In its Oct. 13 fifth Starship test flight, Elon Musk’s SpaceX safely returned its towering 233 foot-tall first stage "Super Heavy" booster back to its launch tower, employing only two giant "chop sticks" . . . mechanical arms . . . to guide that impressive landing.
As Musk delightedly wrote on X, "The Tower caught the rocket!"
Elon also commented that "A big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today."
No overstatement, we three contend.
And we feel justified in our earlier efforts to set the nation on this pathway.
And others are also due applause.
In particular now deceased U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Danny Graham championed a "single stage-to-orbit" rocket concept originated by Dr. Bill Gaubatz, then at McDonnell Douglas.
Their DC-X plan included a suborbital flight demonstrator, and they persuaded the first author, while Director of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), that it could help deploy and maintain space-based missile defenses, and it offered a near-term path to considerable cost savings by launching targets for testing SDIs entire suite of missile defense interceptors.
So, SDI funded a $60 million three phase "build, test, grow" program to:
- Prove with a sub-sonic vehicle that usual space launch logistics support requirements could be dramatically improved by reusable "aircraft-like" launch operations.
- By using these reduced logistical support procedures and then near-term technology, demonstrate an inexpensive suborbital launch vehicle to support all planned ballistic missile defense testing requirements.
- Using the savings generated by the more cost-effective target launching, improve the technology base for lightweight structures, high performance engines, reentry thermal protection, systems integration, etc. The goal was a first generation of reusable launch vehicles, whether one or two stages, for missile defense and supporting a long history of USAF interest in global reach flight.
The second author was this effort’s SDI Project Manager that completed phase 1, flawlessly flying the DC-X through an initial flight test campaign. DC-X landed successfully on a concrete pad, desert sand, and a grated grill, all commanded by self-described "flight manager," astronaut Pete Conrad, the Apollo 12 and Skylab commander.
Pete’s vision was to take off and land from the same pad with centimeter accuracy to facilitate turnaround and dramatically reduce costs.
The feasibility of this "Conrad Maneuver" was validated using flight simulations.
As shown in this link, in the eighth test DC-X successfully took off, turned horizontal to fly sideways, and then rotated to vertical to land on its pad, a demonstration that would not be repeated until SpaceX accomplished a similar maneuver over a quarter century later.
Notably, CNN carried worldwide a video of the first DC-X take-off, rise, hover, high angle of attack flight and vertical landing . . . all commanded by Astronaut Pete Conrad, his deputy, and a crew chief. Pete said he could manage all the ground and flight operations by himself from a single console using flight software five generations behind what is available today.
Pause for a moment and think about that.
DC-X flew for three years successfully accomplishing all test objectives but subsequently suffered the fate of many experimental aircraft, a crash due to human error when a pneumatic line was not connected during ground maintenance and failed to deploy one of the DC-X landing legs.
Sadly, the Clinton administration cancelled this novel approach, though NASA did not forget its importance and the third author, while serving as NASA Administrator, continued the funding and renamed the DC-X as the Clipper Graham to honor General Daniel Graham’s vision pioneering the DC-X effort . . . and he gave Danny NASA’s highest award.
Neither the USAF nor NASA followed up the Clipper Graham initiative. But Elon Musk did, mining the DC-X flight test data and far surpassing our vision. When Elon Musk was sent a congratulatory message following the first successful SpaceX vertical launch and landing of his "Grasshopper Vehicle," Elon responded, "Thanks, just continuing the great work of the DC-X project."
We humbly suggest that Elon consider naming his first stage recovery maneuver after Pete Conrad, who pioneered similar maneuvers 30-years ago.
Less humbly and with a sense of urgency, we encourage the United States to step boldly forward to develop and deploy the space-based "Iron Dome" President Reagan advocated 40 years ago.
The world is less safe now than at any time in history, but the technology has also rocketed ahead with the ability to deploy on-demand and maintain space-based missile defenses at far lower cost than today’s regional and far less effective ground-based missile defenses.
Henry F. Cooper was the third Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Jess Sponable was SDI DC-X/Clipper Graham Program Manager, and Daniel S. Goldin was NASA’s longest serving Administrator.
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