🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <11401@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan) writes:
>>... The Saturn V was expensive, hand-built,
>>and non-recoverable because of the decision in the mid-60s to throw it away!
>>When Congress capped Saturn V production at 15...
>
>It's hardly surprising that congress refused to guarantee long term funding
>for the Saturn program, few if any large procurment contracts are or have
>been long term. If the "experts" would have told congress to stick with the
>Saturn V post Apollo, congress most likely would have funded more of them...
>The Saturn V was fairly expensive and a lot of people thought changing to a
>fully reusable (that was the original plan) vehicle would save money...

You've missed my point slightly, I fear.  Note the date I gave.  This
particular decision was made long before the shuttle was seriously looked
at, and long before any serious post-Apollo planning was done.  The fateful
decision was made in the middle of Apollo, over NASA's strenuous objections.
The NASA administrator of the time -- Webb? -- had to fight hard just to
get authorization for 15.  It wasn't a refusal to guarantee long-term
funding, it was a specific decision that there would be no long-term
Saturn program at all.

Many people date the decline of the Saturn V to NASA's post-Apollo decision
not to retain Saturn V launch capability.  This is wrong; the original
Congressional decision to terminate production after 15, made much earlier,
was the real killer.  The loss of production capability made the inability to
launch the last two Saturn Vs a relatively minor issue.  (Admittedly it
would be useful now to have them, but realistically it just wouldn't have
happened.)
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