Abstract
Between October 1982 and early 1983, the Reagan administration debated whether to build another space shuttle orbiter, increasing the fleet size to five orbiters. The administration was also dealing with several other policy issues associated with the space shuttle, ranging from what price to charge commercial and foreign customers for a shuttle launch and how best to compete with other providers of launch services, particularly the European Ariane launch vehicle, to who would get to fly on the shuttle and whether the shuttle might even carry fare-paying passengers, and to whether NASA would accept private funding to produce an additional orbiter in exchange for commercial marketing rights for the shuttle fleet overall.
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Notes
- 1.
A copy of NSDD-42, portions of which remain classified, can be found at https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-42.pdf. Oral history interview of James Abrahamson by Jennifer Ross-Nazall, July 23, 2012, https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Administrators/AbrahamsonJA/abrahamsonja.htm.
- 2.
Hans Mark, The Space Station: A Personal Journey (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987), 71–73. T. A. Heppenheimer, Development of the Shuttle, 1972–1981 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), 349.
- 3.
Letter from James Beggs to Edwin Meese III, May 21, 1982, NHRC. Mark, The Space Station, 152.
- 4.
Philip Boffey, “Shuttle’s Critics Call for a Broad Reassessment,” NYT, November 17, 1981.
- 5.
John Noble Wilford, “‘Bargain’ Prices Set for the Space Shuttle,” NYT, January 13, 1977, 21. Information regarding Shuttle pricing policy in this and subsequent paragraphs is drawn from House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology, “Hearings – Space Transportation System,” May 17–18, 1977 and NASA, Space Transportation Reimbursement Guide, JSC-11802, May 1980.
- 6.
General Accounting Office, NASA Must Reconsider Operations Pricing to Compensate for Cost Growth on the Space Transportation System, Report MASAD-82-15, February 23, 1982. Also, Mitchell Waldrop, “NASA Struggles with Space Shuttle Pricing,” Science, April 16, 1982, 278–279.
- 7.
Letter from James Beggs to David Stockman, April 12, 1982, Folder 12463, NHRC.
- 8.
Letter from David Stockman to James Beggs, June 14, 1982, Box 30, Subject Files, Executive Secretariat, National Security Council, RRL.
- 9.
Interview of James Beggs by Kevin Rusnak, March 7, 2002, NHRC. Mitchell Waldrop, “NASA Cuts Flights, Sets New Shuttle Price,” Science, July 2, 1982, 35.
- 10.
George M. Low, Memorandum for the Record, “Meeting with the President on January 5, 1972,” in John M. Logsdon et al., eds., Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume I, Organizing for Exploration, NASA SP-4407 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1995), 559.
- 11.
Memorandum from Danny Boggs to Edwin Harper, “NASA Space Shuttle Pricing,” April 26, 1982, Box 83, Papers of Danny Boggs, RRL.
- 12.
Memorandum from Edwin Harper to James Beggs, “Revenue Potential of Paying Passengers on Future Space Shuttle Flights,” May 12, 1982 and letter from James Beggs to Edwin Harper, June 9, 1982, both in Box 82, Papers of Danny Boggs, RRL.
- 13.
Letter from James Beggs to Representative Don Fuqua, October 7, 1982; NASA Press Release, “NASA Expands Payload Specialist Opportunities,” October 22, 1982, both in Folder 8960, NHRC.
- 14.
“Shuttle Customers will be Allowed to Fly Specialist with Payload,” Aerospace Daily, October 1, 1982, Folder 8960, NHRC. Memorandum from Gilbert Rye to William Clark, “NASA Payload Specialist Policy,” October 18, 1982, Box 91011, Papers of Gerald May, RRL. At the Reagan Library, Gil Rye’s papers are filed in the boxes associated with his successor at the NSC, Col. Gerald May.
- 15.
Interview with Alan Ladwig, May 6, 2016. Letter from James Beggs to Edwin Harper, June 9, 1982, Box 82, Papers of Danny Boggs, RRL.
- 16.
Senior Interagency Group (Space) Space Launch Working Group, “Issue Paper on FY84 Budget Issues,” undated but late November or early December 1982; IG (Space) Working Group Report on Space Launch Policy, December 2, 1962, both CIA-RDP83M00914RR000600030026-9, CREST.
- 17.
Memorandum from E.A. Burkhalter, Director, Intelligence Community Staff, for Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, “SIG (Space): Fifth Orbiter Issue,” December 9, 1982, CIA-RDP92B00181R001701610015-9, CREST; memorandum from Gilbert Rye to William Clark, “Shuttle Orbiter Production Capability,” December 13, 1982, Files of Valerie Neal.
- 18.
Craig Covault, “Budget for Fiscal 1984 Omits Fifth Orbiter,” AWST, December 13, 1982, 16; memorandum from E.A. Burkhalter, Director, Intelligence Community Staff, for Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, “SIG (Space): Fifth Orbiter Issue,” December 9, 1982, CIA-RDP92B00181R001701610015-9, CREST.
- 19.
National Security Council, Senior Interagency Group (Space), “Issue Paper on the Space Transportation Systems (STS) Fifth Orbiter,” undated but mid-December 1982, Files of Valerie Neal.
- 20.
Memorandum from Gilbert Rye to William Clark, “Shuttle Orbiter Production Capability,” December 13, 1982, Files of Valerie Neal.
- 21.
Memorandum from William Clark to the President, “Shuttle Orbiter Production Capability,” with attached draft NSDD, undated but December 14 or 15, 1982, and memorandum from Gil Rye to Bud (Robert McFarlane), December 13, 1982, Files of Valerie Neal.
- 22.
Memorandum from David Stockman to Edwin Meese III, “NSDD on Space Shuttle,” December 16, 1982, Box 5, Papers of Edwin Meese, RRL.
- 23.
Memorandum from William Clark to Edwin Meese III and James Baker III, “Shuttle Orbiter Production Capability,” December 17, 1982, Files of Valerie Neal.
- 24.
Memorandum from Edwin Meese III and James Baker III, “NSDD on the Space Shuttle,” December 22, 1982, Files of Valerie Neal.
- 25.
Memorandum from Fred Khedouri to Craig Fuller, “NSDD on Space Shuttle,” January 4, 1983 and memorandum from Craig Fuller to Edwin Meese III and James Baker III, “Shuttle Orbiter Availability,” January 5, 1983, Files of Valerie Neal.
- 26.
Memorandum from William Clark to the President, “Shuttle Orbiter Production Capability,” with handwritten notation by RR (Ronald Reagan), January 10, 1983, Box 8, Outer Space Files, RRL. Memorandum from Craig Fuller to Ed Meese, “Space Shuttle Issues,” January 27, 1983, Box 5, Papers of Edwin Meese, RRL.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Memorandum from John Poindexter to Ed Meese, February 2, 1983, Files of Valerie Neal. The NSDD-80 directive can be found at https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/archives/reference/scanned-nsdds/nsdd80.pdf.
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Logsdon, J.M. (2019). Space Shuttle Issues: Round One. In: Ronald Reagan and the Space Frontier. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98962-4_6
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