ORDERS MAGNITUDE A HISTORY OF FRANK W. ANDERSON, JR. The NASA History Series NASA SP-4403 NASA Scientific and Technical Information Branch 1981 The history program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is reviewed periodically by the Historical Advisory Committee, a standing committee of the NASA Advisory Council. As of November 1980, members of the committee were: Sylvia D. Fries, University of Maine, Chair I. B. Holley, Jr., Duke University Richard S. Kirkendall, Indiana University Everett I. Mendelsohn, Harvard University Carroll W. Pursell, Jr., University of California at Santa Barbara Walter G. Vincenti, Stanford University Monte D. Wright, NASA, Executive Secretary While the Historical Advisory Committee seeks to ensure that professional standards are followed in the history program, neither the committee nor any official of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration necessarily endorses the opinions and conclusions set forth in this book; those are the responsibility of the author. 1st edition, 1976 2d printing with corrections, 1976 2d edition, 1981 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Anderson, Frank Walter. Orders of magnitude. (NASA SP; 4403. The NASA history series) Bibliography: p. 100 Includes index. Supt. of Docs. no.: NAS1.2:M27 1. United States. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics-History. 2. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration—History. I. Title. II. Series: NASA SP; 4403. III. Series: NASA history series. For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office AACR2 Foreword Five years ago, when the United States was celebrating its bicentennial, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration marked the occasion by-among other things-publishing a short narrative that summarized the role of NASA and its predecessor organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, in the development of aeronautics and space exploration. Now it seems fitting to update that volume. With the first flight of the Space Shuttle a few months hence, we will cross a major threshold in the space program. In its operational lifetime, which will span the 1980s, the Shuttle will introduce revolutionary changes: routine access to the space environment for experimenters as well as for spacecraft and sensors; a minimum-g flight profile, notably reducing stress during launch and ascent and thereby reducing the special preparation formerly required for both people and hardware; and the potential for servicing expensive payloads in orbit or retrieving them for overhaul on the ground. More subtle, and yet perhaps more important in the long run, are the changes in attitude that will accompany the new freedom of access to the space environment. Our present concept of space is forbidding: machines and humans are surrounded by hostile conditions that constantly threaten catastrophe, limiting many space activities to brief, one-shot excursions. The Space Transportation System will alter this concept through the confidence that comes from repetition and familiarity. Consider, for example, our altered concept of the moon. Before the Apollo landings, the moon was for us much the same image that humans had shared since antiquity—a remote, cold, somewhat romantic body. Our intellect told us it was intimately linked with the earth, but our emotions felt it was distant and unattainable. The first “giant step for mankind” was in the category of exciting derring-do. We were proud of the achievement; humans had done what they had never been able to do before. But it was the landings that followed, with extensive televised explorations of the lunar surface, that made the moon a familiar place, there for us to return to whenever we wished. Such a familiarity with the space environment is what the Space |