The commercial consortium operating the NASA Space Shuttle moved a tiny bit last week towards bringing new commercial customers back aboard the winged ships, a policy ended in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger accident. And while the move was only to identify future commercial payloads, many in the space business community fear that it's only a matter of time before a serious proposal is made in Washington to bring commercial satellites back into the Shuttle's realm.
The contract, issued last Friday by United Space Alliance, joins the
Lockheed Martin-Rockwell-Boeing consortium with the Hampton, Va. firm
Spacetec. Spacetec is to "identify candidate payloads" for flight on the
Shuttle, and provide comprehensive "products, services, and expertise to a
wide range of both domestic and international payload customers." The two
firms will work together to develop mission models "and competitive mission
capabilities and pricing policies."
From 1981 to 1986 the Shuttle fleet carried commercial satellites and
platforms, a major reason for its development. But following the
destruction of the orbiter Challenger in 1986, U.S. policy was modified by
the Reagan administration, dropping commercial craft from the Shuttle's
manifest and mandating the use of the reusable vehicles only when its
unique requirements were needed, or only when the Shuttle was needed for
national security military missions. In 1991, the military in effect left
the Shuttle for the Titan IV booster, citing the Shuttle's high cost and,
at the time, difficulty in meeting launch schedules. In the six years
since, the Shuttle's launch history has markedly improved, and NASA as well
as the USA group have actively sought military business for the Shuttles.
One new military Shuttle flight, a mapping mission set for 2001, was cut
from the FY98 Defense budget.
Commercial launch providers both in the U.S. and abroad have long
complained about using the Space Shuttle for commercial missions, saying
that the U.S. taxpayer was in effect subsidizing the vehicle's cost- which
left commercial companies unable to compete against. With NASA under
increasing pressure to commercialize the Shuttles, freeing up budget
dollars now spent for operational cost, it seems USA may well believe that
the only way to make a Shuttle "buck" is to return to the commercial space
world.
