(DOWNLOAD) "Committing to the Shuttle Without Ever Having a National Policy." by Air Power History * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Committing to the Shuttle Without Ever Having a National Policy.
- Author : Air Power History
- Release Date : January 22, 2005
- Genre: Engineering,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 216 KB
Description
Announcing his approval of the Space Shuttle, President Richard M. Nixon said it would replace all launch vehicles except "the very largest and very smallest." U.S. space policy never explicitly committed all launches to the Shuttle without equivocation. How, then, did the U.S. commit all of its launches to the Space Shuttle and nearly extinguish its national ability to produce expendable launch vehicles? The answer lies in an intricate web of varied organizational and individual objectives leading to de facto commitment. The United States committed all of its national security, military and civil satellites to the Space Shuttle program without ever haying a national space policy of total commitment. Such a national commitment would either have required an explicit national space policy--which never occurred, or the nation's space programs needed to be maneuvered in such a way that the end result was elimination of alternatives to the Space Shuttle coincident with elimination of political jeopardy of cancellation. The de facto commitment was achieved through a finesse of the policy process.