Abstract
The debate regarding producing another shuttle orbiter to replace Challenger continued through most of summer 1986, as did the conflict over the future role of the shuttle. If the shuttle were to be removed from its role in launching commercial and foreign payloads, after losing its planned monopoly in 1985 on national security launches, the basic premise upon which the shuttle program had been approved and carried out before the Challenger accident—that the vehicle could provide regular and affordable access to space for a wide variety of payloads, not only for the U.S. government but also for commercial and foreign users—would be abandoned. The decision to make the shuttle the sole U.S. means of access to space would have been recognized as a very significant policy mistake. The result of the post-Challenger debate was a set of decisions embodied in a December 1986 directive on “United States Space Launch Strategy.” That directive set out a new pathway for assuring U.S. access to space, and changed the role of the space shuttle, from being the primary means of access to space for all U.S. government payloads and an active participant in the global competition for commercial launch contracts, to being a system devoted to launching almost exclusively NASA payloads, carrying out various operations in orbit, and eventually launching, assembling, and servicing elements of the space station.
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Notes
- 1.
For an immediate post-Challenger discussion of this issue, see John M. Logsdon, “The Space Shuttle: A Policy Mistake?” Science, May 30, 1986. I amended the conclusions of this article, but only slightly, in John M. Logsdon, After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American Space Program (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Epilogue.
- 2.
Letter from “Ron,” Ronald Reagan to Douglas Morrow, July 16, 1986, Box 14, Outer Space Files, RRL.
- 3.
Minutes of National Security Council Meeting, July 29, 1986, Jason Saltoun-Ebin, The Reagan Files, http://www.thereaganfiles.com/19860729-nsc-134-us-space.pdf.
- 4.
Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, Douglas Brinkley, ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 428.
- 5.
Letter from James Fletcher to the President, August 6, 1986, Box 4, Papers of Richard Davis, RRL.
- 6.
Memorandum from Alfred Kingon to Donald Regan, “Space Commercialization Policy,” June 25, 1986, Box 14, Outer Space Files, RRL.
- 7.
Interview with Bob Brumley and Courtney Stadd, March 9, 2016.
- 8.
Memorandum from Eugene McAllister for the Economic Policy Council, “Agenda and Paper for July 30 Meeting,” July 29, 1986, with attached Memorandum from Commercial Space Working Group to the Economic Policy Council, “Transition Plan to Encourage Commercial ELVs,” CIA-RDP88G01117R000702250002-3, CREST.
- 9.
Letter from Allen Puckett to John Poindexter, July 23, 1986, Box 14, Outer Space Files, RRL.
- 10.
Note from James Hirsch to deputy director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates (DDCI), “Economic Policy Council Meeting, 30 July 1986,” July 30, 1986, CIA-RDP88G01117R000702250002-3, CREST; Michael Isikoff, “Plan Cuts NASA Use of Shuttle,” WP, July 31, 1986, A1.
- 11.
Note from James Hirsch to the director of Central Intelligence, “Space Commercialization,” CIA-RDP88G0111R000702260002-2, CREST.
- 12.
Ronald Reagan: “Statement on the Building of a Fourth Shuttle Orbiter and the Future of the Space Program,” August 15, 1986. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=37769. Craig Covault, “Reagan Authorizes Orbiter to Replace Challenger,” AWST, August 18, 1986, 18.
- 13.
Phillip Boffey, “Commercial Launching by NASA Ordered Shifted to Private Sector,” NYT, August 16, 1986, 1; memorandum from Richard Davis, through Alfred Kingon, for Larry Speakes, “Friday Space Briefing,” August 14, 1986, Box 4, Papers of Richard Davis, RRL.
- 14.
Phillip Boffey, “Commercial Launching by NASA Ordered Shifted to Private Sector,” NYT, August 16, 1986, 1. NASA Oral History Interview with Jeff Bingham, who in the 1980s was on Senator Garn’s staff, by Rebecca Wright, November 9, 2006, https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Administrators/BinghamJM/BinghamJM_11-9-06.pdf; interview with Jeff Bingham, December 7, 2017.
- 15.
Memorandum from Eugene McAllister for the Economic Policy Council, “Agenda and Paper for the August 7 Meeting,” August 7, 1986, with attached memorandum from the Economic Policy Council for the President, “Commercializing Satellite Launch Services,” August 5, 1986; note from James Hirsch to the Director of Central Intelligence, “Space Commercialization,” CIA-RDP88G0111R000702260002-2, CREST; Kathy Sawyer, “Reagan Pushes Advisers to Set Shuttle Plan,” WP, August 8, 1986, A4.
- 16.
Memorandum from Eugene McAllister to Alfred Kingon, “Space Commercialization,” August 12, 1986, Box 4, Papers of Richard Davis, RRL.
- 17.
Ronald Reagan: “Statement on the Building of a Fourth Shuttle Orbiter and the Future of the Space Program,” August 15, 1986. Online by Peters and Woolley, APP, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=37769; memorandum from Richard Davis through Alfred Kingon for Larry Speakes, “Friday Space Briefing,” August 14, 1986, Box 4, Papers of Richard Davis, RRL.
- 18.
Memorandum for the President signed by James Baker for the Economic Policy Council, “Space Commercialization,” September 11, 1986, Box 14, Outer Space Files, RRL.
- 19.
The anecdote with respect to Reagan initialing the wrong option is based on an interview with Courtney Stadd, May 16, 2016; memorandum from Alfred Kingon to James Fletcher, “Space Commercialization,” September 25, 1986, Box 14, Outer Space Files, RRL.
- 20.
Letter from John Negroponte to Alton Keel, September 23, 1986; letter from George Shultz to James Fletcher, September 13, 1986, both in Box 6, Papers of James Fletcher, NARA.
- 21.
Note from Don Regan to Al [Kingon], September 26, 1986, Box 14, Outer Space Files, RRL; memorandum from Director of International Affairs to Administrator, September 30, 1986, “Consultations with International Partners on the Shuttle Manifest,” September 30, 1986, Box 7, Papers of James Fletcher, NARA.
- 22.
Craig Covault, “New Manifest for Space Shuttle Generates Payload Sponsor Debate,” AWST, October 13, 1986, 22–23.
- 23.
Letter from James Fletcher to Don Regan, October 1, 1986, with attached “National Space Transportation System Manifest,” Box 14, Outer Space Files, RRL. Telegram from Richard Truly to Commercial and Foreign Customers, “NASA Space Shuttle Manifest,” October 3, 1986, Box 7, Papers of James Fletcher, NARA.
- 24.
Ronald Reagan, National Security Decision Directive 254, “United States Space Launch Strategy,” December 27, 1986, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/archives/reference/scanned-nsdds/nsdd254.pdf. Griffin’s quote is in his essay “The Legacy of the Space Shuttle” in Wayne Hale, General Editor, Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, NASA SP-2010-3409, available at https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110011792.
- 25.
Craig Couvalt, “Fletcher Cites ‘Turf Battles’ in Space Program Decision Delays,” AWST, September 15, 1986, 77–78; Donald Fink, “Who’s in Charge?” AWST, July 28, 1986, 11.
- 26.
Memorandum from Alfred Kingon and John Poindexter to Donald Regan, “National Commission on Space,” July 17, 1986, and Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, July 22, 1986, Box 4, Papers of Richard Davis, RRL.
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Logsdon, J.M. (2019). Correcting a Policy Mistake. 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_20
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