A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

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of two shuttles for its own use, it appears at this time that the Air
Force will mainly contract for NASA to launch Air Force payloads onboard
NASA-operated shuttles.
For many Air Force missions this will
simply mean flying aboard a shuttle dedicated exclusively to Air Force
payloads.
For others, such as the Space Test Program missions, the
shuttle will be shared with non-Air Force payloads.
In these cases,
the issue of prorating the cost of the shuttle will be important. As
discussed in Sec. IV, a variety of shuttle tariff formulas were evaluated
to determine their impact on the procurement option selection.
While the shuttle tariff formulas examined in this study did not substantially
affect the procurement option selection, they did represent
a large impact on the absolute cost of carrying out the Air Force Space
Test Program missions. And of particular interest to the Air Force was
that none of the NASA shuttle tariff schedules dealt with the secondary
payload concept. As mentioned in Sec. IV, this concept involved not
specifying the mission inclination, altitude, or launch time and selecting
a spacecraft design that would fit into a nonprimary payload portion
of the shuttle bay. Given these characteristics, the Air Force Space
Test Program Office felt that some compensation should be incorporated
in the NASA shuttle tariff schedule; however, no such compensation was
ever made, and it appears from the latest NASA shuttle tariff schedule
available at the time of this study that it will not be part of the
agreed-upon shuttle operation.
The second shuttle-related issue involved the loss of program
control that the Air Force expects as a result of the conversion to
the use of the shuttle for launching its space payloads. As indicated
in Sec. II, the DoD, from the beginning of the U.S. space program, has
been deeply involved in launch vehicle development and the operation of
the vehicles for the purpose of placing payloads into orbit.
The Air
Force provided launch services for NASA for many years. With the advent
of the space shuttle, the DoD will relinquish one additional component
of its role in the space program; it will no longer be responsible for
launching its own payloads into orbit. For the Air Force Space Test
Program Office, this transition carries with it the feeling of loss of
program control. Not only will NASA operate the shuttle, but it will