Chapter 2 by the Non-Military Viking Rocket
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The international trade in launch services : the effects of U.S. laws, policies and practices on its development Fenema, H.P. van Citation Fenema, H. P. van. (1999, September 30). The international trade in launch services : the effects of U.S. laws, policies and practices on its development. H.P. van Fenema, Leiden. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/44957 Version: Not Applicable (or Unknown) Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the License: Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/44957 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/44957 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Fenema, H.P. van Title: The international trade in launch services : the effects of U.S. laws, policies and practices on its development Issue Date: 1999-09-30 CHAPTER2 United States law, policies and practices 2.1 The emergence of the US private launch industry 2.1.1 Law, policies and practices in the pre-space shuttle era (1961-1982) 2.1.1.1 Launch vehicle development in the 1960s: DOD, NASA and the private manufacturers President Eisenhower's military experience in World War II and his perception of the intentions of the Soviet Union in the post-war period made him a firm supporter of the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM's) which could act as a deterrent to nuclear attack through its promise to deliver warheads to targets thousands of miles away. He also supported the development of reconnaissance satellites which would make the U. S. safe from surprise attacks. Thus, in the years after his inauguration in 1952 the U.S. Air Force (USAF) developed the first ICBM, the Atlas (testfired in 1955 and operational in 1959). The Titan and -medium range- Thor missiles followed in the early sixties. At the Army's weapons development and missile center, Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, Wernher von Braun and his team of mostly German engineers developed a missile, based on World War II V2 technology, later called the Jupiter. And the Navy, in 1956, developed the Polaris, a solid-fueled IRBM for its submarines. Finally, the USAF was allowed to develop the Minuteman, a light, solid-fueled ICBM. At the same time, the attractive concept of having reconnaissance satellites in low earth orbit led to a highly secret development program, consisting of the manufacture by Lockheed of a satellite armed with cameras, and of a two-stage rocket, known as the Agena. 1 Separate from these military efforts, the US government approved a civilian project to study the upper atmosphere with a scientific satellite, to be launched 1. See Roger D. Launius, NASA: A history of the U.S. civil space program, USA (1994) hereinafter referred to as Launius, Chapter 1, passim. 35 Chapter 2 by the non-military Viking rocket. Project 'Vanguard', as it was known, the U. S. contribution to the International Geophysical Year 1957 I 1958 of the International Council of Scientific Unions, 2 was meant to enhance national prestige, not by its scientific performance, but simply by its mere presence in orbit. (An important additional goal for the U.S. government was the establishment of the precedent of free access to space, a prerequisite for having reconnaissance satellites in orbit without the risk of legal or military challenges on the part of the Soviet Union. To minimize the risk of such a challenge at the outset, it was important to have a non-threatening civil satellite in orbit first. The alternative, the Explorer proposal, submitted by the Army's Redstone Arsenal, would have involved an adapted ballistic missile launch vehicle, the Reds tone or Jupiter. This was not acceptable). 3 In the mean time, the Russians, with the assistance of their 'own' German V2 engineers, had also embarked upon the development of missiles. Unlike the Americans they concentrated their efforts immediately after the war on increasing the power and range of the rockets; this determination paid off and brought them ahead of their American competitors in the ICBM/long-range missile field. 4 The two American projects (secret reconnaissance and public Vanguard) did not get off the ground, at least not before Sputnik I shook U.S. confidence in its technological superiority. There was a lack of focus, a lack of urgency and therefore a lack of money to really get things moving the way Eisenhower had planned it. Sputnik I had a 'Pearl Harbor effect'5 on American public opinion, not the least because of the apparent disparity of launch capabilities between the Soviet Union, which was able to launch nearly 200 pounds into orbit, and the U.S., planning to lift 3. 5 pounds with the Vanguard program. 6 For people around the world, as one commentator observed, Sputnik epitomized the double nature of launchers: the same vehicle which had put a scientific satellite in orbit could, with some technical modifications and if associated with nuclear warheads, become the focus of a new and revulutionary weapon system. 7 2. In 1952, the ICSU had decided to expand a polar research project to encompass a study of the upper atmosphere with the help of rockets with instrument packages attached; and in October 1954 the Council had adopted a resolution calling for the launch of artificial satellites during the IGY to help map the earth's surface. 3. See Launius, supra note 1, at 22-23. 4. See John Krige & Arturo Russo, Europe in space 1960- 1973, ESA SP-1172, Netherlands (1994}, hereinafter referred to as ESA SP-1172, at 6-8. 5. See Launius, supra note 1, at 25. 6. Sputnik II, launched on November 3, 1957, which carried Laika, a dog, into space, weighed even 1.120 pounds and stayed in orbit for almost 200 days, ibid. 7. See Lorenza Sebesta, The availability of American launchers and Europe's decision 'to go-it- 36 United States law, policies and practices The good thing about the event was that it "created an illusion of a technological gap and provided the impetus for increased spending for aerospace endeavors, technical and scientific programs, and the chartering of new federal agencies to manage air and space research and development. " 8 In other words, the crisis brought urgency, focus and money to the U.S. space effort. And it led to the creation of NASA as the agency that would coordinate U.S. civilian space activities. An additional positive side effect was of a legal/political nature. The fact that Sputnik I (and II) had orbited the earth, overflying the territories of many sovereign nations without provoking a single protest, had, in the U.S. view, established the legal precedent for free access to and freedom of space which the U.S. administration had sought to obtain for its reconnaissance satellites. 9 The Soviet launch thus cleared the way for the previously rejected Army project, and in January 1958 a four-stage launch vehicle, the Juno 1, developed by the team of Wernher von Braun on the basis of a modified ballistic missile, placed Explorer! in orbit. And Vanguard 1 followed less than 2 months later. NASA's charter gave the agency both a research job and operational responsibilities. It would not only design and build launch vehicles and satellites, but it would also launch them, track them, acquire data from them, and interpret the data. 10 The first NASA 10-year plan was presented to Congress in 1960. It called for a greatly expanded program: manned flight, scientific satellites, lunar probes, and, for the launch of all these spacecraft, a family of launch vehicles, including very large ones to cater for the heavier payloads. In addition to the existing Redstone, Thor and Atlas vehicles, NASA plans included (further) development of the Scout booster for smaller payloads, Centaur (originally a Department of Defense project), an upper stage for lunar and planetary missions, and Saturn, also for bigger pay loads. Where the Scout became a highly reliable small booster11 it was particularly in the area of heavy lift vehicles that the U. S. felt the need to catch up with the Soviet Union. The efforts of the NASA engineers in the early sixties brought modifications to existing missile derived boosters such as the Thor-Agena which could launch a 2,200 pound satellite into orbit, the Delta, a very successful family of launch vehicles for various medium-sized payloads, and the Titan, developed in the alone', ESA HSR-18, Netherlands (1996), hereinafter referred to as ESA HSR-18, at 8. 8. See Launius, supra note 1, at 25. 9. Id. at 27-28. 10. See Frank W. Anderson, Orders of Magnitude- A history of NACA and NASA, 1915-1980, (The NASA History Series, NASA SP-4403) USA (1981), hereinafter referred to as Orders of Magnitude, at 22. 11. It was first launched on July 1, 1960, and soon became a 'workhorse', which could place a 330 pound satellite into earth orbit; by the end of 1968 it had a launch success rate of 85%, see Launius, supra note 1, at 44. 37 Chapter 2 mid-sixties as the heavy-lift launcher of choice. (The Saturn would be developed by the von Braun team exclusively for the Apollo project) At the same time the reliability of the launchers needed to be improved: by December 1959, of the 37 satellite launches attempted, less than one- third had actually attained orbit. So NASA imposed new and rigorous standards on all of its products and got DOD, whose vehicles they used, to impose those same standards on all contractors and component manufacturers.