Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program

The United States Air Force (USAF) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) participated in the development of the Space Shuttle from its official inception in 1969. To save money, the shuttle was intended to serve as the United States' national launch system for all civilian, military, and classified payloads.[1][2][3] The DoD influenced key aspects of the shuttle's design such as the size of its cargo bay,[3][4] and Congress reportedly told DoD that it would not pay for satellites not designed to fit into the bay.[5]

The USAF in the 1970s hoped to buy up to three shuttles[3][6] and fly them with all-military crews. As with the earlier X-20 Dyna-Soar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory, budget concerns ended the "Blue Shuttle" program,[6] but the USAF gained the use of up to one third of all launches[1] and the right to requisition the next available launch for high-priority payloads.[6] It renovated an existing launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to send shuttles into polar orbits[4] and established the Manned Spaceflight Control Squadron at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Squadron personnel participated in monitoring shuttle flights from NASA's Mission Control Center, where the military built a secure facility to support classified Shuttle missions. The squadron was to move to the planned DoD mission control center in Colorado that would monitor an expected 12 to 14 flights each year.[1]

Many active-duty USAF and other American military personnel have served (about 60% of the total in 1985),[7] and continue to serve, as NASA astronauts. Although with the end of "Blue Shuttle" DoD no longer needed its own shuttle pilots and mission specialists,[6] it still desired military payload specialists for classified payloads on the about 100 or more shuttle flights it expected to use.[1] While NASA offered to train the DoD astronauts the military wanted to control their training, as DoD astronauts who went to NASA rarely returned.[6]

In 1979, the first 13 Manned Spaceflight Engineers (MSEs) were selected,[8] chosen from all services[4] and based at Los Angeles Air Force Base:[1][9]

• Frank J. Casserino
• Jeffrey E. Detroye
• Michael A. Hamel
• Terry A. Higbee
• Daryl J. Joseph
• Malcolm W. Lydon
• Gary E. Payton (flew on STS-51-C, 1985)[6]
• Jerry J. Rij
• Paul A. Sefchek
• Eric E. Sundberg
• David M. Vidrine, USN (removed from STS-41-C one month before launch)[6]
• John Brett Watterson (assigned to STS-62-A, canceled after Challenger accident)[6][10]
• Keith C. Wright (backup for STS-51-C)[6]

In 1982, another 14 were selected,[11] chosen only from the USAF:

• James B. Armor, Jr.
• Michael W. Booen (backup for Pailes)[6]
• Livingston L. Holder, Jr.
• Larry D. James
• Charles E. Jones
• Maureen C. LaComb
• Michael R. Mantz (backup for STS-62-A)[6]
• Randy T. Odle (assigned to STS-62-A)[6]
• William A. Pailes (flew on STS-51-J, 1985)[6]
• Craig A. Puz
• Katherine E. Sparks Roberts
• Jess M. Sponable
• William D. Thompson
• Glenn S. Yeakel

In 1985, five more were selected:[6][12]

• Joseph J. Caretto
• Robert B. Crombie
• Frank M. DeArmond
• David P. Staib, Jr.
• Teresa M. Stevens

The 32 MSEs were told that each would fly in space at least once.[1] Five became generals.[10] In 1991, Chief Warrant Officer Thomas J. Hennen, United States Army flew aboard STS-44 as the first military payload specialist since Payton and Pailes, and the first enlisted soldier in space. He was not an MSE,[9] but assigned to the US Army Intelligence Center at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona.

As a civilian agency, NASA typically freely provides details on all aspects of its operations. The DoD shuttle missions required different procedures to maintain secrecy of the classified payloads. The government viewed the flights and their payloads as secret as troop movements, asked media organizations to avoid reporting details, and threatened to investigate even speculation as potential leaks of classified information.[13] The military did not disclose MSEs' names at first, unlike those chosen for Dyna-Soar and MOL, and the program's existence was secret until the press reported on it in 1982. The Air Force officially announced the MSE group's existence in 1983 but did not identify any members until 1985,[9] and disclosed little about their role on flights.[1] The press nonetheless reported in great detail on likely military payloads using open source intelligence,[7][14] such as the direction of the shuttle after liftoff.[15]

Unlike all other flights, NASA only began public countdowns a few minutes before launch,[15] did not distribute press kits, and did not permit reporters to attend countdowns or listen to shuttle-to-ground communications.[13] A secure USAF-NRO mission control center (the Air Force Satellite Control Facility) in Sunnyvale, California monitored the DoD payloads on flights alongside the Houston mission control (which focused on the Shuttle and attached support equipment).[4] NASA announced civilian shuttle missions' schedules and flight routes in advance, hundreds of civilians attended most landings, and loudspeakers played radio transmissions. Only a few reporters and NASA employees, by contrast, attended the classified flights' silent landings.[7]

The MSE program faced internal and external challenges. NASA, which early on had a "sour"[4] relationship with the MSEs, was reluctant to assign them to its flights given their lack of NASA training and the need for spots for other payload specialists.[6] Payton said in 2016, "NASA thought of us as a bunch of snotty-nosed kids, outsiders, almost guests"; Hamel said that there was "a titanic clash of cultures (between NASA and the Air Force), and the MSEs were at the eye of the storm".[10]

Internal USAF debates on the usefulness of manned spaceflight to the DoD[4] caused uncertainty for MSE personnel. USAF General Ralph G. Jacobson removed Vidrine from STS-41-C one month before launch, stating that the mission had no value to the Air Force. The military declined the opportunity to send a second MSE on STS-51-C. In New regulations in 1984 that strongly encouraged USAF personnel to move to another assignment after four years caused many early MSEs to transfer out of the program,[6] with only nine active by late 1985.[7]

DoD and Air Force had hoped to use 10 to 12 shuttle flights a year, but NASA could not fly the shuttle that often.[16] By December 1984 DoD stated that it planned to use about 20% of the 70 shuttle flights NASA planned over the following five years,[13] with almost all military-related launches moving to the shuttle from unmanned rockets.[17]

Before the loss of Challenger in January 1986, however, ongoing launch delays caused DoD to express concern about overdependance on the shuttle. In 1983 Under Secretary of the Air Force and NRO director Pete Aldridge proposed that DoD continue purchasing unmanned rockets until the shuttle proved its reliability by flying 24 missions a year. Despite Congressional and NASA opposition, in 1984 DoD began procuring a new unmanned rocket capable of launching shuttle-sized payloads into geosynchronous orbit. In 1985 it won approval to buy ten such rockets, which became the Titan IV; NASA flew nine shuttle flights that year.[3][6][5][16]

To improve DoD relations, NASA agreed to fly Aldridge on STS-62-A, scheduled for 1986 as the first Vandenberg shuttle mission.[16] He was training for the mission and watching on television when Challenger was destroyed; the accident accelerated DoD plans for unmanned rockets,[4][1] but several NRO payloads only the shuttle could launch were grounded until it flew again,[3] a dilemma NRO had feared as early as the mid-1970s.[2]

With DoD's return to unmanned rockets and less need for dedicated military astronauts, the MSE program ended in 1988 with only two MSEs having flown into space. The Houston squadron was dissolved, construction of the Colorado center ended, and the Vandenberg launch site used for unmanned rockets.[1] Only active duty-military NASA astronauts flew on subsequent missions with DoD payloads, except Story Musgrave and Kathryn C. Thornton on STS-33.[4]

In 1993 a "high-ranking intelligence official" awarded all crewmembers of the classified shuttle flights with the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. The astronauts were permitted to wear the medals in public and discuss details of their flights that appeared on the medals' citations.[4]

• STS-4, 1982 (non-DoD flight with classified DoD payload)
• STS-51-C, 1985 (first all-DoD flight; beginning of secrecy)[13]
• STS-51-J, 1985
• STS-27, 1988
• STS-28, 1989
• STS-33, 1989
• STS-36, 1990
• STS-38, 1990
• STS-39, 1991 (first unclassified DoD flight; only one payload was classified)[4]
• STS-44, 1991 (the payload was unclassified before launch)[4]
• STS-53, 1992