Abstract :
Where high-level technology is concerned, questions of cost-benefits and funding now often rival the once dominant hardware and engineering problems as major program challenges. Space shuttle proponents point to significant savings expected over the comparatively inefficient Saturn/Apollo launch and recovery system and indicate that a wide cross section of scientific interests will profit from direct access to extraterrestrial experimentation. Even engineering work on unmanned flights is geared toward squeezing a better power/weight ratio out of solar cells, storage batteries, and power control electronics. As a direct result of the Mideast war, budgeting for U.S. military R&D must now confront the immediate challenges of new Soviet ECM and their SA-6 surface-to-air missile as opposed to projected and perhaps speculative benefits claimed for the billion dollar Trident submarine program.
