BOEING URGING SHUTTLE UPGRADE; FIRM PREDICTS COST SAVINGS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

Boeing is urging NASA to invest in major upgrades to the space shuttle fleet while it continues to promote technologies for new spaceships, an idea that if adopted could provide years of employment for Antelope Valley workers.

Saying there is a gap between the cost of developing a new spaceship and the market that such a craft could capture, a Boeing executive said NASA would be wise to upgrade the shuttle fleet until that gap can be bridged.

``The shuttle will fly through at least 2010,'' said Rick Stephens, vice president and general manager of Boeing Reusable Space Systems, which performs space shuttle modifications in Palmdale. ``It makes sense to do the shuttle upgrades.''

Major upgrades would lower shuttle operating costs and better prepare the fleet as test cases for technologies for future spaceships, Stephens said last week.

NASA is in the process of deciding which human space flight systems and technologies to invest in as the space agency comes into the 21st century.

To aid in the decision process, the agency has commissioned a number of studies to examine the issue, including five by space companies - Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp., Orbital Sciences Corp. and two entrepreneurial start-ups, Kelly Space and Palmdale-based Space Access.

Boeing is advocating such shuttle upgrades as improving the orbiter fleet's electronic systems, improving the nose landing gear system to reduce loads during landings, replacing fuel cells with longer-life systems, and replacing auxiliary power units fueled by the toxic hydrazine with safer electrical systems.

Boeing Co. believes that with the major upgrades the orbiters can fly well into the 2030s and at lower cost than today's launches.

A report from a consultant outside of the aerospace industry, Boston-based Hawthorne, Krauss and Associates, issued a report this fall stating that NASA must partner with private industry quickly to develop a new spaceship and either retire the shuttle fleet or transfer it to the private sector.

A new spaceship offers a potential saving of $7.4 billion to NASA over 15 years, according to the consultant's report.

The existing shuttle system is too expensive, the Hawthorne report said. Major upgrades to the orbiter fleet could net annual savings in the neighborhood of $400 million to $500 million but would require an initial investment of $5 billion to $6 billion.

Boeing officials dispute those numbers and say they will present more accurate figures when their report is released this year.

NASA is investing nearly $1 billion in reusable launch technologies through a contract with Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works in Palmdale to develop the X-33, a suborbital craft. The Skunk Works plans to use the lessons learned from the X-33 to develop a spaceship called VentureStar, slated to fly in 2004.

VentureStar, however, would not carry crew or passengers. The Skunk Works is looking at concepts in which a passenger-carrying vehicle would be attached to VentureStar for a ride into orbit and then would separate and maneuver over to the International Space Station.