The Space Shuttle Decision; NASA's Search for a Reusable Space Vehicle: NASA SP-4221

[6], xiv, 470 pages. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Thomas A. Heppenheimer (born Jan. 1, 1947; died Sept. 9, 2015) was a major space advocate and researcher in planetary science, aerospace engineering, and celestial mechanics. His books are on the recommended reading list of the National Space Society. Thomas A. Heppenheimer earned a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, and was an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has written extensively on aerospace, business and government, and the history of technology. He has written some 300 published articles. He also has written twelve hardcover books. Three of them—Colonies in Space, Toward Distant Suns, and The Man-Made Sun—have been alternate selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Under contract to NASA, Heppenheimer has written that agency's authorized history of the space shuttle. NASA SP-4221, The Space Shuttle Decision that explains the Shuttle's origins and early development. In addition to internal NASA discussions, this work details the debates in the late 1960s and early 1970s among policymakers in Congress, the Air Force, and the Office of Management and Budget over the roles and technical designs of the Shuttle. Examining the interplay of these organizations with sometimes conflicting goals, the author not only explains how this space launch vehicle came into being, but also how politics can interact with science, technology, national security, and economics in national government. This volume has been selected as an Outstanding Academic Title. This is part of the NASA History Series. The Space Shuttle took shape and won support, and criticism, as part of NASA's search for a post-Apollo future. As with the Army and Navy in World War II, NASA had grown rapidly during the 1960s. Similarly, just as those military services saw a sharp falloff in funding in the wake of victory, the success of the piloted moon landings brought insistent demands that NASA should shrink considerably. In facing those demands, and in overcoming them to a degree, NASA established itself as a permanent player in Washington. The Shuttle drew particular interest within the Air Force, which saw it as a means to accomplish low-cost launches of reconnaissance satellites and other military spacecraft. NASA officials needed political support that could win over doubters in Congress, and they found this support within the Department of Defense. NASA offered the Pentagon a piloted space shuttle, and promised to design it to meet Air Force needs. NASA alone would fund its development and construction. It was a measure of NASA's desperation that it advocated the Shuttle project on those terms. The proposal worked. The Air Force gave its political support to the Shuttle, and NASA went on to secure support from the Congress. Heppenheimer looks back at the shuttle's technical antecedents such as the X-15 rocket plane and rocket booster technologies, and illuminates the principal personalities involved in the space shuttle decision and their motivations. He traces NASA's evolving program goals, the technical calculations, political maneuvering, and fiscal constraints, and explains the myriad designs that preceded the shuttle concept. In closing, he looks in detail at the circumstances leading to the politically charged development decision of 1972.…