khayo@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Eric Behr) (06/07/88)
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COMPANIES PLAN PRIVATE FACILITIES TO BUILD NASA'S ADVANCED MOTOR
June 3, 1988
RELEASE: 88-71
NASA has been notified that two privately-owned production
facilities will be proposed as sites for development of the Space
Shuttle advanced solid rocket motor. These sites, in Alabama and
Utah, will be considered along with a government-owned site to be
identified later by NASA.
NASA's acquisition plan for development of the new Shuttle
solid rocket motor calls for interested firms to propose how they
would design, build and operate appropriate production and
testing facilities. Proposals will be required to include a
government-owned, contractor-operated facility on a government
site, plus a private-financing option for construction of that
same facility.
The upcoming NASA request for proposals also will permit
companies to submit one optional proposal for a privately-owned
rocket facility, to be located at a site of the company's choice.
Firms intending to pursue the latter option were required to
advise NASA of their plans and identify the intended private site
by May 31.
The two responses received were:
o Hercules, Inc., Magna, Utah, and Atlantic Research
Corp., Gainesville, Va., who responded as a joint venture with a
proposed site 8 miles west of Montgomery, Ala.
o Morton Thiokol Inc., Brigham City, Utah, with a proposed
site at the firm's Promontory Point, Utah, facility.
To follow through with their plans to propose a privately-
owned production facility, each organization must conduct
facility design studies and an environmental analysis of the
potential impact of locating the facility at the specified
site. The environmental impact assessment data must be submitted
as part of the optional proposal for incorporation in the
government's environmental impact statement effort.
When the official request for proposals is issued, a
government site will be specified as a tentative location for all
companies to use as a common basis for proposals. The option of
submitting an additional proposal for a privately-owned facility
will now be open only to Hercules-Atlantic Research and Morton
Thiokol, who met the May 31 notification requirement.
A NASA site selection board is currently considering three
potential government-owned locations for the rocket motor
facility. They are at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla.; at
NASA's Stennis Space Center (formerly National Space Technology
Laboratories), Bay St. Louis, Miss.; and at a Tennessee Valley
Authority property known as the Yellow Creek site, in
northeastern Mississippi.
Pending approval of funding for the advanced solid rocket
motor project, release of the government request for proposal is
expected near the end of June.
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Eric