Single Stage to Orbit: Politics, Space Technology, and the Quest for Reusable Rocketry (review)

The title of this book is rather misleading. Andrew Butrica does briefly discuss the technical aspects of the ill-fated X-30 National Aerospace Plane program of the 1980s and the even more ill-fated X-33 technology demonstrator of the 1990s, both of which were intended to demonstrate the technologies required for a vehicle to take off from Earth and get into orbit without shedding any elements—that is, a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle. He spends more time chronicling the origins and fate of the single-stage-to-orbit program initiated by the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO), which became known as the Delta Clipper, or DC-X.

The primary focus of his book, however, is not on the vehicles themselves, but rather on how they reflected the influence on U.S. space policy during the 1980s and early 1990s of a group of space enthusiasts who pursued what the author calls "the conservative space agenda," an approach to space that "favored business and defense over social issues" (p. 7).

Butrica identifies as chief protagonists of this agenda individuals such as retired air force general Daniel Graham and visionary engineer Maxwell Hunter, backed up by the "New Right" political philosophy of Representative Newt Gingrich and by the enthusiasm of younger individuals like the political operative Jim Muncy and technology managers like air force colonel Simon "Pete" Worden and SDIO technology chief Michael Griffin. Uniting this group was skepticism that either NASA or the mainstream air force could begin and carry through a program that best served the nation's space transportation needs.

According to Butrica's account, the conservative space agenda began to gain attention during the eight years of the Reagan administration, starting in 1981, and reached the height of its influence as the administration of George H. W. Bush entered the White House in 1989. The Bush administration recreated a National Space Council in the White House, and Vice President Dan Quayle and the Space Council staff became prime movers in supporting changes in the U.S. space program, emphasizing a "faster, better, cheaper" approach to getting things done. The DC-X program was a showpiece for demonstrating that a rocket ship could be launched and operated by a small ground crew, suggesting that the large "standing army" needed to process and launch the space shuttle was an anachronism. It was thus one means of demonstrating that there was an alternative to the way that NASA and the air force were managing the U.S. space effort.

This attempt at change did not take hold. When NASA in 1995 chose a contractor to develop a next-generation single-stage-to-orbit vehicle, it did not select McDonnell Douglas, which had brought the DC-X into being. Rather, the space agency selected the "corporate dinosaur" Lockheed Martin, and with that choice, suggests Butrica, the efforts of Graham, Hunter, and their allies to introduce radical change into U.S. space policy reached a frustrating climax.

Butrica's book thus chronicles an important period in the evolution of U.S. space policy. He claims (p. 13) that the 1980s will "be remembered as a major turning point in space history as important as, or possibly more important than, the 1960s." While this is arguable, it is clear that the emphasis on commercial and security uses of space that came to the fore during the Reagan administration is having lasting impacts.

It is unfortunate that the book is not better written. It is often repetitious, and descriptions of the organizational relationships among the many actors influencing space policy are not always precise. There are a number of minor errors, such as describing the failed partnership between McDonnell Douglas and Johnson and Johnson to test a way of separating materials in microgravity as "one of the most successful space manufacturing ventures" (p. 35).

Single Stage to Orbit is thus...