Roaming the High Frontier

By Evan Thomas

COVER STORIES

After a spectacular mission, the Reaganauts aim to expand the space program

The image could have come from a once and future fantasy, yet it aired on the evening news. A U.S. astronaut, looking like a modern knight-errant in shining space suit, sallies forth into the darkness, powered by a Buck Rogers backpack called an MMU (manned maneuvering unit). Armed with a space-age lance nicknamed the stinger, he spears a stray satellite and rockets back to the mother ship. There, silhouetted against the shimmering earth some 225 miles below, he spins along at 17,500 m.p.h., shouldering his prize like a sci-fi Atlas.

Only the squawk of voices breaks the extraterrestrial spell. As Joseph Allen, 47, and his fellow skywalker, Navy Commander Dale A. Gardner, 36, wrestle a disabled telecommunications satellite into the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery, they sound like a pair of movers trying to squeeze a 10-ft. piano through a 9-ft. door. "Joe, I assume you're comfortable there," says Gardner. "Not very," replies Allen. "Sorry to be taking so long," apologizes Gardner. "It's harder than it looks, just floating around." Back at mission control, a NASA spokesman quickly reminds reporters of the momentousness of the occasion: "Joe Allen now qualifies as the first human in history to hold a 1,200-lb. satellite overhead for one trip around the world."

Astronauts Allen and Gardner performed this feat of derring-do not once but twice last week, rescuing another malfunctioning satellite 690 miles away (see following story). All systems A-O.K., shuttle flight 51-A sailed home at week's end to a smooth landing and a hero's welcome at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

The mission was among the most spectacular in the 26-year history of the American space program. It was designed to demonstrate that the U.S. is once again roving the high frontier and showing plenty of the right stuff. The loudest cheerleader was President Ronald Reagan. "You demonstrated that we can work in space in ways that we never imagined were possible," he radioed the four-man, one-woman crew of Discovery. If the President has his way, nightly news viewers "ain't seen nothin' yet." Reagan wants to launch a permanent space station by 1992 (the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World) and have in place by the next century a Star Wars system of space-based missile defenses to protect the U.S. from nuclear attack. His national space strategy, announced last August, calls for the commercialization of space--through such novelties as orbiting, gravity-free factories--and even envisions a return to the moon and a manned mission to Mars early in the 21st century. Not since John F. Kennedy vowed in 1961 to put a man on the moon has an American President made such a commitment to exploring and exploiting space.

Whether Congress will pay for this multibillion-dollar undertaking remains to be seen. Critics in science and Government wonder if NASA'S manned-space-flight extravaganzas are really worth the cost; to their minds, unmanned missions are cheaper and yield better results. Other critics fear that Reagan's Star Wars plan will turn space into an apocalyptic war zone. Says Astronomer Carl Sagan: "Star Wars is a fraud. It won't buy us security." Whatever the merits, future leaps into space will surely be preceded by long and hotly contested debate on earth.

As soon as Congress reconvenes this January, a host of powerful competing interests--the military, the scientific community, NASA, U.S. industry--will engage in a massive tug of war over the cost and direction of the space program. Each interest group has its own agenda. What makes this struggle possible, even inevitable, is the lack of national consensus on the purposes and scope of U.S. space exploration.

Yet even without clear agreement on long-term goals, NASA has reason to exult. Last week's riveting space salvage was "the greatest event in space since Armstrong and Aldrin landed [on the moon]," declared a Houston flight director. The lean years of the 1970s are becoming a distant memory. Though Richard Nixon called the lunar landing expedition of Apollo 11 "the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation," he and subsequent Presidents were unenthusiastic about the space program. NASA's yearly budget fell from $6 billion in the mid-'60s to just over $3 billion in the mid-'70s, and the agency endured a six-year hiatus in manned flight. Its one big-ticket item--the Space Transportation System, better known as the space shuttle--suffered embarrassing delays, glitches and cost overruns. Before the shuttle's maiden voyage in 1981, critics sneeringly referred to it as America's "space lemon."

Meanwhile, the Soviets forged ahead. Manning a series of Salyut space stations, Soviet cosmonauts logged almost 88,000 hours in space, more than twice as many as their U.S. counterparts. More ominously, the Soviets tested at least a score of killer satellites that can knock other satellites out of the sky.

The White House watched these Soviet breakthroughs with mounting anxiety. Ronald Reagan was not about to let the Soviets seize the high ground of space, as Lyndon Johnson called it during the panicky Sputnik era of the late '50s. The Administration began emphasizing the military uses of space, calling for an annual growth of 10% (after inflation) in defense-related space programs. The military space budget for this fiscal year ($8.4 billion) is already greater than NASA'S ($7.5 billion), and the Pentagon is aiming for a hefty $18 billion in 1986.

Some shuttle flights already carry military satellites for spying, military communications, early-warning systems and navigational aides. Challenger Mission 51-C, scheduled for launch from Kennedy Space Center early next year, will be the first NASA expedition to have a purely military purpose. Missing will be the usual fanfare staged by the publicity-conscious space agency; this mission will be so secret that not even the launch time will be announced, lest Soviet tracking stations be tipped off.

The Air Force, meanwhile, has been quietly setting up its own "Blue Shuttle" (named for the service's color) facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (completion date: March 1985). On Air Force drawing boards is the "Transatmospheric Vehicle" (TAV), more popularly known as the "space fighter," designed to take off from military bases and climb into orbit to search for enemy targets. Though the military helped persuade Congress to fund the space shuttle, the Pentagon is lukewarm about the shuttle's civilian uses. Military planners would prefer that Congress use the funds to build a new generation of heavy rocket boosters. The Pentagon's arguments include the usual one: the Soviets are already doing it.

The Administration's most ambitious military undertaking in space is the Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as Star Wars, announced by Reagan in March of last year. Reagan's hope is to create a space-based defensive umbrella that would zap enemy missiles with lasers or particle beams almost as soon as they were launched. His ultimate goal is to render nuclear weapons obsolete. Indeed, if the U.S. can build a foolproof nuclear shield, Reagan proposes sharing the technology with the Soviets. The Administration wants to spend $26 billion on Star Wars over the next five years. So far, Congress has authorized almost $2.4 billion, enough to get research and development under way.

Many scientists are skeptical, if not alarmed, about the Star Wars scheme. Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe argues that even being "as optimistic as you can be within the limits of the laws of physics and geometry," the system is unworkable. Other experts maintain that even if a Star Wars system could be made operational, it would never be 100% effective. Thus a Star Wars capacity might well intensify the arms race, since the Soviets would build more and more ICBMS to ensure that at least some of their missiles penetrated U.S. defenses.

The Administration insists that its real goals in space are peaceful. Reagan is fascinated by the commercial possibilities; these fit neatly with his campaign theme of establishing "New Frontiers" of technological progress and economic opportunity. Reagan and others cite studies purporting to show that the technological and economic benefits of the space program outweigh the costs by 14 to 1. They note such practical spin-offs as hand-held computers, digital watches, long-lasting flashlight batteries and Teflon-coated frying pans.

The most pronounced commercial impact has been in communications. Satellites are capable of beaming anything from a telephone call to a bank draft around the globe. So many satellites have been sent aloft--at least 3,500--that space is literally getting crowded. (By international agreement, satellites over the equator must be spaced two longitudinal degrees apart--roughly 915 miles--in order to avoid interfering with one another's signals.)

In the future, the near weightless, germ-free environment of space may be ideally suited to manufacturing certain drugs, including interferon and insulin, as well as growth hormones and metal alloys. "We can speed up research drastically. For every new chemical created on earth, we could make five in space," says James Rose, a research director at McDonnell Douglas, the St. Louis-based aerospace company. The Administration has tried to encourage more space investment with tax breaks. It also heavily subsidizes the cost to private companies of launching satellites from the space shuttle. The U.S. Government does so because of stiff foreign competition from Arianespace, a privately owned, but government-subsidized, French-based company that has had three successful launches since May of this year (see following stories).

Having salvaged the two satellites, NASA can now sell them (price: $35 million apiece). As they walked in space last week, Astronauts Allen and Gardner indulged in some Madison Avenue pizazz, jokingly holding a FOR SALE sign over one of the recaptured birds. NASA hopes the mission will put it into the satellite recovery business. A major hitch, of course, is that the shuttle can only climb to 500 miles, while many of the most important satellites are 22,300 miles up in geostationary orbit--that is, rotating with the earth and staying at a fixed point in the heavens. To put satellites into the higher orbit, the shuttle uses a satellite booster to fire them farther into space.

In addition to the known or anticipated fruits of space exploration, there are the discoveries as yet unknown. Though past explorers often failed to find what they were looking for--the Fountain of Youth, a Northwest Passage--they often stumbled across wonders they never dreamed of, from precious stones to uncharted oceans. Says James Seevers, an astronomer at Chicago's Adler Planetarium: "Out of the atmosphere of earth, you have an utterly clear view of the planets and the stars and the galaxy. The entire universe is open to you. We've probably learned as much in the past 20 years, since we've had a few satellites up there, as we've been able to discover from the ground in the last century or two."

Inspired by such cosmic wanderlust, Reagan is ready to move on from the space shuttle to what NASA calls the "next logical step": a permanent manned space station. Still on the drawing boards, the space station would house half a dozen people for three-to six-month shifts in roomy shirtsleeve comfort. Weighing some 180,000 Ibs., it would have to be erected in space like a giant Tinkertoy, using some of the techniques demonstrated by Astronauts Allen and Gardner last week. The Administration puts the space station's cost at $8 billion, a figure that may be grossly underestimated.

A manned space station would have a wide variety of uses. It could serve as a garage and launching pad for manned spacecraft to the moon and beyond, at a fraction of the cost of launching from earth. Says Gerald Griffen, director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston: "We can bring supplies and materials up from earth and assemble those prairie schooners and send them across that great expanse up there." The station would be a lab for experiments and possibly even a factory for production of drugs, chemicals and alloys. It would be an observation platform for looking back at earth and deep into space. Astronomers could peer through telescopes and not have their view obscured by atmospheric murk. Says Griffen: "A space telescope would be seven times stronger than any earth tele scope. It's like putting Mount Palomar into earth orbit. We'll literally be able to see to the end of the universe."

The space station has many detractors, even within the inner councils of the White House. Budget Director David Stockman bitterly opposed the idea early this year as a waste of money. Reagan finally turned on him and quipped, "If you had been at the court of Isabella and Ferdinand, Columbus never would have made it to the New World."

The military frets that the space station will divert funds and energy from its Star Wars schemes. The National Academy of Sciences protests that it will swallow up so much federal funding there will be little left over for other kinds of scientific research. The Office of Technology Assessment, a congressional research agency, last week issued a report charging that the Administration had failed to find sufficient commercial, scientific or military reasons for the space station.

Some very important members of Congress also have qualms. Among them is Senator Jake Garn, chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that holds NASA'S purse strings. Though a strong supporter of the space program, Garn has opposed funding the space station until NASA more fully explores the role of automation and robotics in space. To give him some hands-on experience, NASA has invited Garn to become the first public official to fly in space; he will ride a shuttle mission possibly some time next year.

Garn, 52, a retired colonel in the Utah Ak National Guard, was a Naval aviator during the Korean War and has logged over 10,000 hours of flying time--more than any astronaut except Air Force Colonel Joe Engle. But as NASA spokesman John Lawrence acknowledged last week, "I think it's pretty obvious that his selection was based on what he does as a Senator and not on his experience as a pilot." (NASA will send aloft an ordinary citizen--a schoolteacher--probably in 1986.)

NASA officials have some difficulty explaining just why the space station is necessary. "Its ultimate use will evolve," says Griffen. "That I'm sure of. Like the shuttle, we didn't have some of these uses in mind when we designed it." NASA Administrator James Beggs told TIME, "It's hard to say where we are going, but it is important that in ten years we make sure that we open all the options, so that when a lunar site decision is made, we will have built the space station." Beggs' answer begs the question. He seems to be saying that the U.S. needs a space station because it is going to have a moon base, but he does not answer: Why does the U.S. need a moon base?

Manned spaceflight for its own sake is typical of NASA's thinking, argue critics of the agency. The function of the space program, says Astronomer Sagan, is "to put people up in tin cans in earth orbit and then bring them down again. People are going up in order to ... go up. It is a capability without a mission." Concludes Sagan: "We do not have a space program, if one assumes that a program has goals and purposes."

Unmanned space exploration is not as sexy to the public; it has no life-and-death drama, no derring-do, no right stuff. Yet many experts believe it is more valuable to scientific discovery, and at a fraction of the cost. While the space program seemed to most of the public to be languishing in the late 1970s, with no astronauts being sent aloft, NASA was thrilling scientists and astronomers with its unmanned space expeditions.

The Voyager probes to Saturn and beyond were "as exciting as the discoveries made in the age of Columbus," declares Sagan. The observation of huge dust clouds on Mars set scientists to wondering what would happen to the earth's atmosphere if the sky filled with smoke and ashes from cities burning during a nuclear war. The answer was the chilling vision of a "nuclear winter" that would blot out the sun and end life on earth. Unmanned satellites help verify arms-control treaties, map ocean currents and weather patterns, even locate mineral deposits.

Scientists complain that as the Administration proposes to pour money into Star Wars and the space station, it is cutting back on unmanned missions. For instance, NASA passed up an opportunity to sail through the tail of Halley's Comet in 1986 (the Soviets and Europeans have scheduled Halley rendezvous). Laments Sagan: "Those space vehicles were very cheap. For just 1% of the cost of Star Wars, you could have a set of spectacular missions from now to the beginning of the next century. The answer to the origins of the universe might be within our grasp. It would be a shame to let it slip away."

NASA's next great goal is a familiar one: to put men on the moon. Only this time, NASA wants to keep them there to inhabit a lunar colony. Former NASA Administrator Thomas Paine predicts that by the year 2025, the first "humans will be calling themselves "natives of the moon."

The price tag could also be out of this world: an estimated $84 billion. NASA protests that the expense is not much greater than the cost of the original Apollo pro gram in today's dollars, a mere $73 billion.

A prime motivation, once again, is the fear that if the U.S. does not shoot for the moon, the Soviets will get there first. Soviet space capabilities may "explode on the front pages any day now," predicts Paul Lowman, a geologist at NASA'S Goddard Space Center. Warns former Senator and Astronaut Harrison Schmitt: "The civilization that the Soviets represent may become the dominant force in space."

A manned mission could win the support of even skeptics like Sagan if it was aimed not at trumping the Soviets but at working with them. A joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. mission to the moon or Mars would engage the world's imagination and do more for peace than even the old Apollo-Soyuz linkup that helped cement detente in 1975. The Administration has taken a positive step in this direction by proposing to the Soviets a demonstration space rescue. According to NASA, Moscow has shown interest. The two nations would maneuver spacecraft close together and trade astronauts to show that one nation could rescue the marooned spacemen of another.

Space exploration has many benefits beyond the purely commercial, scientific or military. Man can learn about himself by living in near weightlessness in close quarters for days; he can gain a healthy sense of perspective on spaceship earth, floating amidst the planets and stars. President Reagan, like his predecessors in the White House, has used the space program to stir national pride. But such pride can quickly become chauvinistic or even reckless. Noting that the U.S. is spending $1.6 billion on Star Wars this year, but only $150 million on a space station, Bruce Murray, co-founder of the Planetary Society in Pasadena, observes, "We have to ask ourselves if we want to go beyond this. Is this the kind of space program that reflects the American people and how that people sees itself?"

Man has always yearned to explore, to enter the unknown. George Leigh Mallory's reason for setting out to climb Mount Everest--"Because it is there"--is answer enough for one man. But it will not suffice for a nation. The U.S. needs to search for new worlds, but it also needs a coherent space policy that will serve the world it already knows.

--By Evan Thomas.

Reported by Jerry Hannifin/Kennedy Space Center, Peter Stoler/New York and Bruce van Voorst/Washington, with other bureaus

With reporting by Jerry Hannifin, Peter Stoler, BRUCE VAN VOORST