THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 24, 1995 TAG: 9510240292
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Acrid white smoke from Conestoga's crazily careening rockets could be expected to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of any potential space investors. Could this be the end of efforts to establish what advocates call ``Spaceport Virginia'' on the Virginia's Eastern Shore?
Probably not, space experts say. A launch disaster is not all it seems - at least, in the long run.
``This won't harm the market per se,'' said Billie Reed, an Old Dominion University assistant professor of engineering management who has played a leading role in developing the fledgling spaceport. ``There are so many payloads and satellites to be put into space. There are more payloads slated to go into orbit than there are rockets to carry them. These failures tend to magnify that situation.''
Because the need is so strong, and the potential payoffs large, Reed continued, rocket companies and potential customers will press on despite the threat of destruction.
Still, Reed said, his own personal reaction when he learned of the Conestoga's fate late Monday was visceral.
``I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach,'' he said. ``This is really bad news.''
In particular, the Conestoga's failure may spell serious trouble for the space launch arm of EER Systems Inc., the rocket's parent company, which has poured tens of millions of dollars into the venture.
In August, Jai N. Gupta, EER president and CEO, said his firm stood to lose as much as $50,000 a day until Conestoga lifted off. Gupta was quick to add that such a sum was something his 500-employee company could ill afford to lose.
``They may well be out of the launch business,'' said Laurence D. Richards, executive director of ODU's Center for Commercial Space Infrastructure. ``They've put most of their marbles into this one flight. They just don't have anything left.''
Several days before the Conestoga launch, EER vice president Jim Hengle said he and the Conestoga launch crew had rehearsed 55 different ``disaster scenarios.'' The company had even prepared for an at-sea recovery of the 14 experiments nestled in the rocket's nose cone.
``We have contingency and disaster preparedness plans,'' Hengle said then. ``Sometimes Lady Luck isn't nice to you. You have to work your way through it.''
Even if U.S. Coast Guard and Navy divers manage to recover somewhere in the east Atlantic the experiments on board a presumably mangled spacecraft, there's no guarantee that sponsoring universities or companies will be able to salvage them.
The Conestoga would have been the first rocket in 10 years sent into orbit from Wallops, one of just three rocket-launch bases in the continental United States. Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California are the other two.
Although Wallops has overseen the flight of 15,000 small research rockets since its founding in 1945, the Conestoga flight would have been the first large-scale commercial launch at the Eastern Shore facility. The vehicle's 1-ton payload was the heaviest ever launched there.
If the rocket had functioned properly, it would have shed its seven Castor solid-rocket motors in three separate stages - a small Star 48 solid rocket handled the fourth and final stage - and the 100-ton Conestoga would have carried roughly 2,000 pounds of payload into a 275-mile-high orbit.
``Mishaps like this occur,'' said Robert G. Templin, Jr., chair of the space flight authority. ``It is part of the accepted landscape when you enter this field. There will continue to be aggressive efforts to find economical means to launch spacecraft.'' MEMO: [For a related story, see page A1 for this date.]
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT EXPLOSION ROCKET by CNB