Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

this study could exercise the system in part, or in its entirety, thus supporting the concept
of a true multiproduct system.
While this study was done to assess the commercial feasibility of manufacturing pharmaceutical
products in space, it serves as a model for those who wish to consider other
processes or products in the same environment. The use of the mass balance analytical
concept forces a delineation of what must be accomplished in the process for each product
in a stepwise fashion. The calculated quantities of materials at each step will quickly
determine if the process is feasible with current technology, where the areas of information
must be obtained to fill in the gaps, and anticipated recurring transportation costs to
haul the material to and from space. While it does not define the total cost of the system,
it does give the prospective manufacturer and NASA a general idea of the size, power and
weight of the processing equipment as well as the extent and type of storage requirements.
The length of the missions will be defined to determine economic feasibility. This will
have to be interwoven with the NASA program and schedules to determine if, and when,
a vehicle capability will be available to support such a manufacturing facility. Legal and
regulatory considerations will also have to be defined.
Recommendations for future work are presented. . . . It is recommended that drug
firm involvement be continued and encouraged both in ground research and product
evaluation. Because of companies’ sensitivity about government interference and disclosure
of trade secrets, each company should be dealt with on an individual basis with some
other private firm serving as a buffer or interface between the individual companies and
the government. Heavier involvement through evolutionary processes will probably lead
to direct participation in space activities. Such participation will logically require a user
development laboratory for these companies’ product developments.
Document III-24
Document title: James Beggs, Administrator, NASA, to William Clark, Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs, August 26, 1983, with attached: John F. Yardley,
President, McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, to James Beggs, Administrator,
NASA, August 23, 1983.
Source: Ronald W. Reagan Library, Sima, California.
After an August 3, 1983, meeting with President Ronald Reagan, John Yardley, the president of
McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, offered to be the first commercial user of a NASA space
station. In the interim, before the station became operational, Yardley proposed manufacturing by
using free-flying spacecraft. The business plan revolved around the successful results of experiments
in drug production aboard the Space Shuttle.
Honorable William Clark
Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20506
EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 539
August 26, 1983
Dear Bill:
I just received the [handwritten underlining] enclosed letter from John Yardley of
McDonnell Douglas. [“This is our” crossed out by hand and replaced by handwritten “re: