Skip to main content

Lost In Space

March 2023
1min read


I was fascinated by the article “Lost in Space: What Went Wrong With NASA?” in the November 1992 issue of American Heritage . From 1977 to 1983 I was president of RCA American Communications, a pioneering satellite-communications carrier, and I had many contacts with NASA, which provided the launch services for our satellites. The comments in the article about the NASA shuttle program are absolutely correct, and I have something to add to them.

The shuttle was alleged to be a cheaper way of launching satellites because the launch vehicle was reusable. We were very suspicious of this claim, first because of the need for added reliability of a manned vehicle and second because refurbishing is often more expensive than building anew.

NASA confirmed its position that the shuttle would be cheaper by quoting a lower price for a shuttle launch. It was soon evident, however, that it was a highly subsidized price. In 1981 I expressed my opinion on this matter in an internal RCA memorandum: “To some extent this result [the higher cost of the shuttle] should [have been] expected because there has been a conspiracy of deception to which both the deceivers (NASA and the Department of Defense) and the deceived (Congress) were parties. In the eyes of many, the real purpose of the shuttle was its ability to launch very large and heavy satellites to put men and complex surveillance systems1 in space for military purposes. From this standpoint, the claimed cost savings of the shuttle for commercial satellites was a convenient smoke screen …”

NASA sold the shuttle program to Congress, and almost everybody got something: the NASA bureaucracy got a major program; the technical community got a major source of employment on an interesting and challenging project; the aerospace industry got a major new market; and the military got a powerful launch vehicle without the political problems of an allmilitary program.

The only losers were the taxpayers.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "April 1993"

Authored by: Wayne Fields

THIS SPRING, THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF JEFFERSON’S BIRTH, RESTORATION BEGINS ON POPLAR FOREST, WHICH HE ONCE CALLED “THE BEST DWELLING HOUSE IN THE STATE, EXCEPT THAT OF MONTICELLO.” WHILE THE WORK PROGESSES, THE HOUSE IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, AND ITS GHOSTLY EMPTINESS HEIGHTENS THE SENSE IF ITS ORIGINAL OCCUPANT.

Authored by: The Editors

Watershed of the Nation

Authored by: The Editors

The Songs of Cole Porter

Authored by: The Editors

Cole Porter in the 1930s

Authored by: Henry Wiencek

After half a millennium we scarcely feel the presence of Spain in what is now the United States. But it is all around us.

Authored by: Michael S. Durham

Retracing the Pioneer Trail in Mormon Utah

Authored by: William E. Carnahan

The U.S. Capitol stands where it always has, but the columns that originally held it up have become a hauntingly beautiful monument somewhere else

Authored by: Vance Bourjaily

A novelist joins his ancestor on a trip West and discovers in her daily travails an intimate view of a tremendous national migration

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.