Subject: MCDONNELL DOUGLAS ASTRONAUTICS CO., HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIF. INDEX APRIL 2, 1971. Volume Welcome and Brief Space History of MDC C. R. Able/ W. F. Burke__ I Skylab-F. J. Sanders__. Shuttle T. D. Smith_ Space Station-C. J. DaRos_. I II III III AS&T R. & D.-Dr. A. J. Vander Weyden_. S-JVB Saturn Mainline; Delta Unmanned Space-H. E. Bauer_. MCDONNELL DOUGLAS, APRIL 2, 1971-VOLUME I IV Mr. BURKE. Before we introduce the speaker for the Skylab program, I want you to know-especially those here for the first timebriefly what our company is. This is the western division or the western portion of our McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co. We have a similar but much smaller group in St. Louis. We have activity in Titusville and we have activity in a number of Air Force or NAŠA bases, like Vandenburg and Kennedy, and some out in the Kwajalein Islands. We have a very broadly based group of people. It represents about 20,000 total personnel. We are down from just a bit over 31,000 since the middle of 1969, so I know you have been hearing enough, you are probably tired of hearing how bad off the aerospace industry is, but I think you know the fact when you know that we are down from about 32,000 to 20,000, and our current schedule is going to take us down somewhat below that, we will probably get out somewhere around 17,000. Our major programs in the space area are the Skylab and the activity we are involved in in the shuttle, plus some booster business that we have both on the Delta and Thors and the Saturn business. We are working heavily in the areas of development of new technology which will be described to you, and in much greater detail, so we are going what we think are the three things. We are accomplishing the tasks that were the major programs of the past several years, we are developing capability to do the work of the future in our technology groups, and we are likewise working heavily on the mission plans of the future, such as the advance missions for the Skylab, and also the total shuttle program, so we are in all three areas working very heavily. We actually have done in this past year approximately a half billion dollars worth of business, and since I mentioned we are scheduled to go down some more, it will go down somewhat below that. But that's just a rough indication. We represent about 23 percent of the Mc-. Donnell Douglas Corp., which is just under the 100,000, 95,000. Mr. TEAGUE. Would you talk overall money for a minute, the amount of money you expect to get, the amount you have got? We have talked about this before. What is your level as far as money is concerned? Mr. BURKE. Right now we are operating at about the 500 million, but this is all of our space work, which includes Spartan, Safeguard. It includes the work we are doing, the Nike, and servicing and supplying extras for space shots, the Saturn work and all, so the total we have, all our space business Mr. TEAGUE. I was thinking more about building the Skylab, doing what you are doing. Are we doing it in an efficient way or are we spending less dollars and getting a lot more return for the dollar? Mr. BURKE. No doubt we could do a better job more efficiently if we were able to do it at a more rapid rate, because the problems are we start out rapidly at the beginning and then we hit the successive funding wickets that we squeeze through, and when that happens, why, you are constantly moving up and down, and the longer it takes to get the job done the higher the dollar rate is for getting the same number of man-hours. Just the escalation of labor costs itself constantly keeps increasing the price the longer you take to get the job done. Mr. ABLE. I think it is fair to say the Skylab effort is underfunded per fiscal year to do an efficient job. NASA has been fighting to try to get the job but it is underfunded to do an efficient job. Mr. WINN. Are you in 50 percent of maximum completion? Mr. BURKE. You will see in one of the charts on this just about where we are in each of the elements of it. I think it might be desirable here, unless you have specific questions of a general nature, to turn you over to Fred Sanders, who is our program manager for the Skylab orbital workshop. There is also a portion of the Skylab called the air lock which is built in St. Louis and has a program manager for that, and then we have an overall man who ties both of them together. Fred has the orbital workshop, which is this section that you have been seeing here right now, so, Fred, would you go ahead? Mr. SANDERS. Good morning once again, gentlemen. We are going to show you some pictures which will help you understand the overall Skylab program, in addition to the hardware you have seen. We know you have a lot of ground to cover so we will hurry through. Figure 1 gives you a more overall view of the Skylab. The orbital workshop which we have just seen is this portion right here. As Mr. Burke mentioned, just above that is the airlock module which is being developed by McDonnell Douglas' company in St. Louis, the workshop here, of course, at Huntington Beach. Above that is a docking adapter to which the Apollo command service module will dock when it brings the three crewmen up to visit or revisit the Skylab. Mr. WINN. I may have missed it somewhere, but would you explain the airlock a little, tell us exactly what it is? Mr. SANDERS. The question is explained in the airlock portion. I do have a slide a little later on explaining what it really is, so, if I don't answer your question then, stop me at that time, would you please? Mr. WINN. Fine. Mr. SANDERS. The two main reasons for the Skylab mission is this large solar telescope which furnishes its own electrical power through these solar array wings. Of course, it and the Skylab have a vantage point above the earth's atmosphere where the filtering effects of the atmosphere are not present, and it will allow us to get a view of the sun that we have never had before. This is a powerful solar telescope which can tell us a lot more about the sun than we are able to learn from earth. The second major reason is the biomedical experiments which deal with the effect of space flight on man, just what can he do which he's living and working in space. Just what things can he perform effectively, and what is the effect of space flight itself on man; so we will progressively build up the flight mission to determine them. The electrical power is furnished by these large solar arrays which receive energy from the sun and turn it into electrical power. These are being furnished to us by subcontract from TRW in Redondo Beach. Figure 2 shows the sequence of events for the Skylab. The mission starts in April of 1973, the core vehicle without the command and service module will be in orbit for the full 8-month period with all its systems active. Then a manned visit occurs immediately after launch and lasts for 28 days. |