A set-back for commercialising space

Press, 1 February 1986, Page 10

A set-back for commercialising space

NZPA-NYT Washington The Challenger’s destruction may cripple for several years N.A.S.A.’s already-flagging efforts to make its shuttle fleet the centre-piece of. commercial exploitation of space.

Even before the disaster business ; executives who were once enthusiastic about the shuttle’s in-, dustrial potential ' were complaining that its cost was; too’ high; its. schedule too’unpredictable, and its' emphasis too r strongly oriented toward meeting military needs.l Now they have added the question of safety, and many have begun looking for alternative means of lifting payloads into space. ...

Some may turn to an unexpectedly energetic competitor, the European Space Agency’s Ariane rocket fleet, which has already sent up satellite payloads that once seemed perfectly suited for the shuttle. ■ ’ "

Amid conjecture that some commercial and military payloads will be delayed for two years or more, the National Aero-

nautics and Space Administration was criticised on Thursday as relying too heavily on its expensive manned shuttle flights for taking high-technology goods into, space. “The shuttle programme is a terribly valuable experiment for the United States,” said C. J. Waylan, president of G.T.E. Spacenefc which was scheduled to send up a communications satellite on the shuttle late this year.

“But if we had expend- • able launch vehicles today,” he said, referring to the cheaper, unmanned rockets the communications industry has urged •N.A.S.A. to build, “we would' have some alternatives.”

He would consider using the Ariane, among other possibilities. "The One clear winner in this is Ariane,” said Wolfgang Demisch, an aerospace analyst at the .First Boston Corporation. But N.A.S.A. officials said that Ariane Itself had had a launching failure recently when it tried to

put a communications satellite into space. For the shuttle! programme, the explosion on Wednesday capped a series of set-backs it encountered in faying to fulfil Ronald Reagan’s oftenstated goal of spurring commercial enterprise In space. Although a host of industrial experiments have already been conducted on shuttle flights, there is general acknowledgement that the vehicle is uneconomic for all but a very narrow spectrum of manufacturing t tasks, mostly those using lowweight and expensive materials.

Hopes that the shuttle would revolutionise America’s high-technology industry have mostly been deferred. Many experts say that an entirely new, more cost-effective shuttle is needed, “In ail honesty, I don’t really think that the shuttle is well suited ( for manufacturing,” said Neil Hosenball, 7 who was N.A.S.A.’s general counsel for 10 years.