Scientists Launch Quiet Resistance to Space Station

As it gears up to ask Congress for billions of dollars for construction of its proposed space station, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is encountering growing opposition from scientists and engineers who believe that the station is too complex and so ambitious it will wipe out scores of other important space science projects.

The criticism of the space station--one of NASA’s principal programs for the late 20th and early 21st centuries--comes from a variety of sources, but perhaps most surprisingly from a special committee the space agency set up to advise it on the project.

Most of the concerns stem from the fact that the space station design dates from before the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger last year and does not reflect the greatly reduced capabilities NASA faces in the years ahead.

Shuttle Behind Schedule

By the time the shuttle starts flying again sometime next year, it will be 90 launches behind schedule, according to NASA’s deputy administrator. Yet the station now planned by NASA--scaled back slightly because of soaring costs--will require 11 flights by the shuttle to reach permanent manned capability, and that represents nearly half the number of missions completed during the entire history of the shuttle program.

Since space science is No. 3 in the pecking order for room aboard the shuttle, trailing Defense Department and commercial cargoes, the demands of the space station project will severely affect capacity for other space science projects, according to many scientists both inside and outside NASA.

Furthermore, it will take so long to complete the station that by the time it is fully operational in the latter part of the 1990s the United States will be nearly two decades behind the Soviet Union in knowledge that can be gleaned from a long-term manned space presence.

Dissatisfaction Voiced

Several top scientists are expected to reflect similar views during a hearing Friday in Washington by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Much of the dissatisfaction with the station design is voiced quietly by space experts who fear that their jobs with NASA contractors would be jeopardized if they spoke out publicly, and several agreed to be interviewed only on condition they not be identified.

But one exception is Oliver Harwood, an engineer with Rockwell International who has designed an alternative version of the station. His backers say Harwood’s design would be far simpler to build than the one planned by NASA.

Moreover, NASA’s own advisory committee on the scientific uses of the space station sharply criticized the program recently, contending that the design of the station ignores the practical limitations placed on the space agency by the explosion of the Challenger. The committee believes that the station should be redesigned so that it can be boosted into orbit with fewer shuttle missions--or better yet by an unmanned super rocket--several years ahead of the current schedule.

A Key Concern

“We’re all very unhappy with the present development of the space station,” said Michael Wiskerchen of Stanford University, a member of the committee and a former NASA executive.

A key concern is that the station will become a monstrous drain on talents and funds, ending up--like the shuttle--so consuming that there is little left over for other projects.

“The shuttle ate everybody’s lunch,” Wiskerchen said.

Stanford Prof. Peter Banks, the committee’s chairman, said in an interview that he is mystified at NASA’s “myopia” in failing to consider the Challenger explosion in its space station planning.

The advisory committee’s conclusions, released after a stormy session between committee members and NASA officials at Stanford last month, stunned the space agency. Several officials were furious because they fear that a divided front could jeopardize congressional support for the station.

“It generated a lot of steam,” said Banks, who has since resigned from the chairmanship.

Not all the members of the committee agreed on the conclusions.

“If we wish to see an operational space station in our professional lifetime, the only option is to continue on our present course,” Robert Naumann, chief scientist for the space station, told his fellow committee members. “Unless we all pull together on this, I’m afraid we will wind up with nothing.”

‘Heavy Launch Vehicle’

The committee recommended that NASA redesign the station so that its major components could be housed in one module--instead of the four included in the current design--that could be launched on a single mission using a proposed “heavy launch vehicle.”

That recommendation, which is only one of several changes urged by the committee, was viewed by NASA officials as absurd because such a launch vehicle has not been funded.

Several NASA officials said committee members were naive to think the agency could win funding from Congress if it equivocates on the design at this point. And any design must be such that it can be launched by the shuttle, now the only launch vehicle NASA has.

NASA Deputy Administrator Dale Myers said in an interview in Los Angeles that the demand for a heavy launch vehicle comes from the Strategic Defense Initiative, not NASA, and thus the future of such a rocket will be determined by Defense Department needs.

‘An Evolutionary Program’

“If there’s no heavy launch vehicle, what do you do with this big can?” Myers said in reference to the large, single module recommended by the advisory committee.

Myers, who has bounced back and forth between NASA and the aerospace industry, described the space station as “an evolutionary program.”

“You put up elements as you go,” he said. “Over a long period of time (probably at least two years) it’s a lot of flights. Eleven flights to put ourselves into a state of manned capability. That’s not too complex. . . . I’m happy with the design of the station.”

Even in its scaled back form, the station will be expensive. The first phase, which includes four habitable modules, is now projected to cost $10.5 billion, but that does not include the cost of shuttle missions to build the station, or components supplied by other nations. Furthermore, the biggest cost of the program will be operations and support once the station is built, and that hasn’t yet been calculated, according to Wiskerchen. Those figures are never included in cost estimates for long-range NASA programs, he said.

Alternative Design Backed

Unhappiness with NASA’s design for the station and its projected costs in dollars and resources has compelled many scientists and engineers to back an innovative design by Harwood, an engineer with 43 years experience in aerospace who has worked on a number of key projects, including Skylab and other major space structures.

The fact that they would support a completely new design just as NASA is trying to sell its program to Congress is one measure of their dissatisfaction with the space station, several said.

Harwood is one of those creative, unsung heroes who once helped make the U.S. space program the world leader. He has worked for several major aerospace firms. His plan is not endorsed by his own company, Rockwell International, although it has won praise by many engineers who have seen it.

Radically Different

Harwood said his own company will not support it, and neither will any other NASA contractor, because it is radically different from the design sought by the space agency.

“The contractor’s attitude is find out what the customer wants, and get it,” Harwood said. “The contractors always say what NASA wants them to say.”

Harwood, like several others, said there is no avenue for men like him to make their views known.

“I just reject that completely,” responded Myers, the chief deputy to NASA Administrator James Fletcher. “I’ve been on both sides of the game, and NASA has always accepted the creative activities of different companies and different individuals.”

Myers, a former corporate vice president of Rockwell International, said there are lots of men like Harwood who “always wonder why the other guys are screwing it up so much.”

‘Ollie’s Project’

There are many times during the design process when engineers can influence the direction a project is going, Myers said.

Be that as it may, Harwood and two fellow engineers at Rockwell, John E. Krieter and Donald E. Koch, believe so strongly in “Ollie’s project” that they have gone public, urging members of Congress and NASA to take it seriously.

Several engineers who have seen the design described it as brilliant in its simplicity, building on pure geometrical patterns of uncommon strength. Harwood believes that it could be functioning in orbit after only four flights of the shuttle, compared to the 11 flights envisioned for NASA’s design.

“I thought this was one of the most elegant things I had ever seen,” said one NASA engineer who is quietly circulating the plan at headquarters and various NASA facilities.

‘Simple’ Plan

His only concern, the engineer said, is that “Ollie’s plan is so simple people may label it superficial.”

The design was reviewed officially at a high level in NASA, according to records made available to The Times, but NASA decided to stick with its own plan. In a letter to Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), who submitted the plan to NASA at Krieter’s request, John F. Murphy, NASA’s assistant administrator for legislative affairs, said the plan “speaks well for his (Harwood’s) design talents and structural expertise.” But he went on to say that there are “many design approaches” that would work for the space station, and NASA would stay with the present design.

“They’ve already made up their minds,” Harwood said.

At the heart of Harwood’s design lie two fundamental criteria: The space station will have to change radically over the years, because demands will change as its use is refined through experience, and the station should be built with a minimum of different components--his uses six--so that it will be able to grow gracefully.

“After you get it up there is when you want to design it,” he said.

Used Toothpicks

Harwood began designing a model of his station three years ago using toothpicks as the major structural components.

The strongest geometrical structure, he said, is an equilateral triangle, so he began by gluing the ends of three toothpicks in a triangular pattern.

Following the design concept made famous by Buckminster Fuller in his geodesic dome, Harwood added other toothpicks to the pattern as his first model grew from a triangle to a tetrahedron, a triangular enclosure with four faces. He found he could make his model grow indefinitely by just adding more toothpicks and building more triangles.

The result was a model of considerable strength, because triangles by their very nature incorporate the cross-bracing that must be added to cubic or rectangular structures.

“It’s the simplest structure you can build to enclose volume,” one NASA engineer said.

New Modules Could Be Added

In a space station, the toothpicks would be replaced by either pressurized modules or struts, so new modules could be added at any time in whatever quantities needed. The corners of the triangles would be spherical nodes that would also serve as anchor posts for such things as solar panels and antennas.

At some point, the core of the assembly could be wrapped, thus creating a warehouse in space served by dozens of pressurized modules.

“You can live with this for centuries if you have to,” Harwood said.

Harwood has since graduated from toothpicks to small canisters that he built in his home workshop.

He plans to continue pushing his design.

Scientists Worried

Meanwhile, scientists worry over the state of affairs that has left the United States so far behind its chief rival in space exploration.

“For almost a decade into the future the U.S. must talk about its manned space station in terms of hopes and expectations, while the Soviets and their colleagues will be presenting facts and results from their own program,” according to the critical report by NASA’s advisory committee on the scientific uses of a space station. That delay led the committee to push for redesigning the station so that it could be deployed earlier.

The report, while strongly endorsing the construction of a space station, warns that current plans, “written in a more realistic atmosphere of budget constraints and (shuttle) availability, now aim at providing an initial research capability by 1996 with a strong capability developing later, perhaps in 1997.”

The report warns:

“Each year of delay in the arrival of Space Station means an additional year of enduring a withered space research program with weakened capability for continuing our former traditions of international excellence and leadership.”