‘Another Shuttle? Not Now’

Your editorial (Aug. 12), “Another Shuttle? Not Now,” opposing the production of a new space shuttle orbiter, is another example of The Times’ editorial board’s remarkable mix of technological ignorance and cowardice. If the National Aeronautics and Space Adminisration had developed the mind-set in the 1960s that you hoped the Reagan Administration would take in the 1980s, the United States would not have a space program at all.

If you had studied the matter, instead of acting on your anti-technological prejudices and fear of anything difficult and uncertain, you would have discovered the following:

1--Many of the current generation of military and commercial satellites will not fit onto existing expendable launch vehicles. They must be launched on the shuttle. There is no alternative.

2--Expendable boosters do not have the lift capability of the shuttle. Many heavy payloads, not just those associated with the space station, must be launched via the shuttle.

3--Many satellites, especially military ones, are placed into polar orbits. These must be launched from Vandenberg, so that they do not pass over inhabited areas. Launching these from Florida means that the folks in Washington, New York, or Pittsburgh might one day have several tons of satellite, booster, and explosive fuel dropped among them.

4--The shuttle is generally deemed more reliable than expendable boosters, even with present problems.

One can always make a case for using mature technology instead of advanced technology. The advanced stuff is always more expensive and more trouble at the outset. However, the more mature expendable boosters were once advanced technology and were subject to the same arguments that you made against the shuttle. Would you have eliminated them 20 years ago?

STEPHEN A. MAAS

Long Beach