U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology: Viking to Space Shuttle

6. Titan Space-Launch Vehicles, 1961–1990

6 Titan Space-Launch Vehicles, 1961–1990 While NASA was just getting started with the massive development effort for the Saturn launch vehicles, the Air Force began work on what became the Titan family of launch vehicles, beginning with the Titan IIIs and ending with Titan IVBs. Essentially, most of these vehicles consisted of upgraded Titan II cores with a series of upper stages. Most of the vehicles also used a pair of huge, segmented strap-on solid-propellant motors to supplement the thrust of the Titan II core vehicle. And after September 1988 a limited number of actual Titan IIs, refurbished and equipped with technology and hardware from the Titan III program, joined the other members of the Titan family of launch vehicles. Beginning in June 1989, Titan IV with a stretched core and with seven (instead of Titan III’s five or five and a half) segments in its solid rocket motors became the newest member of the Titan family.1 Since the initial Titan launch vehicle in this family designed specifically to lift payloads into space, the Titan III, was competitive with the early Saturns in orbital performance, the Department of Defense had to justify a separate development effort for the heavy booster. It did so partly in terms of cost. DoD anticipated a large number of military missions for such a booster during the 1960s, and the expected cost per launch for Titan III was considerably lower than for Saturn vehicles. Other points of justification included the more rapid launch capability afforded by the Titans’ lack of dependence on cryogenic propellants (a factor for some proposed missions), greater flexibility resulting from the building-block concept on which the various Titan IIIs were based, fewer logistics and training problems for the Air Force because of previous experience with the Titan II missile, and the fact that part of the cost and development effort would be devoted to large solid-propellant motors, which seemed promising in the wake of Polaris and Minuteman.2 Titan Space-Launch Vehicles, 1961–1990 221 Inception and Early Development of Titan IIIA and C The development of Titan III was complicated and heavily influenced by changes in management procedures at the DoD level in the new administration of President John F. Kennedy, who assumed office on January 20, 1961. Kennedy had campaigned for the presidency partly on an alleged (but in fact mythical) missile gap between the United States and its cold-war adversary, the Soviet Union. As president he was concerned to ensure that the country at least matched Soviet accomplishments in the space arena. His secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara, in turn introduced many new management procedures at DoD that greatly affected Titan III development. Some of these stemmed from changes that General Schriever had begun to implement in the Air Force as a result of his experience in missile development.3 Essentially, Schriever’s reforms entailed the use of systems management, with new proposals for missiles and rockets as well as other types of technology having to be submitted in program packages that included such issues as Figure 45. An early depiction of the Titan family of missiles and space-launch vehicles. MOL stood for Manned Orbiting Laboratory, a program that never reached fruition. Official U.S. Air Force photo, courtesy of the 45 Space Wing History Office, Patrick AFB, Fla. U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology 222 cost, logistics, management, schedules, operational details, training, and security . With McNamara’s approval, the Air Force adopted these reforms on March 14, 1961, with the procurement activities of Air Materiel Command (AMC) shifted to an expanded Air Research and Development Command called Air Force Systems Command. A truncated AMC in effect became Air Force Logistics Command.4 All of this changed Air Force methods of missile and rocket development and procurement. But McNamara’s more basic shift in management procedures , called planning, programming, and budgeting (PPB), came from another source. Charles Hitch and Roland McKean had written a report for the Rand Corporation (a sort of think tank) entitled The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age, which McNamara read with interest. Instead of separate budgets for each service, which the individual services divided up with limited controls from above, Hitch and McKean proposed a system that would look at the overall missions and decide, on the basis of projected costs and benefits, what systems made the most sense...