WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- This is the first in a weekly series of UPI articles examining the programs of countries involved in the quest to achieve a presence in space.
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In a corner of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, a pair of tiny spaceships stands docked together. The larger, silver craft is a back-up Apollo space capsule, like the kind that ferried nine American missions to the moon, beginning nearly 35 years ago. The smaller, pea-soup-green companion is a Russian Soyuz.
The exhibit at the world's most popular museum signifies a remarkable cooperative effort that took place in July 1975, temporarily uniting the world's two superpowers and rivals in a peaceful spaceflight.
Both spacecraft, one might think, are mere relics of the Cold War, of the technologically primitive space programs of the past, supplanted by the winged space shuttles and now of interest only to historians and museumgoers.
Don't bet on it. The Soyuz, ancient though it may be, remains in service to this day. In fact, it is keeping the supply line and crew rotation going for the International Space Station. Without it, station missions would have had to be abandoned following the Shuttle Columbia disaster.
The lesson has not been lost on NASA. The agency may resurrect the Apollo capsule, triggering an extraordinary attempt to supplement -- and perhaps even replace -- the nation's aging and troubled shuttle fleet using a technologically inferior machine of the past, the capsule, to rescue America's future in space.
Surprising, but this new look at capsules actually began last fall. NASA had begun a program called the Space Launch Initiative. Its goal was divining a shuttle-sized shuttle replacement. Study contracts had been let to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and other industry contractors. What rapidly emerged from the study was that NASA needed a large, fully reusable spaceship that could do all of the things the shuttles could do, but in more advanced, safer and more flexible ways. The main user of such a space machine was thought to be NASA itself, so NASA's needs -- such as space stations and hauling large payloads or probes into Earth orbit -- were primary.
What also became clear to space agency and industry planners, however, was the price tag for such a big machine also would be big -- possibly tens of billions of dollars. Even friendly voices in Congress were telling NASA to expect no such largess.
Enter the newly minted NASA administrator, former Navy Secretary Sean O'Keefe. As soon as he came aboard the space agency, O'Keefe ordered a review of the emerging space transportation options facing NASA, including how to bolster the aging shuttles. He ordered a review of how to extend the fleet's useful life to perhaps 20 more years of launches and missions. He also looked at the SLI project in terms of how long it really would take to field the replacement ships as well as get the Bush administration or Congress to pony up the costs.
The result was a change of course. In November 2002, O'Keefe announced what NASA called an Integrated Space Transportation Plan, in which funds would be directed to three major areas:
--A new program to modernize the shuttles, called the Service Life Extension Program, would attempt to keep the fleet flying well into the 21st Century.
--An entirely new spaceship called the Orbital Space Plane or OSP would be developed to take astronauts back and forth to the space station. A small craft that could carry four astronauts and ride atop an expendable rocket, the OSP would reduce the nation's dependency upon the shuttle, thereby reducing the number of shuttle flights and freeing up the much larger vehicle for cargo trips.
--A redirected SLI called the Next Generation Launch Technology program. Like the SLI before it, the NGLT would invest in technologies that could be assembled together to form a shuttle-sized shuttle replacement, but stretched out into the future. In that way, a fully reusable spaceship would carry the more advanced technologies possibly available in the decades ahead, thereby lowering risk and increasing the flexibility of the replacement vehicle. Meanwhile, the OSP would fly alongside the shuttles, beginning in about 10 to 12 years.
Early in 2003, NASA set some basic requirements for the OSP. It would need to be capable of hauling at least four astronauts to the space station. A version could form the basis of a rescue vehicle that could be docked to the station for extended periods. Compared to the Shuttle fleet, the OSP would be safer, more operable, and would come available no later than 2012.
Whatever shape it would take, the OSP would have to be launched aboard one of the existing U.S. expendable rockets, such as Boeing's Delta IV or Lockheed Martin's Atlas V. Also, to keep costs low, it did not have to be reusable at all.
However, NASA's requirements did not spell out what form the OSP would take. It could be a winged glider, like the shuttle, or a wingless lifting body that could fly through the atmosphere upon its return to Earth. Or, it could be capsule-shaped, like the old Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo spacecraft -- though few analysts at the time thought a capsule stood much of a chance of becoming the OSP, given the winged shuttle's 20+ year history.
Then, on Feb. 1, 2003, Columbia was destroyed while returning seven astronauts from orbit. The future of the fleet suddenly was in doubt. As the Columbia investigation evolved, the prospects of flying the remaining three orbiters another 20 years seemed increasingly unlikely. That left the OSP.
Suddenly, the idea of a space capsule as the primary U.S. means of sending astronauts back and forth into space seemed somewhat less outrageous. The nation had built and flown capsules for more than two decades, so their capabilities and technologies were well known. Also, a capsule would be cheaper than a winged or lifting type of craft to design and operate.
Another advantage: installing a space capsule atop one of the Delta or Atlas boosters would be simpler than integrating a winged shape.
This thinking led to a dramatic conclusion: Instead of building an entirely new space capsule, why not go back to the future, so to speak -- why not bring back the Apollo space capsule itself?
That ancient veteran of lunar missions could return to service faster, could be quickly adapted to replacement missions of the shuttles and might be flexible enough to accommodate a whole series of different Apollo shapes for various other missions -- possibly a return to the moon itself.
So NASA quietly embarked on a study to see if Apollo could perform the missions planned for the OSP. Last March 13 and 14, veterans of the Apollo era were enlisted to discuss the idea. From a base at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, former Apollo astronauts John Young, Vance Brand and others reviewed the details.
Their report, released internally and not to the public, showed a 21st-century-version Apollo could indeed perform nearly all of the OSP requirements. The document also suggested a new Apollo could be comprised of new materials and more advanced computers, so the only real connection between the original capsule and a newer version would be its distinctive conical shape. Under its skin, the new Apollo would be a high-tech version of its older cousin. It could fly to space aboard the newer rockets, not needing the big boost from the old Saturns that took the original Apollo aloft. And new Apollos could become the centerpiece of a capsule assembly line with different versions for different types of missions, keeping aerospace workers employed longer and making it easier to alter designs as the new Apollo flew more missions.
As the group of contractors studying OSP options got moving, suddenly space capsules -- including a new Apollo -- looked like the possible savior to NASA in the years ahead. Whether Apollo-shaped machines or some version of another capsule shape, they might be the fastest and cheapest way to reduce or eliminate reliance on the shuttle, once the remaining orbiters returned to space after the Columbia accident.
NASA administrator O'Keefe, asked by United Press International what he thought of the idea of a new Apollo-style spaceship, replied: "I don't rule out any direction that OSP might take. If there is a consensus that a capsule is the way to go, and it can perform the (OSP) requirements, that would be fine."
He seemed somewhat skeptical that it should be a remade Apollo. "I'm not sure why we'd want to do that, because you could always just buy some Soyuz from the Russians," he said, but added he was open to it.
The final OSP design is to be selected next year. In the light of the Columbia Accident Board report, the quicker a shuttle replacement could be developed, the report said, the better for the nation.
What should the replacement be? Perhaps a visit to NASM's Apollo-Soyuz exhibit might help the designers.
(Editors: UPI photo WAX2003091101 is available)
