the majority of humans at this point
in history. It is with this backdrop that humanity is also starting to explore
space.
Humans naturally want to explore. From the time the first man and woman left
their cave to go over the hill on the other side of the valley just to see what
was there, people have had a desire to explore the unknown. How will history
judge the latter half of the twentieth century as far as explorations are
concerned? The verdict will probably be something like this: "Nice start,
but why did you give up so easily?" It's been over 26 years since Armstrong
and Aldrin first walked on the Moon. The Cold War is over; the United States has
won. Is now the time to crawl into our shells or to stick our heads into the
sand and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist? No. We must continue to
explore, because exploration has lifted humanity from its morass and into the
present state of history. If we quit exploring then we will sink back into that
morass and history will be questioning why at this particular time did a country
so full of promise turn inward and give up on itself.
In the 1200s great ships were sent from China on explorations of the seas
around China. There is evidence that the Chinese explorers got as far as India
on their great ships and there is further evidence that some Chinese from this
period may have discovered North America. After the discovery of India by the
sea routes the Chinese inexplicably quit their exploration and returned to China
where the emperor had all of the great ships destroyed and allowed no further
exploration. In a curious turn of events, the Europeans led by Portugal
discovered a sea route to the Orient. The Europeans found the Chinese very
backward and very aloof about their cultural superiority. They were ripe for
conquest by a power that was interested in exploring. What a turn of events may
have occurred in history if the highly adventurous Chinese had
"discovered" Middle Ages Europe and gone on to populate and discover
the new world? If we continue to turn inward by disregarding the study of
science and the exploration of space by gutting all of the space programs
because they don't fit into some bureaucrat's version of how the world works,
then the United States will become the twenty-first century version of China.
WHO WILL LEAD THE WORLD INTO SPACE?
If the United States does not lead the world into space because of the great
retreat from science and exploration by our people and our leaders; then who
will do it? A bigger question to pose at this point in history is will the whole
planet become as China was in the 13th century? Two countries stand out in their
urge to explore space. Both of these nations feel their destiny is with the
stars. The Russians and the Japanese are destined to lead the world into space.
The Russian Republic has gone through an unbelievably serious change of
government and a way of life in the past five years. Yet through the strife and
hardship one factor has remained constant, the Russian Space Program. The Mir
has been operational since February 20, 1986 and has constantly been occupied by
Soviet/Russian Cosmonauts. Even though some of the results from this occupation
of space has been mocked by some Western Scientists as "not real
science" the fact remains that the Russians continued in space through
conditions which would have caused many countries to disregard such
"fluff" as space exploration and accomplish bureaucratic activities.
Now the Russians have signed on as partners with the U.S. as the U.S. space
program is starting to unravel as drooling government officials hope to solve an
entire country's budget mess by taking away $14 billion per year.
What will happen if the U.S. opts out of the space station? The Russians will
continue their explorations with the Mir and may even put up a second Mir. They
will ask the other partners to join them such as the Japanese and possibly the
French and German part of ESA. The U.S. will be left to continue whatever
world-shaking activities they are accomplishing at the time.
The Japanese have always felt that their destiny is with the stars. They have
very methodically approached their space program as they have the rest of high
technology with great industry and the use of other country's breakthroughs.
Even though Japan is under extreme stress from their economic problems they will
emerge from this as a stronger country ready to continue with space exploration.
Their new launch vehicle is a prime example of Japanese high technology and
efforts. Their constant moving to improve old ideas such as the U.S. Liquid Air
Cooled Engine (LACE) from the early 1960s has demonstrated that they will lead
the world into the next technology revolution and into further space
exploration.
THE CHEAP AND ACCESSIBLE LAUNCHER BARRIER
The most important problem which must be solved before there is any full
scale exploration of space by either humans or robots is to find a way to
cheaply get from Earth into space. The spacecraft of the last 40 years have been
based upon the ICBMs for lifting atomic weapons ballistically off the Earth's
surface to come crashing down on an enemy and destroying not only his people and
industry, but his way of life possibly forever. These craft have been improved
and modified to the point where they are about as efficient as they can ever be.
Designers can keep improving engines and either incrementally increasing the
amount of payload which may be launched or incrementally decreasing the cost per
pound to put a payload into orbit, but with these large, liquid bemoths there
will be no substantial breakthrough in propulsion technology, particularly in
cost.
The current price for launching in the U.S. from one of the three launchers,
the Delta, Atlas, or Titan is still in the $3000 - $6000 per pound range while
the space shuttle price is still in the $10,000 - $12,000 range. The National
Launch System, which was to reduce this price substantially, was canceled
because of cost problems and lack of desire to improve the U.S. launch
capabilities. The Russians are trying to market the Proton rocket at a cheap
price as are the Chinese with their Long March series of spacecraft. The Chinese
have had three unfortunate catastrophic launch failures recently, the last one
killed six people near Xi Chang. The Europeans have been successful with their
Ariane vehicles, but they are about to embark on the use of the Ariane 5 vehicle
with not many payloads in store for such a heavy launch vehicle. In the small
vehicle class, the most successful rocket has been Pegasus. This craft is
launched from beneath an L-1011 at about 40,000 feet and proceeds into LEO.
Pegasus can launch a 450 kg payload up to an orbit of about 250 miles. The price
per pound of Pegasus is still in the $800 - $1000 per pound range, but in order
to pay for itself a spacecraft must be able to launch a payload in at least the
$50 - $100 per pound price range.
The current hope for the future lies in the use of
totally reusable spacecraft; this is best done by using a single-stage-to-orbit
(SSTO) vehicle. At this time the various agencies are testing various models of
SSTOs including the DC-X, the X-33, and the X-34. The DC-X has flown six times
as of this date launching vertically up to altitudes of about 6000 feet and
maneuvering 300 feet horizontally and then landing vertically. Astronaut Pete
Conrad has been a key figure working for McDonnell Douglas to get this
technology into space by small steps. The other semi-legendary individual
working on this launch vehicle was USAF Colonel Pete Worden who was promptly
sent to the Pentagon and up to Space Command after his successes with the DC-X
model. Hopefully, this technology will show some promise and be able to reduce
the per-pound cost of launching a payload. Once this cost is reduced to the $50
-$100 per pound range then space will open and real exploration can begin. |