Rocket Scientists -- A Dead or Dying Breed for the USAF:
and a plan for the future

	The Rocket Propulsion Directorate of Phillips Laboratories USAF was initially established in the 19's as the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (AFRPL). The location in the California Desert at dards Air Force Base was ideal for a collection of remote test stands. Here experimental tests coul ad did explode safely. The facility did not serve as a classical laboratory; the main function wasto e a remote test site.

Test Site History

	A major initial facility use was as a test firing station for the F1 rocket engines used on Apollo ights. Rocketdyne, Canoga Park, CA made the engines and sent them to AFRPL for testing. Each F1 roce engine had to fire flawlessly  several times at AFRPL before being  certified.  Thousands of workrswere involved. Rusting large test stands dot the hills today.

	 Located nearby in both El Segundo (130 miles) and San Bernadino (80 miles) CA were the space and msile arms of the USAF Space And  Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO). These were the  centers wher he AFRPL could integrate seamlessly into the highest levels of planning for USAF space and missile. ne would have expected the AFRPL to have played a strong role in the Air Force Space and Missilesprorams. 

	There was surprisingly little interaction between SAMSO and AFRPL. The Aerospace Corporation, an onite Federally Funded Contract Research Center (FFCRC) provided most of the rocket and missile experie to the USAF/SAMSO. The AFRPL played little role for many years in the mainstream of the USAF. Itwa mainly a test center in the remote desert.

	The mentality of the AFRPL organization was always very much "hands on". The ordinary slow, logicalhinking laboratory mentality was discouraged for "doing something" instead of thinking about it or nlyzing it. The urgent- hurry up test stand mentality prevailed.

	The laboratory suffered the post Apollo decline in moneys and staff common to the  Aerospace indust. The decline was injurious to the quality of people surviving.

	In the 1970's, survivors say, the intellectual attitude was nearly pure hell. The AFRPL was run by lonels as if it was a training facility in contract management for USAF officers. There are few goo tories about that management attitude. In one of the budget cuts, engineering staff actually serve trns doing building and grounds types of work to survive.

	In the 1970's,  a few individuals in the AFRPL organization are reported to have conceived the MX msile (renamed Peacekeeper). MX was to compete in the cold war missile threat race. Later, the lab bced the approach and obtained considerable credit for it.

Intellectual and Engineering Decline

	During the draw down, the analytical thinking people were slashed to the bone; there was the idea tt they needed to be only "one deep" in any technical area. Actually, being only "one deep" is a guaatee that you will actually accomplish almost nothing. This is indicates  not knowing how to do desgnand design studies _ not knowing real propulsion engineering. The mentality of the "Rocket Scientst"as an intellectual never caught on at AFRPL. Instead it was the guy who blew things up in the prcessof making something work who was the hero. It was the test stand mentality. There was a strong nti- ntellectual bias to the laboratory that has permeated the highest levels (survivors) of today.
	As time passed, the lab dropped in size and the staff generally aged. The culture of desert isolati was perpetuated and remains today. 

Space Defense Initiative _ Ruination of Organization

	In the 80's, the Space Defense Initiative (SDI) arrived upon the scene. A former division chief stad that he had felt that he would never rue the day that money was given to the lab. Then he stated ht the SDI money and organization destroyed the laboratory organization. SDI had its choice of peope nd was alleged to have pulled the best out of any organization that it could. This  left impoverihedorganizations to conduct the traditional business of the lab.

Ineffective Training of New Young Generation

	In the late 80's to early 90's, new staffing occurred as senior experienced people were retiring. Tre was only small transmission of skills between the senior staff and the new green staff. The new tff have no effective source of training in the history of rocketry and associated technologies. Thy ften attempt to reinvent things at great taxpayer cost with little success. Rocketry no longer atracs the best and the brightest. The lab has tried to run in-house programs of research and developent o teach  (the next generation of "Rocket Scientists") the craft. In general these training effots ar simple failures.  The cost of these failed in-house training programs, including salary and oerhead is perhaps $5 million / year for a total of at least $20 million. 

	It is alleged that part of the reason for failure is that the senior staff don't share their experice and craft. It is also alleged that another reason is that many of the senior staff actually havefw skills to transmit; there was  no history of the AFRPL as a real laboratory. It mostly served asa ontracts management center. One talks of a "bimodal age distribution" where people are either senor r very junior with almost no middle ground.

	For the last five years, there has been a program "High Energy Density Materials" for fuels for theext generation of launch vehicles and missiles. Many of the scientists working on the program feel ht it will never work _  that the ideas are impractical without any chance of reality.  Senior lab angement are alleged to agree but state that the work should go on because "It has a goal and it isa cance to publish some good scientific work for the Air Force, which is our job". This task costs erhas $6 million / year (contracts, salaries, overhead, capital equipment,...) for $25 million or mre toal.
	
	What is described here is  a long term destruction of rocket propulsion skills and failure to retra. A waste of money and opportunity exists  in trying to train young staff in rocket propulsion skils In addition to this $20 million, there is  perhaps $25 million or so in the high energy fuels resarh of dubious value. 

What Future Roles Can Be Filled?

	There has been much debate of the future of US space launch technologies.  USAF General Mooreman ised a Congressional mandated report on the options of reusable rocket propulsion systems e.g. the Sige Stage To Orbit (SSTO) and new expendable launch vehicles. Since NASA and the USAF have failed tocoperate for decades, the SSTO effort went to NASA and  the expendable launch vehicle work to DoD, hilips Laboratory.

	NASA has  problems of organization that inhibit running of large programs. However, NASA has a largstaff, with good education, with some good work experiences and with fairly good laboratories aroun he country.  There are allegations of poor management and deep bureaucracy mentality that inhibit biity to conduct a major new project. Nevertheless the technical skills should be present to be assmbld into a useful team. NASA has not suffered as a rotation tour stop for military career paths; i hasremained technically oriented.

	In the DoD effort, there simply aren't useful skills of adequate depth from which to form a technic team chartered to develop the next generation of highly advanced expendable launch vehicles. The snor people aren't there. The junior people have virtually no useful technical skills. They have faleninto a less productive mode tolerated and encouraged by the senior staff. These young people havepratically recreated the "hands on" mentality that prevailed in the 1960's at the laboratory. This entaity that cannot be exploited for dramatic new rocket propulsion engineering. The mentality is nt modrn day engineering; it is merely engineering by trial and error as in the 1960's rocket test sand sese.

	Over the years, the United States has thrown away it's real expertise in rocket propulsion. Today ware paying the price from loss of lead in space launch capabilities. Tomorrow we will continue to pythe price should we staff our "catch up" efforts with relatively  inexperienced and untrained youn saff. The best and brightest are not in rocketry today and often are not in science or technology t al.

	This situation needs careful attention. It  could well be a setup for failure for the DoD side of t task. The DoD, through Phillips Lab - Propulsion Directorate, is not currently so staffed or capabeof carrying out the task of developing or evaluating new expendable space launch vehicles.  There il be continued waste of taxpayer dollars, perhaps great waste, should this occur without experiencd, old and insightful oversight.

	 The DoD  may attempt to build from this organization the Nation's future in space _ based upon expdable launch vehicle technology. The organization seems not capable of such accomplishment. While tewaste of money is considerable, we will never have another chance to develop expendable launch vehcls should this chance fail. The skills simply aren't there. Aerospace rocketry is not a respected arer option forthe brightest  young engineers. 

	If we do this as a Nation, we must do it in a  more logical skills based manner. There must be a beer way. We paid dearly once to develop space launch technology from scratch. We shouldn't pay for ieperienced  organizations and staff to try for a second time.


A National Center Approach  

	These are times which call for termination of an organization and structuring some new concept, espially one modeled after domestic and foreign successes. The French rocket propulsion technology orgnzation is of a different model than that for the US. There are 1) government agencies, 2) companie jintly owned by the French government and industry and 3) industrial companies working in collabortio. They are a major threat to both the US rocket launch industry and to the domestic aircraft indstry There is a success there which will be valuable to implement in an appropriate domestic fashio.

	For years, the US semiconductor industry faced the Asian threat of production takeover. The foreigndvantage included a higher percentage of R&D to sales from subsidies from Asian government agencies The eventual domestic response was forming  a joint US government  / industry semiconductor procesin research  center known as SEMATECH. This has been an effective appropriate domestic response. Itsomwhat resenbles the above French approach. 

	We cannot develop internationally competitive rocket propulsion technologies  by the use of the old960's management model of many domestic competing propulsion companies and rich funding sources. Thtamazing time is long dead and over, never to return.

	The NASA part of the problem could  possibly be solved by massive and strict reorganization, somethg like the painful reorganization that IBM has been forced to take. NASA and IBM are both big enoug hat inside of them are the people and resources to be a platform for a future large success. But lckof size, depth and real existing inner capability force other thinking onto solving the DoD futur spce launch problem.

	There is no logical comparison of NASA and the Phillips Laboratory Rocket Propulsion Directorate _ ples and oranges may not be nearly adequate differentiation. The scales, sizes and goals are so difeent that no comparison should be attempted. One solution is to simply give the entire space launch tsk to a reorganized  NASA, close the DoD facilities and transfer handfuls of productive DoD peopl tothe NASA task.

	Other alternatives for the DoD space launch efforts include a mimic of the foreign success in rockey and aircraft and a mimic of domestic success in the semiconductor field.

	The strongest recommendation for the low cost / low risk / high payoff for space propulsion and traportation is the discontinuation of the existing inadequate DoD effort and organization and replaceet with a joint industry / government collaboration modeled after something successful such as SEMAEC.  We can and should copy the best of the proven foreign accomplishments and the best of proven dmesic successes. We should not fool ourselves into bandaging inadequately staffed and trained organzatins. For the DoD, we must reformulate the entire space launch engineering and management approac. We eed to gather the real expertise, which has always been with the industry.

	We need to escape from a dismal past. This requires a fresh start and  new leadership or the new Dospace launch money becomes merely a new waste.
Rocket Scientists -- A Dead or Dying Breed for the USAF:
and a plan for the future