[Reply to “Space Station?” by L.H. Meredith] On the future of the United States in space

It is no news that the space programs of the United States, both civil and military, have been acutely disabled since the Challenger accident in January 1986. Billions of dollars' worth of high-priority commercial, scientific, and military spacecraft are backing up in the launching queue, but within the civil sector, no effective effort has yet been made to remedy this disgraceful situation. In fact, the present inflexible policy runs in the opposite direction — that is, to worsen the situation. The likelihood of such a national disability was foreseen in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate appropriations committee on June 29, 1971, by then—Senator Walter Mondale, Thomas Gold, Brian O'Leary, and myself. At that time, advocates of the development of a fleet of manned space shuttles promised the Congress that each of the proposed shuttles would deliver 50,000 pounds of payload into low Earth orbit at a launching cost of $100 per pound; that each shuttle would have a useful lifetime of 100 missions; that by the early 1980s the United States would be conducting 50 shuttle flights per year (i.e., about one per week) for civil purposes alone; and that all expendable launch vehicles would thereby be rendered obsolete.