Jul 31 1984
From The Space Library
The Washington Post reported that, in testimony to a House subcommittee on space science and applications, NASA Administrator James M. Beggs said that he feared that an Air Force plan to make more use of large, unmanned rockets to launch Pentagon satellites would undermine NASA's plans for the Space Shuttle program. "The Air Force has said they plan two flights a year starting in 1988 using expendable launch vehicles as an alternate to the shuttle, and if they stick to that it will have no real impact on us," Beggs said. "But if they increase that rate to four or five flights a year, as some people suggest they might, it will have severe impact on us," he pointed out.
Beggs went on to say that the Air Force had asked General Dynamics Corporation and Martin Marietta Corporation to submit plans for increasing the lifting power of their Atlas-Centaur and Titan 34D booster rockets to launch into space large satellites that currently could be carried only by the Shuttle. He pointed out that NASA stood to lose much of the business of one of its main customers and also that, because he disagreed with the Air Force, having an alternate way of putting its satellite in orbit was an improvement in security. "All ... that means is they'll have another launch pad right on the ocean," he said.
Beggs indicated that he was worried that the Air Force would acquire an alternate launch vehicle to use more frequently to make it cost effective. And he expressed concern that the winner of the Air Force contract to build the larger rocket would try to take commercial business away from the Space Shuttle. "Our commercial business has already begun to fall off a little because our commercial customers tended to overbook when we started to fly," Beggs said. "Our traffic model for 1985 is already down about 10 per-cent." (W Post, Aug 1/84, A-20)
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