\n<\/em>
\nMr Hale: A lot of people had the idea that we should do something to document the Shuttle program \u2014 I\u2019m talking about after the President\u2019s [George W. Bush] speech in January, 2004, where he announced we\u2019re going to end the Shuttle program.<\/p>\n
Many of us had been working on the Shuttle program for our entire career at the agency, and there was a lot of talk about how do we capture the knowledge. We have a knowledge capture office, people are supposed to write down lessons that they\u2019ve learned \u2014 design, test, and operations \u2014 things that go into the next program. I have one of the books from Apollo that\u2019s along those lines, it\u2019s fascinating. And these days it\u2019s all got to be electronic \u2014 everybody wants to build a database, put it in some kind of relational database so you can search it \u2014 and that\u2019s good and there are people doing that. But that\u2019s not going to talk to the public.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/A37.jpg\" "\\"A3\\"")
Also, many of us in the program feel like we\u2019ve been beaten up quite a bit, because it didn\u2019t ever achieve the goals that way back in 1971 and 1972 people had thrown around as what we ought to do with a resuable spacecraft. And that\u2019s always held up \u2014 \u2018it\u2019s never been economical.\u2019 So I said let us write down what we really did and then let people judge whether it was worth it or not.<\/p>\n
And so when I was program manager we had some informal discussions, myself and a few other folks, and we said in addition to doing these formal engineering knowledge capture kind of things, let\u2019s write a book for the public that we could get published through the Government Printing Office.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of books out there in the history series where they talk about Apollo or the Great Observatories, any number of books. JPL has got a lot of books on a lot of their missions \u2014 one of my favorites is the Viking book, where they talk about how they developed it and what it did.<\/p>\n
So I said why don\u2019t we write a history book and being program manager I had the latitude and a little bit discretionary money, but even more than that we could get people. And we said we\u2019re not going to give you a task, but in your spare time, could you write an article on how this happened on the Shuttle or that happened on the Shuttle. We talked to a bunch of retirees and a lot of people volunteered their services. So it\u2019s kind of a labor of love.<\/p>\n
So over the past four years, five years, it\u2019s slowly been coming together and because\u2026we were always aiming to have it done at the end of the program, so we knew the deadline was about in the 2010, 2011 timeframe, that was the schedule we were working toward \u2014 people were doing it almost as a volunteer effort.<\/p>\n
Space Shuttle (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n The only thing we really paid for was some of the professional graphics, we had to hire a professional indexer \u2014 if you\u2019re going to do a serious book, you have to do some things like that. So I was able to get that started and provide a little dab of money for it. Some other organizations \u2014 the history organization \u2014 provided a little bit of money to pay for those kinds of things.<\/p>\n We put together an editorial board, a really impressive editorial board, to help us scope out \u2018what should we talk about,\u2019 what are the parameters. And then as chapters started coming in, we\u2019d review the chapters [and decide] \u2018yeah, this is good, this is what we want\u2019 or \u2018no, we missed the mark, let\u2019s go back and redo some things.\u2019 So it\u2019s really been a labor of love. There are\u2026two or three hundred different people that have provided written material to this book, so it\u2019s not any one person\u2019s book. I\u2019m just pleased that I was able to be in the right place at the right time to push it over the hump to get it from just a coffee table conversation to a real project.<\/p>\n Everybody wanted to write more \u2014 every article we got was too big and we had to develop a page count limit, a word count limit for each section. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s an article that came in under [the limit], everybody came in over. So we could probably have written a ten-volume work, but we wanted to keep it to one volume. I think it\u2019s going to be about 550-ish pages, maybe 575. We were really thinking more than that, so we allocated some pages that would have all the payload information \u2014 which payloads flew on what flight. That\u2019s unfortunately not ready for the print copies, but we\u2019re going to have a web copy, and it will be on the electronic web copies.<\/p>\n This is not an engineering book, we were aiming for the \u2018Scientific-American\u2019 kind of level; this is not a novel, it\u2019s not a light read, but on the other hand, it\u2019s not as technical as most NASA technical publications are. It\u2019s a history \u2014 what did we set out to do, how was it done, what did we accomplish. So some of the engineering sections may be a little tough sledding for some people if they\u2019re not technical; on the other hand, there are history sections that I think will be very interesting to people that aren\u2019t technical or to technical people, as well. \u2018No equations, no equations.\u2019<\/p>\n Q: How would you describe the style or tone of the book \u2014 is it in the style of a set of interviews or written papers? Q: What parts of the book did you write?<\/em><\/p>\n Mr Hale: My contribution is the introductory chapters, it talks about what is the Shuttle and what is it\u2019s place. In about five or six pages, I tried to put it all in perspective. <\/p>\n The rest of the book then fleshes that out. They told me I had to write mine first, so I had to write that introductory section first, and then all the authors were given it to read and then \u2018go from here\u2019 \u2014 it sets the tone.<\/p>\n My section, the introduction, is not at all technical \u2014 we celebrate the technology and the engineering accomplishments. It\u2019s really overview \u2014 nothing that the people at NSF wouldn\u2019t already know. And then we fill it out in the rest of the book, the history.<\/p>\n And of course, we provide an honest account \u2014 we don\u2019t want to whitewash it, we know there are things wrong with the Shuttle, we had two horrible accidents, it\u2019s all in there.<\/p>\n Q:<\/em> Do you have a favorite part of the book? Q: What are you doing today? They are interested in spaceflight safety, that\u2019s what they do, working with a variety of firms. I was able to sign on with them. I told them I only wanted to work part time. Their idea of part time was a little bit more than what I [thought]. [Smiles.] I\u2019ve been able to do things with my grandchildren and my family that I really enjoy doing, but it\u2019s really exciting to me to still be in the business, to be able to take some of the knowledge and experience that I\u2019ve gained over the years and help some of these folks out that are trying to build the next generation of human spaceflight vehicles. And help them avoid some of the pitfalls that we fell into. It\u2019s been enough to keep me busy.<\/p>\n Q: How would you compare the time demands of your new job with being Shuttle Program Manager? The last couple of years I was with the agency, I was on Bill Gerstenmaier\u2019s staff and that kept me full time busy \u2014 that was a 50-hour a week job. This is about half-time, although it comes in spurts, and my wife points out there\u2019s almost as much travel as I ever used to do, because we have these clients and we fly out to their place and\u2026give them advice.<\/p>\n So I spend a lot of time at the airport, which I\u2019m really tired of. [Laughs] I get to go a lot of places, and see a lot of things, things you read about other people are doing. Now I get to see what\u2019s really going on. We give them advice, and sometimes they even take our advice [smiles], that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n Q: How does the book address the Shuttle\u2019s legacy? But it\u2019s our attempt to put the story together, to tell it from the perspective of the folks who were in the program, [that] actually designed, built, flew, operated, got the scientific results from [the Shuttle] and tell it from our point of view. And hopefully it will make a pretty impressive case that the Shuttle was really good. When I say really good, I mean it really contributed to the advancement of technology, engineering, and even in social fields.<\/p>\n When we designed the Space Shuttle, it was going to fly for 10 years, and the thought was \u2018well then we\u2019ll build the next one.\u2019 And if you look at the history of aviation, which a lot of people\u2026like to cite\u2026when they talk about what we ought to do in space, the one thing you know about the history of aviation is that people built lots of vehicles \u2014 there were lots and lots of airplanes. And design changes, and people would try things out and see if they worked. In space, we have the Shuttle, and you\u2019re not going to advance if you just keep doing the same thing.<\/p>\n We should have, my opinion now, after 10 years said \u2018we need to build the Block 2 Shuttle and it\u2019s going to be different than the Shuttle we\u2019ve got.\u2019 We\u2019re going to take the lessons that we\u2019ve learned \u2014 maybe it won\u2019t be as big, maybe it will be bigger. Maybe it doesn\u2019t need the crossrange so it won\u2019t have wings and it will just be a lifting body.<\/p>\n Maybe it will have more crossrange. But we should have sat down and said \u2018how can we make it safer?\u2019, \u2018how can we make it more economical to fly?\u2019 And we should have made an investment as a country.<\/p>\n But we would be a lot better off today as a nation if we had built a second-generation Shuttle, and maybe by now third-generation Shuttle. We would have vehicles that are safer, more economical, and we would really be opening up the space frontier, dramatically more than the Space Shuttle has done. But that\u2019s a question of national will, politics, and economics \u2014 not technical issues.<\/p>\n I got into a little back-and-forth with somebody on one the forums about \u2018why doesn\u2019t NASA leadership do something better?\u2019 Well it isn\u2019t NASA, it\u2019s above NASA, it\u2019s at the national level \u2014 [it\u2019s a] \u2018write your Congressman\u2019 kind of thing. But if you\u2019re interested in space, why would we not build the next generation vehicle that could do a better job?<\/p>\n The Shuttle is what it is, we got what we paid for. OMB said \u2018cap the development cost at 5.5 billion dollars (in 1974 dollars) and that\u2019s all you\u2019re going to get.\u2019 So you get what you pay for, and if you don\u2019t pay to buy the new car, you\u2019re going to drive the old clunker for a long time. I really think that might be the best analogy \u2014 you have to ask yourself \u2018at what point does your old clunker need to be replaced with a new vehicle?\u2019<\/p>\n That\u2019s the kind of debate you get into, and we should have in my opinion replaced the old bird a long time ago, as proud as I am [of them]. But in spite of being an old bird, she\u2019s done some pretty amazing things.<\/p>\n (All images via NASA.gov).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an interview with NASASpaceflight.com, former Space Shuttle Program (SSP) manager Wayne Hale spoke about the upcoming book on the history of the Shuttle, \u201cWings In Orbit,\u201d his role in the project, and about what he is doing today. \u201cWings In Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle\u201d is due to go on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8456,7779],"class_list":["post-40504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-historical","tag-shuttle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/A47.jpg\" "\\"A4\\"")
And\u2026Dr. Helen Lane, who works out of the Sciences Office at JSC, and has published other articles, is really the key person who has done the yeoman\u2019s job of organizing the book \u2014 she\u2019s the \u2018project manager,\u2019 I guess you would say, that has seen it through. And she gets the lion\u2019s share of the credit, if anybody does. We\u2019ve got articles by astronauts, flight controllers, designers, testers, people at KSC, people at Marshall, people all around the agency that have worked on the Shuttle. So I think it\u2019s a pretty comprehensive book and the biggest problem we had was keeping it to one volume.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>
\nMr Hale: Some people wanted to write their things out, some people wanted to be interviewed \u2014 we transcribed it and let them look at it\u2026and made it grammatically correct, but otherwise kept the contents. I would say it\u2019s a mix.<\/p>\nSee Also<\/h4>\n
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\n<\/em>
\nMr Hale: I really enjoyed the whole thing \u2014 it\u2019s a fascinating program. It\u2019s been a huge program that involved tens of thousands of people and we couldn\u2019t tell everything. My only regret is that we couldn\u2019t tell everything. One of the real joys of the jobs I\u2019ve had is that I\u2019ve got to travel around the agency; I\u2019m just one part of the program, but I got to go all around the agency and I got to talk to people that do all sorts of things that support the program. Everybody is proud of what they do, everybody is excited about working for the Shuttle program. Everybody feels it\u2019s important. There may be a few malingerers out there, but I haven\u2019t run into them. I wish we could tell everybody\u2019s story, but obviously we can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>
\nMr Hale: I came to the point in my career, given what was going on at the agency and where I was with regard to the civil service system, that it just didn\u2019t make sense for me to continue at the agency. But I\u2019m only 56, I\u2019m not ready to sit on the rocking chair on the front porch and watch the world go by \u2014 I would be bored to tears. I was fortunate enough in my travels around to have encountered this small company, Special Aerospace Services out of Boulder, Colorado, run by folks that are mostly former NASA folks.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/A58.jpg\" "\\"200802070005HQ\\"")
Mr Hale: It\u2019s a lot less than being Shuttle Program Manager. Shuttle Program Manager is a 100-hour a week job.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>
\nMr Hale: That\u2019s the book, that\u2019s the subtitle \u2014 what did we actually accomplish? What did it mean to the American people? There\u2019s a whole section on the culture \u2014 what did it do for not just American culture, but world culture. So we\u2019re trying to hit that. I suspect that when the book comes out and people get copies of it, like every other book or movie or anything else that comes out, there are going to be critics that say \u2018well, they missed the mark\u2019 or \u2018they didn\u2019t have this right\u2019 \u2014 I\u2019m fully expecting that, because it\u2019s not perfect.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/CAIBium.jpeg\" "\\"CAIBium\\"")
Could we have done better? I\u2019ll be the first person to tell you, yes we could have done better. I keep going back to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, who said that the failure to replace the Space Shuttle was a failure of national leadership.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/A84.jpg\" "\\"200802070005HQ\\"")
The problem was, the Shuttle we got was just good enough that nobody wanted to say \u2018we need that next vehicle.\u2019 Let\u2019s just keep flying what we\u2019ve got, we\u2019ll kick the can down the road, because developing new vehicles is expensive.<\/p>\n