HIGH-TECH PIE IN THE SKY

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

The hometown crowd at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, reacted even before Vice President Al Gore announced which of three hotly competitive designs had been chosen as the space shuttle of the future. Lockheed Martin's VentureStar, which would be built in nearby Palmdale, looks like no other spacecraft, and when Gore reached for a model airship shaped like a giant piece of pie, the group burst into applause. Undaunted, the Vice President plunged on with his scripted gag, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the importance of this moment."

In fact, the importance of choosing the VentureStar was twofold. Not only is it the first new U.S. rocket design in 25 years, but it also represents the first space shuttle to be drafted, built, tested and maintained by private enterprise--allowing NASA to get out of the space cargo business and back to...well, to pure rocket science.

When NASA head Daniel Goldin declared earlier this year that the U.S. rocketry program is inferior to those of European competitors, he was only stating the obvious. True, the U.S. launches real astronauts and not just satellite payloads. But dismayed by delays, cost overruns and the Challenger disaster, paying clients began to go elsewhere. The shuttle's $80 million-per-launch cost prompted California Congressman Dana Rohrbacher to quip that it is "the most effective device known to man for destroying dollar bills."

Goldin's goal since he arrived in 1992 has been to make NASA a shuttle customer rather than a designer-owner-operator. To ease this transition, he pledged $1 billion in development funds to the winner of a design contest that pitted Lockheed Martin against Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas.

Lockheed won decisively because "they had bitten off more," as NASA's Gary Payton put it. All three contenders proposed a fully reusable vehicle (the current shuttle jettisons its expensive boosters and fuel tank). All three eliminated astronauts (although people, as pilots or passengers, could be added later). Lockheed, however, pushed the envelope the furthest. Much like the experimental aircraft of the 1970s, the entire surface of the stubby, wingless craft is used to create lift, saving fuel and permitting a slower, cooler descent. This in turn enables Lockheed to replace the present shuttle's pesky ceramic tiles with a reusable metallic sheath.

Then there are the new "aerospike" engines. Nozzles on the current shuttle engines have limited adaptability to ambient pressure; they work well in a vacuum but labor in the earth's atmosphere. The aerospikes will match thrust to need. Like a car with fuel injection, they should get better mileage.

A half-size, 67-ft. prototype of the VentureStar called the X-33 is scheduled to fly in 1999, the finished craft in 2006. NASA and Lockheed claim that the innovations will shrink the shuttle's price-per-payload-pound from $10,000 to $1,000, slash repair and inspection costs and reduce turnaround time from weeks to days. Goldin envisions fleets of VentureStars launching satellites, hauling material back and forth to space stations and ferrying tourists into orbit. "Many people have aspirations of going into space," he says. "They should be able to live those out."

They might, if the folks with the wherewithal to fund Lockheed's venture are convinced they'll get a return on that investment. Without government guarantees, the private sector may not be willing to put up the $4 billion to $8 billion needed to launch the VentureStar. If it doesn't, the Europeans could inherit the space-launch business. Permanently.

--Reported by Dan Cray/Pasadena and Ainissa Ramirez/Washington

With reporting by DAN CRAY/PASADENA AND AINISSA RAMIREZ/WASHINGTON