Crippled Birds in Search of Wings

By Otto Friedrich

Not since the orbiting satellite Sputnik 1 first beep-beep-beeped its way across the night sky 30 years ago have the Soviets mounted a more palpable challenge to U.S. technological prowess. President John F. Kennedy responded to the original challenge in 1961 by proclaiming that Americans would land on the moon within the decade, and so they did. Today there are no such stirring commitments. The only manned spacecraft orbiting the earth is the Soviet space station Mir.

"The United States," says ex-Astronaut Joe Allen, who flew on shuttle missions in 1982 and 1984, "is flirting with becoming to the space age what the Portuguese were to the sea age." Says another space insider: "You know, 30 years ago everybody's worst fears were that the Soviets would win the space race, and now the space capital of the world really is Moscow. This mess isn't something that just came up after Challenger. For years there has been no ((expletive deleted)) program." Rick Hauck, who will command the first post-Challenger shuttle flight, is worried by signs of political paralysis in Washington. "We must decide what we really want to do," he says. "We need to be clear about our goals."

While the U.S. space program is grounded, these questions are under study by a high-powered klatch called the Senior Interagency Group for Space. Its members, convened by the White House to reassess U.S. space policy, include representatives from the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and other agencies. Although the unit is scheduled to report to President Reagan next month, senior members began meeting only last week. Concludes Florida Congressman Bill Nelson, chairman of the House Space Science and Applications Subcommittee: "Reagan has shown no leadership in space."

Basic questions about the direction of the U.S. space program therefore remain unresolved. Among the most pressing:

-- Should the U.S. concentrate on the Strategic Defense Initiative, as President Reagan and the Pentagon urge, or should it preserve its traditional commitment to the peaceful exploration of space, perhaps in cooperation with other countries, including the Soviet Union?

-- Should the U.S. remain committed to the shuttle program, as NASA wants, or should it invest heavily in expendable rockets, as the Air Force prefers?

-- Should NASA organize commercial uses of space, as the governments of foreign nations are doing, or should that be left to private business, as the White House insists?

-- Should U.S. space probes concentrate on colonizing the moon? Or Mars? Or both? Or other planets? Are such probes to be manned or unmanned?

-- Should the purposes of NASA, which one expert calls an "agency without direction . . . demoralized," be redefined?

-- In an era of multibillion-dollar deficits, what price is the U.S. prepared to pay to regain its pre-eminence in space? NASA Chief James Fletcher has trimmed his budget request to $9.5 billion in the coming fiscal year.

Some answers have been offered. Former NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, for example, was assigned by the White House to make a major study of the space program and came out last year with a glowing plan for exploration and development. "The inner solar system is the future home of mankind," said Paine. "In the next century, we expect to see permanent settlements on the moon and on Mars. NASA should take the lead in new technologies, robotics, supercomputers, tele-operators, all technologies terribly important to the next century." The Administration seems to have politely filed Paine's report in limbo.

NASA asked for a similar study from Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, who left the space agency this past summer and became a consultant for a Stanford disarmament think tank. In August she proposed a series of steps, including the revival of the shuttle, a program to study the earth from space, an outpost on the moon and eventually a colony on Mars. The Administration evidently filed Ride next to Paine.

The Administration's basic policy seems to be that the development of SDI should take first priority, that scientific projects should cost as little as possible and that all commercial aspects of space should be handled by private business. It is a broad policy outline that inspires a good deal of skepticism. "We're really in a mess," says University of Minnesota Physicist Robert Pepin, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration.

Nonetheless, public optimism appears boundless. NASA's Fletcher, for one, declared last week that the U.S. space program is "solidly on the road back to reliable operations," though he concedes the U.S. has a "pressing need to catch up." Says William Graham, White House science adviser: "We have great programs in space, multidecade programs."

So far, the net effect of Administration policy has been a virtual political standstill. Even the scheduled revival of the shuttle program next June may be postponed in order to forestall any unpleasant surprises during the election campaign. Looking ahead, the Air Force is trying to remedy its lack of heavy lifters by ordering 18 Titans, a 1960s missile designed for ICBMs. A U.S. space station to match the Soviets' high-flying Mir is only a possibility for the mid-1990s. A manned mission to Mars is still just a dream. "Low morale and frustration is the description of the U.S. space program," says ex- Astronaut Eugene Cernan, now president of the Cernan Corp. "Mir is on the high ground, and we are not there."

U.S. experts, though repeatedly surprised by Soviet space feats, remain convinced that elements of U.S. technology are still at least a decade ahead of the Soviet version. This advantage, they feel, would enable the U.S. to overcome the present Soviet lead if the U.S. ever decided to make the effort. "I think we could do it all better than they do," says U.S. Astrogeologist Harold Masursky. "But they do it."

With reporting by Glenn Garelik and Jerry Hannifin/Washington