This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. A Revolutionary Program Troubled From the Start February 2, 2003 By ROBERT D. McFADDEN America's 44-year adventure into space has been a chronicle of triumph and tragedy, of early manned flights that circled the earth and landed on the moon, of explosions that killed astronauts, of cost overruns and corruption, and of robot satellites that explored the Solar System and sent home amazing pictures and data from other worlds. The chapters have been called Mercury, Gemini, Pioneer, Mariner, Apollo and the less glamorous space shuttle, and the issues have been complex, combining national aspirations, cold-war politics, the endless human quest for scientific knowledge and the hard practical questions of cost and feasibility. After the Soviet Union leaped first into space with the orbiting of Sputnik I in 1957, American fears of losing the space race led to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958. Through the 1960's, it focused on putting Americans on the moon, although it also launched weather and communication satellites and achieved many other goals. The $25 billion space shuttle was envisioned in the 1970's as the successor to the successful moon-landing program. Less expensive and ambitious than a manned mission to Mars, the reusable shuttle was to revolutionize exotic space flight by turning it into an inexpensive, once-a-week event, paying its own way by deploying and repairing satellites and selling other space services. But almost from the start, the shuttle was plagued by design failures, cost overruns, delays, fraud and mismanagement within NASA and its contractors. Many problems were hidden until the 1986 explosion of the Challenger, which killed seven astronauts. More recently, an aging work force and management shortcomings have continued at NASA, experts say, and these and other problems are expected to be explored in the inquiries into yesterday's Columbia tragedy. In the early years, NASA exploits, including Alan B. Shepard Jr.'s suborbital spaceflight in 1961 and John Glenn's three-orbit flight in 1962 - seemed to be the stuff of science fiction, with splashdowns broadcast to millions on television and heroes stepping from capsules. Begun in 1958 and completed in 1963, the Mercury program was the nation's first man-in-space project, although its six flights accomplished much more, sending up the first weather and communications satellites, devising ways to launch and recover spacecraft and investigating human ability to work in space. >From 1964 to 1966, Gemini put astronauts into orbit for up to two weeks, with some of them stepping outside their capsules for spacewalks. A Ranger 7 rocket sent back close-up images of the moon before crashing on the lunar surface in 1964. A year later Mariner 4 flew within 6,118 miles of Mars, providing the first close-up images, and in 1966 Surveyor 1 made America's first soft landing on the moon and transmitted 10,000 photos of the lunar surface. There were setbacks, even tragedies, as NASA worked under pressure of tight budgets and technical difficulties to carry out President John F. Kennedy's 1961 call for the nation to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. On Jan. 27, 1967, the astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee were killed on the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral when a flash fire engulfed their capsule during a simulation aboard an Apollo-Saturn rocket. They were the first deaths directly attributable to the space program. But the 1960's were its glory years. In December 1968, Apollo 8, with the astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr. and William A. Anders on board, circled the moon and, focusing a television camera on earth, sent to worldwide television audiences the first view of the "blue marble." The halcyon period reached a climax in 1969 with the Apollo 11 moon landing. On July 20 Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. touched down in a lander while Michael Collins orbited in a command module. Setting foot on the surface, Armstrong told millions of viewers it was "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Before returning to earth, the astronauts spent 21 hours on the moon, taking rocks and soil, setting up experiments and planting an American flag. The Apollo 13 mission, in 1970, was a near disaster. An oxygen tank ruptured as the craft neared the moon, damaging power, electrical and life-support systems. The lunar landing was scrapped. After circling the moon, the astronauts used the lunar landing module as a lifeboat to return to earth. With limited air and water, they endured an ordeal but landed safely. There were other moon landings, including Apollo 15 in 1971, the first of three longer, expedition-style missions using a lunar rover. In 1972, Apollo 17 was the last of six moon missions; the astronauts spent 22 hours in moon walks and camped out for three days. In all, 12 men walked on the moon before the Apollo program ended. Meanwhile other projects went ahead. In 1971, Mariner 9 became the first Mars orbiter, and over the next two years Pioneer 11 went to Jupiter and sent back dramatic cloud-top and polar pictures. Viking 1 landed on Mars in 1976 and transmitted data for six years. By the early 1970's, however, the nation's space program was entering a new and more troubled phase. While a manned mission to Mars was a possibility, it it was seen by political leaders and the public as far too expensive, at least for the forseeable future. The development of a reuseable space shuttle emerged as an economical and practical interim step. The Nixon administration embraced it initially to promote scientific and military goals and to help shore up the ailing aerospace industry. It was sold to Congress on the assumption that it would pay for itself through business it would generate: shuttling up to deploy and repair many private commercial satellites, and other tasks. >From the start, however, the program set unrealistic goals, as many as 60 flights a year, and was plagued with cost overruns, delays and other problems. By 1981, when Columbia became the first shuttle, each launch was costing $250 million, 16 times the original estimates. But many of the worst problems were hidden until the shuttle Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986. Investigations later showed that faulty welds in a booster rocket - faults that had been concealed through falsified X-rays by a subcontractor to avoid the cost of repairs - had gone undetected and uncorrected until NASA auditors were tipped off by former employees of the subcontractor. Investigators also learned that NASA had drastically cut spending on safety testing, design and development, even skipping thermal and vibration tests on the shuttle and its engines. Instead of testing component parts, contractors only tested assembled systems, investigators said. And they said NASA had misled Congress on costs and schedules, withheld documents, violated federal codes and squandered billions. After the Challenger disaster, the shuttle was grounded until 1988. Since then, NASA has sought to make safety paramount, but critics have said this has fostered a conservatism that has led to further delays and cost overruns. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/national/02HIST.html?ex=1045198243&ei=1&en=2e68ae5193a3b159 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company