AF Calls for New Shuttle, More Expendable Rockets

The Air Force’s top space official said Wednesday that the loss of the shuttle Challenger has created a national emergency that cannot be cured merely by shifting military space payloads to expendable rockets.

Edward C. Aldridge Jr. told a joint hearing of two Senate subcommittees that the Air Force supports not only additional expendable launching vehicles but replacement of the Challenger as well.

‘National Emergency’

“Even with additional (expendable launching vehicles), it is not clear that the current three-orbiter fleet can meet the demands” of both NASA and the Department of Defense, Aldridge, the undersecretary of the Air Force, said. “Our view of this is that it’s a national emergency.”

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which once fought to prevent the Air Force from obtaining expendable rockets that might divert military payloads from the shuttle, endorsed them Wednesday.

“The right thing for us to do is to have a balance between shuttle capabilities and (expendable launching vehicle) capabilities,” said Richard H. Truly, a Navy rear admiral and former shuttle astronaut who was appointed as NASA’s shuttle chief after the Jan. 28 Challenger explosion.

No Flights for a Year

Truly said, as he has before, that NASA expects at least a year’s down time before any shuttle flies again.

When the flights are resumed, Aldridge said, the Pentagon will exercise its right to bump other cargo off the shuttle in order to reduce an accumulated backlog of 10 military payloads.

If the down time is two years, there will be 21 backed-up military payloads, he said.

“Civilian and commercial payloads will suffer,” Aldridge testified. “We have no alternative the first few years.”

Aldridge said he wants more than the 10 already approved Titan 34D-7 rockets. Administration sources have said that Congress might be asked to double the number, at an extra cost of $2.5 billion.