Utilizing the Space
Shuttle Columbia for a lunar enterprise is
envisioned to require a two step process. First,
re-engineering of the processes (both on and off-site)
involved in preparing Columbia for re-flight in
the context of a focused cargo delivery role. The second
phase would re-engineer some of the vehicle systems and
components themselves to allow lower levels of servicing,
test time and repair. This would allow the Columbia
work force (across the program) to achieve greater
effectiveness by launching it more often (i.e., without
requiring added engineering, program control, overtime,
shift work, facilities and infrastructure in general).
The Space Shuttle Columbia
can be operated today at a flight rate of three flights
per year. This has been repeatedly demonstrated on
Shuttle Orbiters. The highest flight rate attained by any
one Orbiter in one year is five. This occurred when Discovery
flew four commercial missions deploying a total of twelve
spacecraft (plus a fifth DOD deployment mission) from
August, 1984 to August, 1985. With one exception (the STS
68/SRL-02 flight in 1994), all Shuttle Orbiter flights
have required extra work to disassemble the payload
accommodations from the previous mission and assembly of
unique payload accommodations for the next flight. With a
single mission requirement for the newly designated
Orbiter, i.e., upper stage deployment in low earth orbit
(LEO), there would be no need to conduct extensive aft
flight deck work, nor expensive and time consuming
payload bay and mid body reconfiguration.
With a focused cargo
delivery role, Columbia’s on-orbit stay time
requirement (by the payload) should be drastically
reduced to only hours, not days or weeks - resulting in
further launch-to-launch time savings. The American
people and the marketplace would be anxiously waiting for
the next delivery (i.e., new exploration opportunities
and the prospect of lower public access costs).
Also, the Shuttle flight
software development, Shuttle mission design and crew
training processes become limited in scope and more
affordable (for the customer reimbursing the Shuttle
program) if accounted for using the marginal cost
approach.
Additionally, since the
deployment mission is relatively simple to conduct, only
a small flight crew would be needed. There would be few,
if any, mid-deck lockers to build up and install, fewer
crew seats - the total focus would be on delivery of
lunar packages for the benefit of Americans. Again, some
of these will be paying customers as visitors to theme
parks, planetariums or science centers, some as investors
in a business venture, while others as students or
professors in academia anxiously awaiting his or her
opportunity to explore and interact with the space
environment.
Several forces have led
the Shuttle program to manifest unique payload missions
only and thus incur the ensuing Orbiter work to
accommodate them. First, we no longer see commercial
deployments from Space Shuttle Orbiters. Additionally,
with the advent of Space Station operations, unique
science missions are best suited to be performed there
rather than on dedicated Shuttle flights. As a result of
this and the recent change in orbit inclination for the
ISSA, the Shuttle program now has surplus launch capacity
with its Orbiter Columbia. This surplus comes not
only in the form of an Orbiter - but also as facility
space and engineering talent. Further definition of
national space launch policy is required, however, to
take full advantage of this surplus as an opportunity for
American free enterprise. The nation now has a choice to
eliminate the "excess" or provide them
with a relevant framework to once again serve the
American public.
