Panel Urges Cheaper Rocket System to Replace Shuttle

Against the uncertain backdrop of a presidential transition, the Bush Administration on Thursday proposed a major new space initiative intended to develop a simpler, cheaper rocket system to replace the aging fleet of space shuttles.

The proposal, developed by a task force of the National Space Council, calls for the design of a new, more efficient, expendable rocket that could lift medium-sized payloads of between 20,000 and 50,000 pounds at less than half the cost of launching aboard the reusable shuttle.

The task force said the nation’s current launch system, which relies heavily on the space shuttle, “is fragile, not as reliable or safe as it could be, more expensive than it need be and inefficient in its operations.” The new rocket should replace the shuttle fleet by early in the 21st Century, the task force said.

In perhaps its most controversial recommendation, the panel, headed by former Air Force Secretary Edward C. Aldridge, said responsibility for development of the new rocket should be vested in the Defense Department, specifically the Air Force.

That proposal is likely to draw opposition from officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, although Aldridge said Thursday that NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin has endorsed much, but not all, of his group’s report. Goldin had no immediate comment.

The fate of the task force’s proposal is far from certain. Past efforts to overhaul the nation’s space launching system, a combination of the shuttle fleet and expendable rockets that deliver commercial and military satellites into Earth orbit and beyond, have met with strong resistance in Congress, largely over issues of cost and turf. One source speculated that turning the project over to the Air Force could increase its chances of getting funded.

The incoming Administration of Bill Clinton, meanwhile, has yet to signal the direction it will take in rewriting national space policy. In fact, some members of the Clinton transition team have prepared a plan to scrap the Space Council itself, which was reconstituted four years ago by President Bush.

The Aldridge panel did not estimate the cost of developing a new rocket system--which could be designed to carry people as well as cargo. But it noted that NASA now spends about 35% of its $14-billion annual budget on the shuttle, launching about seven or eight missions a year. When the shuttle was first sold to Congress in the early 1970s, NASA engineers predicted that they could launch the spacecraft 50 or more times a year.

Since the shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, killing seven crew members, critics have argued that the orbiters are too complex and unreliable to form the backbone of the nation’s space launch system. In response to the accident, the government again began launching satellites aboard expendable rockets. But the current generation of rockets, based largely on ballistic missiles designed decades ago, is considered too inefficient to compete effectively in the worldwide commercial launch market.

The new rocket, to be known as the Spacelifter, would be built by private industry under contract to a single government authority. The technology would be made available to the aerospace industry, which could use it to develop commercial rockets that could more successfully compete with foreign launch concerns, such as the European consortium, Arianespace, Aldridge said.

According to the Aldridge panel, the Spacelifter should be able to put a payload into orbit at a cost of about $7,000 a pound. The Titan IV, the largest American rocket now in use, has a launch cost of about $16,000 a pound. Shuttle launch costs are even higher, depending on the accounting method used for a particular mission.