However, Mark's enthusiasm for the Shuttle was such that he had insisted on a structural spares program that would keep the assembly lines open. Had this not been done, it might have been prohibitively expensive to reestablish those assembly lines to build Endeavour to replace Challenger.
Speculation regarding counterfactual history is often wildly optimistic, but what would have happened if Mark had not been able to keep the assembly lines open that later allowed Endeavour to be built? NASA would have been faced with the prospect of continuing Shuttle operations with a three-orbiter fleet.
From the beginning of the program, a four-orbiter fleet was considered to be the minimum for a viable system. When Columbia was lost in 2003, there was no possibility of building a replacement, and the decision was made to keep the Shuttle system operational only as necessary to launch components of the International Space Station.
So, picture a situation in 1986 in which Challenger cannot be replaced, the DoD and CIA are bailing out of the Shuttle program, and Space Station Freedom exists only on paper… paper that keeps getting more expensive. The decision might well have been to return the Shuttle system to flight operations only to fly out the inventory of classified satellites that had to be launched on the Shuttle, and then retire the Shuttle in the early 1990s.
As it was, there were several annual budget cycles in which the Space Station Freedom project came within a few Congressional votes of being terminated, and the Space Station was the long-delayed second phase of the Space Transportation System (how Shuttle missions got the STS designation). If STS Phase I (the Shuttle) had been destined for the dustbin, what could have been the prospects for STS Phase II (the Space Station)? Not very good.
With the loss of Challenger, no replacement for it, and a paper Space Station Freedom of rising cost and doubtful utility, US human spaceflight would have faced a reboot, if indeed it would have survived at all. Certainly the Space Station components could have been designed without much fuss to be launched on expendable launch vehicles, and certainly it would have been delayed as funding the development of a manned spacecraft to replace the Shuttle would have been the higher priority.
In this policy environment, the Personnel Launch System featuring the HL-20, the forerunner of the Dream Chaser now in development, would have been the obvious solution, and any ideas of a grandiose "Shuttle II" would have been shelved. The PLS could have been developed more quickly, whereas it would have been difficult for "Shuttle II" to avoid repeating the economic mistake of "Shuttle I."
1 comment:
Wow there is so much to add to this - I have been threatening to write a book for decades...
As a Lt at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex I was able to go down the road to the "Aluminum U" where they had some amazing speakers. In about 1980 Hans Mark spoke and I saw him - a big part of the discussion that I remember was the Shuttle tiles that he partly blamed himself for.
Later, as a Capt stationed at the Johnson Space Center, I worked on various military payloads such as Teal Ruby (AFP-888). The sad part was watching the AF folks, representing two different large payloads, come all the way from LA and argue at NASA about who did what. Why they could not have worked it out among themselves and come to JSC with a united front still surprises me.
About then, the AF bought maybe 10 additional Titan rockets to fly some residual payloads - while they were converting over to all Shuttle operations. Thank goodness some AF guys rammed that purchase through, it came in handy when the Challenger accident shut down the Shuttle.
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