Outposts on the Frontier: A Fifty-Year History of Space Stations (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)

by Jay Chladek

  It wouldn’t stay that way, however; by mid-October, Vasyutin was experiencing symptoms from an unknown ailment resulting in anxiety problems, little sleep, and a loss of appetite. The crew kept the news quiet at first, but by the end of October, they consulted medical specialists. Preparations were made to depart, but Vasyutin seemed stable enough to wait it out until mid-November, when conditions at the recovery site were ideal for a daylight return. By 17 November, Vasyutin was experiencing sharp abdominal pain, and the crew was ordered to close down Salyut 7 and return home.

  The crew departed the station on 21 November, far short of the planned mission duration. Soviet news sources downplayed Vasyutin’s ailment, saying that he was in good health and that he was admitted to a hospital for precautionary reasons. Since then, it has been reported that Vasyutin was suffering from a prostate infection and that he may have started showing signs of it before launch. But he kept it quiet from the doctors during physicals. Whatever the cause, Vasyutin was forced to retire from the cosmonaut program on medical grounds. Salyut 7 would ultimately host one more visit from a crew in 1986, but other than that, no additional crews would take up residence.

  While Salyut 7’s operational history was a bit more checkered than Salyut 6’s, its contributions to Soviet long-duration spaceflight were no less important. All that experience, both good and bad, would come into play when the next station flew.

  8

  European Participation

  After the Skylab program, NASA spent the next few years designing and building their next space vehicle. This would be something very different from Apollo, a reusable system known as the space shuttle. Reusable space vehicles had been a dream of many for decades. Wernher von Braun considered it a vital element to any long-term space-faring effort in order to ferry both men and material into Earth orbit. Film and literature of the time (such as the appearance of a commercially flown passenger shuttle in 2001: A Space Odyssey) helped to make the concept popular with the general public. But concepts are one thing, while reality can end up quite different.

  The shuttle’s promise was that with the spacecraft being reusable, the months of preparation needed to produce, stack, and launch an expendable rocket could theoretically be reduced down to a few days’ time to refurbish the craft and its boosters between missions. In theory this would cut costs and give NASA and the air force (who were brought in as partners on the project to use shuttle as a launcher for DoD payloads) expanded capabilities over what the Soviets could do with their fleet of space launchers.

  When the 1972 space appropriations bill was passed by Congress, it included funding for development of the shuttle. But the amount of funding was not as much as NASA had hoped, and some changes had to be made to the design. NASA’s compromise had the shuttle whittled down from a winged orbiter with a fully reusable winged booster to a winged orbiter, a large external tank (ET) serving as the fuel supply for the shuttle’s LOX-and-LHX-burning rocket engines, and two solid-rocket boosters (SRBs) strapped to the sides of the ET to give the vehicle additional thrust for roughly the first two minutes of flight. Once the fuel was used up in the ET, it would be jettisoned to burn up on reentry, while the orbiter and SRBs were recovered and reused.

  A unique shuttle feature was its capability to carry payloads both into orbit and back via a sixty-foot-long by fifteen-foot-diameter payload bay encased by a pair of giant doors. This design was in keeping with NASA’s modular approach for future programs. The shuttle would be able to deploy satellites, launch probes to other planets, take specialists up to repair satellites, build structures in space, and return cargo from orbit. It was a progressive, logical approach to spaceflight in comparison to a one-destination program, such as Apollo.

  There was a downside to this approach, though, as the shuttle would only be as productive as the payloads it would fly. While NASA anticipated a rich future launching satellites for commercial firms and flying payloads for the DoD, frequent missions would be needed to help reduce mission costs to the point where the shuttle could be considered a viable alternative to expendable rockets.

  Another concern was that NASA would be spending almost all its manned spaceflight resources to develop the shuttle and practically nothing else. The shuttle would be an orbit-going pickup truck with no specific destination it could fly to repeatedly. The logical destination for a space shuttle was a space station, but NASA had no funding left to build a station. It was hoped that Skylab would stay in orbit long enough to allow a shuttle to dock with it, but its reentry in 1979 before the shuttle was ready killed that idea.

  During the space shuttle’s initial development, ideas were drawn up to have the shuttle fly an experiment module to conduct research in orbit similar to what a space station could do. This module could be flown on missions lasting from about a week to ten days. The early concept was referred to as the “Sortie Lab.” It featured a combination of a pressurized module and an unpressurized instrument section fitted in the cargo bay of the vehicle, essentially turning the shuttle into an orbiting space laboratory. The lab could be configured with modular instrumentation and fly different experiment packages in many scientific fields.

  From a budget and practicality standpoint, the Sortie Lab made a lot of sense. Developing the concept into hardware would potentially be less costly to build and operate than a separate space station. Frequent missions could be flown on an as-needed basis, so astronauts would not have to spend weeks or months in space. Early missions could gain valuable data, meaning that follow-up missions could fly revised experiments more quickly, using the lessons learned. Sortie Lab missions would also increase the frequency of shuttle flights, helping to lower operating costs. The idea made sense in many ways. The only question left to answer was who would build it.

  33. Concept artwork of what would become known as Spacelab. Courtesy NASA.

  Early European Space Efforts

  Many Western countries in Europe had contracted the “space bug” after seeing the successes achieved by the United States and the Soviet Union during the early years. But while ambitions were high, the budgets of many of these nations in the 1960s were not enough to generate space programs of their own. Many European economies were still recovering from the lingering effects of World War II. The Cold War also made defense expenditures a higher priority. Space rockets also require an ocean expanse or a large, sparsely populated territory to fly safely over in order to reduce the risk of spent rocket stages landing on someone’s head.

  Only two European countries had proper launch facilities. Of the two, the United Kingdom made an attempt to develop its own satellite launcher in the form of Black Arrow. But the program’s one and only success in launching a satellite came after the program was canceled in favor of launching payloads on less expensive American rockets. France, on the other hand, orbited small research satellites aboard the Diamont series of rockets, but they lacked a heavy booster to fly large payloads.

  For Europe’s situation, cooperation between multiple countries seemed to be the best answer for space operations. Two collaborative space organizations were formed. The first was the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO). ELDO was a consortium of six European nations: Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, West Germany, and Italy. It was formed with the purpose of creating a space launch capability for Europe. Australia was brought in as an associate member, because it provided a test range that could be used for space launches. The second group was the European Space Research Organization (ESRO). It was formed initially along the same lines as the European nuclear research organization CERN and consisted of ten member nations. ESRO’s members included the six ELDO partners in addition to Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland. Its stated goal was to develop hardware strictly for space research.

  Things got off to a slow start with both organizations. The biggest hurdle to forming consortiums is that the member countries don’t all necessarily work toward the same goals. The early years of each gro
up were spent figuring out how to work together for a common good and altering the organizational structure to take care of bureaucratic stumbling blocks while minimizing political infighting behind the scenes. A second problem was that each country had its own unique culture, working habits, and in many cases language. So it took a while for the countries’ representatives to figure out the idiosyncrasies of one another while also seeing what each nation could bring to the table in terms of scientific contribution, hardware development, and most importantly financial support.

  The ELDO organization managed to create the Europa rocket booster. It featured a UK-developed first stage, a second stage built by France, and a third stage built by West Germany. While the Europa showed promise in early testing of its separate stages, all eleven tries to launch the complete rocket ended in failure. In 1971 the United Kingdom pulled out of the project, and the rest of the member countries tried to salvage what was left.

  ESRO didn’t have much early success either, as politics and economics of the member nations produced many stumbling blocks to steady financing. Over time, though, they got their act together. ESRO was able to create its own spacecraft-tracking network and initiated a successful program in launching scientific payloads aboard sounding rockets. ESRO also developed research payloads that were flown into orbit on American rockets and began cooperative programs with NASA to develop research satellites. However, ESRO still craved more involvement.

  By the early 1970s, ESRO’s mission policy had been altered to include development in practical applications of space technology with potential profit in mind, specifically telecommunications satellites. This produced an increase in funding and more involvement from European corporations in the aircraft and defense industries. ESRO was also considering manned spaceflight. The problem was that it didn’t have a manned spacecraft or launch vehicle, and it also lacked funding to start an astronaut program. So it looked to NASA to see what might be possible.

  Representatives from ESRO, ELDO, and NASA had been meeting one another off and on for a few years in the late 1960s. NASA’s International Programs Office set up by Arnold Frutkin provided opportunities for European countries to have direct relations with the agency. One benefit included releasing research data collected by NASA space projects to scientific organizations in Europe. By 1969, while NASA administrator Thomas Paine was trying to drum up support for the agency’s grand plans after Apollo, he gained enthusiastic interest from representatives of both ELDO and ESRO to potentially become full partners in a future space project.

  ELDO was hoping to develop hardware for a proposed space tug, a vehicle designed to take payloads from low Earth orbit, where the shuttle flies, to higher orbits and back down as necessary for repair or return to Earth. Given the difficulties with the Europa, many ELDO officials felt that a space tug project would give the organization a future and keep the consortium intact. While Europa itself was a failure, there were many positive aspects of ELDO’s experience that could be applied toward a similar endeavor. ESRO, on the other hand, was primarily interested in contributing scientific-research payloads for a future space station. Building operational hardware didn’t interest them as much, unless it involved scientific research or some sort of practical application that could directly benefit its European members.

  While the money from Congress was not enough to build a space station and the space tug in addition to the shuttle, there was at least support from both Capitol Hill and the White House to allow international cooperation in the shuttle program to help lower the development costs. But there was a reluctance to have European industry take direct part in construction of the shuttle itself due to concerns about technology transfer. Any spin-off technologies developed might be used in direct competition with American interests.

  NASA’s Sortie Lab proposal seemed like a perfect alternative. If Europe was to take part in building the lab module, they could handle most of the development costs with guidance from NASA. In exchange, the European consortiums would get a bigger foot in the door on future manned space projects. They would also have the opportunity to fly their own astronauts on NASA spacecraft to conduct dedicated research in orbit.

  In 1973, NASA and the European agencies entered into an agreement to develop the Sortie Lab concept into hardware. Having two space consortiums involved in the mix might seem like too much bureaucracy for the program’s own good, but the decision had already been made in Europe to merge both ELDO and ESRO into one agency. The result would be known in the coming years as the European Space Agency, or ESA.

  For all intents and purposes, NASA would be dealing with the ESA. Though the final merger of the two consortiums would not take place until 1975, steps had already taken place to streamline the ESA’s management structure, before the formal name change, in order to begin hardware development. In addition to participation in the Sortie Lab project, the ESA was also tasked with the creation of a new family of space launchers for Europe, the Ariane series. The Ariane 1 and 4 rockets would go on to become some of the most successful commercial satellite launch vehicles in history (followed by the Ariane 5 in 1996).

  The Birth of Spacelab

  The Marshall Spaceflight Center became the primary NASA facility responsible for coordinating the lab program with the ESA, thanks to their success with the Skylab program. Marshall would also be in charge of the finished modules. JSC would be responsible for managing the development of the shuttle’s integration with the lab and flight-crew training, while KSC would handle ground preparation of the modules for flight. All three centers already were coordinating with each other on the space shuttle program since the shuttle was a combined system featuring the integrated hardware of a rocket booster, an aircraft, and a spacecraft in one package. Similar coordination was just as important for the lab’s development, since it would be an integral part of the shuttle when mounted in the payload bay. Several of the shuttle’s systems would have to be designed for laboratory support early on since, unlike a space station, the lab could not fly as an independent spacecraft.

  At the start of the project, the ESA had elected to change the name of the system from Sortie Lab to Spacelab. Initially NASA was reluctant to use the new name since it was close to Skylab, but the name stuck and described the purpose of the system perfectly. The Spacelab system would not just be a one-size-fits-all, single-module concept. While the pressurized laboratory module is the item most people identify with the Spacelab program, it is only one part of an entire family of hardware. In addition to the pressurized module, the ESA also developed a system of pallet racks that could be fitted with experiments in the shuttle’s payload bay. These pallets could be used in support of a pressurized lab module or fly independently. For a pallet-only mission, a pressurized “igloo” was developed to help house computer subsystems for the experiment racks.

  The reason for the igloo’s use is due to heat transfer characteristics in the pure vacuum of space. Air circulated by fans can be used to cool electronics, while waste heat in a vacuum has to be removed by other means. There are the temperature extremes of space to consider as well. If the computers are sealed in their own little air pocket, they can be cooled conventionally without the need for more costly engineering. Waste heat from the igloo could then be removed through the shuttle’s own cooling systems. For research projects being conducted on limited budgets, this approach made sense. In the end, though, the igloo had its fair share of engineering problems to solve during development.

  Whether the Spacelab systems required a pressurized laboratory or the smaller igloo, they were dependent on the shuttle for power, environment (in the case of the lab module), and the ability to expel a percentage of waste heat into space with the shuttle’s cooling loops and the payload bay’s radiators. The Spacelab would supply additional heat radiation capability. Communications and telemetry with control centers on the ground would be routed through the shuttle’s radio and television antennae. The shuttle would also have to be flown in the at
titudes required for specific missions by the flight crew. Essentially, when a Spacelab was flying in the payload bay, the shuttle itself would become the laboratory.

  The initial budget for the Spacelab project was approximately $250 million. Given the nature of several European partner nations having their own monetary currencies in the 1970s (this was about two decades before the creation of the Euro), the ESA and NASA came up with a standardized accounting unit as a stand-in for a single European currency. This would help streamline the account books somewhat. The Spacelab project still ran into cost overruns as drawing board concepts became actual hardware, resulting in a total cost of about $1 billion when the first Spacelab finally flew. Compared to the shuttle program’s cost overruns, the Spacelab’s budget problems were relatively small.

  While NASA would provide invaluable assistance to the ESA for creation of Spacelab, it would not pay for the first pieces of hardware, as these were given to NASA in exchange for the training and flying of Europe’s first astronauts. The contract called for one pressurized module, five pallet racks, and an engineering model for use in integration and testing of Spacelab systems on the ground. The engineering model would essentially be a functioning Spacelab, although it would never fly in orbit. Priority was also given in the shuttle program to fly three joint NASA and ESA Spacelab missions at the earliest opportunities. NASA would have to fund creation and building of ground support facilities to service the Spacelab systems between missions. If NASA liked the equipment, the Americans would have to pay the ESA for additional hardware.

  The fact that the ESA would be building the hardware and “giving” it to NASA did not sit well with many in the European press and general public, though. It seemed like the ESA was spending a lot of money for a Spacelab in exchange for training payload specialists and only three joint missions, with money having to be spent if the ESA wanted to fly “their” Spacelab on future missions. Even with this public discord, the managers in charge at the ESA knew that if they were going to have a long-term future in manned space projects, they had to make some commitments to get their foot in the door and gain experience at building hardware.