Single Stage to Orbit: Politics, Space Technology, and the Quest for Reusable Rocketry (New Series in NASA History) (Hardcover)

by Andrew J. Butrica (Author) "In a village of La Mancha, whose named I have no desire to remember, there lived not long ago one of those gentlemen who keep..." (more)
Key Phrases: commercial space policy, commercial launch industry, space agenda, United States, White House, Strategic Defense Initiative (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The 'holy grail' of the spaceship movement has been the development of a vehicle that could accomplish single stage to orbit (SSTO) flight. This study describes the evolution of this concept from the 1920s to the present, revealing a conservative space agenda that has not yet been the subject of historical analysis. As such, it makes an important contribution to space history literature." -- Roger D. Launius, The Smithsonian Institution

"A history of one particular aspect of US space history -- the attempt to develop a single-stage-to-orbit launcher... it is a story of muddle and waste... Butrica provides a competent and readable account of this debacle, which concentrates on the small research vehicle, DC-X." -- D. M. Ashford, Times Literary Supplement

Product Description
Behind the glories and tragedies that make headlines and move the nation, the story of the space shuttle is inextricably bound to the lesser-known but no less engrossing drama of the search for a reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket. In this book, Andrew J. Butrica tells this story, going back to the first glimmerings of the idea in the 1920s, when it was dismissed as technically unfeasible, and following it to its fruition in the midst of the Cold War as a very real government program and operational flight vehicle

This is not, however, the story of a single idea, but rather the history of a vision that brought together a few pioneers of space technology and several concepts, new and old. To the first and oldest idea—that of the reusable rocket-powered single-stage-to-orbit vehicle—were added the concepts of "aircraft-like" operations, of using an "X," or experimental, vehicle, and of running a program with a "faster, cheaper, smaller" managerial approach. Butrica describes how these ideas came together in the heart of what President Eisenhower dubbed the military-industrial complex. He traces the interplay of technology and politics that served the conservative space agenda and that ultimately triumphed in a realization of the vision of space commercialization and militarization resting on a foundation of inexpensive, reliable space transport.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; illustrated edition edition (October 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080187338X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801873386
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,648,766 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A History of the Search for Spaceflight's Holy Grail, January 6, 2004

By	Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Andrew Butrica's new book is part of a growing literature on the politics of space. The best known work in this genre is Walter McDougall's Pulitizer Prize-winning volume, "...the Heavens and the Earth." While McDougall's work was written in the early 1980s (published in 1985), still inside the framework of the Cold War, "Single Stage to Orbit" is able to take a more wholistic approach allowed by the passage of more time. That is also partly because Butrica's subject focuses on a single type of space hardware after its demise. His analysis clearly extends and to some extent revises McDougall's conclusions about the nature of technocracy in modern American society.

Butrica does a brilliant job explicating how the American political right gained hold of the ideology of progress in the last two decades of the twentieth century. His goal is to place the history of the Strategic Defense Initiative Office/"single stage to orbit" spaceplane effort in the context of the United States' well-documented political "right turn" of the past two-plus decades. He is very successful in examining the foundation and growth of the "conservative space agenda" and its linkage to various space advocacy groups. He also shows how conservative space advocates were able to manipulate the political system to achieve funding for their technological goal, a "Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO)" reusable launch vehicle.

Butrica's book is the only book-length history of SSTO technologies other than memoirs of participants, and hence it addresses an important original topic. What makes the book worthy of serious and sustained attention, however, is its explicit examination of the "politics of space" and its linkage of space politics to a specific set of technologies and management practices. The conservative space agenda he reveals in this book has not yet been the subject of historical analysis, and this is the book's primary contribution to the space history literature.

In itself, there is nothing overwhelmingly compelling about the story of SSTO. It was an effort begun in the 1980s, emphasized by Reaganite technological afficianadoes, to create a new space access capability through the development of a new space launcher. SSTO had long been the "holy grail" of spaceflight, the creation of a vehicle that could take off like an airplane, accelerate to hypersonic speeds, reach orbital velocity and enter orbit, and then return from space and land like an airplane on a runway. This is a very complex flight regime and one that has been impossible to achieve up to this time. Most engineers have thought it unachievable, and appropriately so, but it remained an enticing goal.

During the Reagan administration, some enthusiasts argued that technological stretch could make possible the "single stage to orbit" goal, and they achieved approval for a succession of SSTO programs. The tensions of the story are those of domestic politics and of engineers associated with industry versus those with government. The story plays out over several design projects from the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) through the DC-X to the X-33 of the 1990s. The story of these efforts is told in detail in this important new book.

3.0 out of 5 stars Sure Thing, August 25, 2008

By	Christopher Gaska - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is an account of the behind the scenes machinations that occur when a particularly large and lucrative rice bowl is tipped over. G. Harry Stine has written on the subject along with Dr. Jerry Pournelle. If you are interested in the inside scoop on doing business in the aerospace industry, there are insights to be gleaned from this tome. Good modern history lessons here.