- Sep 26, 2000
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/31/us-space-shuttle-discovery-mission
US space shuttle programme faces its final countdown.
Tomorrow, Discovery will take off on one of its final missions.
Why, 30 years after the reusable rocket launcher threatened to make travel beyond Earth commonplace, did the project fall from grace?
Columbia's flight was greeted with adulation. Its revolutionary engines had worked perfectly despite the colossal, violent heat of the combustion of its hydrogen and oxygen fuels, while its thermal insulation tiles had survived the searing temperatures of re-entry. The day of the expendable launcher was over. Space travel would soon be commonplace.
At least that is what Nasa said would happen. In reality, what occurred was a desperate disappointment. Flights of the shuttle – despite its brilliant engineering – never became commonplace. Columbia and its sister craft were supposed to make 50 flights a year, according to Nasa launch manifests. But only 132 shuttle missions were flown between 1981 and 2010, an average of 4.5 a year, a grimly inadequate figure for a craft that "will revolutionise transportation into near space by routinising it", as President Nixon announced in 1972.
Worse, two of the five shuttles that were built – Challenger and Columbia – were destroyed in accidents that killed 14 astronauts. In the wake of these tragedies, Nasa engineers became more and more safety-conscious and launch costs soared from Nasa's estimate of $7m a mission to almost $1bn. Thus the shuttle has become the costliest, most dangerous transport system ever built.
A LOT more at link.
Very interesting piece. Almost a billion dollars a mission?
I wonder where they came up with the idea that 7 million a mission was realistic?
Later in the article makes an interesting point:
After Apollo 11, Nasa asked that the Saturn V be allowed to ferry large modules into orbit, where a space station could be constructed by 1975. From there a Mars mission could be launched in the 1980s.
President Nixon and his staff just looked at the plan and said, 'Are you kidding?'" says Logsdon, a white-haired, imposing but genial figure. "They were not interested in such a programme because they calculated it would do them no good in their term of office. They wanted a faster fix."
Instead, says Logsdon, Nixon and his aides simply took a map of the United States and looked at key states they needed to win to ensure victory in the 1972 presidential election. The decision came to set up a major aerospace programme involving these states. Construction of a reusable space shuttle, an idea that Nasa had also being toying with, fitted the bill. The agency was ordered to prepare detailed plans – on a very tight budget.
US space shuttle programme faces its final countdown.
Tomorrow, Discovery will take off on one of its final missions.
Why, 30 years after the reusable rocket launcher threatened to make travel beyond Earth commonplace, did the project fall from grace?
Columbia's flight was greeted with adulation. Its revolutionary engines had worked perfectly despite the colossal, violent heat of the combustion of its hydrogen and oxygen fuels, while its thermal insulation tiles had survived the searing temperatures of re-entry. The day of the expendable launcher was over. Space travel would soon be commonplace.
At least that is what Nasa said would happen. In reality, what occurred was a desperate disappointment. Flights of the shuttle – despite its brilliant engineering – never became commonplace. Columbia and its sister craft were supposed to make 50 flights a year, according to Nasa launch manifests. But only 132 shuttle missions were flown between 1981 and 2010, an average of 4.5 a year, a grimly inadequate figure for a craft that "will revolutionise transportation into near space by routinising it", as President Nixon announced in 1972.
Worse, two of the five shuttles that were built – Challenger and Columbia – were destroyed in accidents that killed 14 astronauts. In the wake of these tragedies, Nasa engineers became more and more safety-conscious and launch costs soared from Nasa's estimate of $7m a mission to almost $1bn. Thus the shuttle has become the costliest, most dangerous transport system ever built.
A LOT more at link.
Very interesting piece. Almost a billion dollars a mission?
I wonder where they came up with the idea that 7 million a mission was realistic?
Later in the article makes an interesting point:
After Apollo 11, Nasa asked that the Saturn V be allowed to ferry large modules into orbit, where a space station could be constructed by 1975. From there a Mars mission could be launched in the 1980s.
President Nixon and his staff just looked at the plan and said, 'Are you kidding?'" says Logsdon, a white-haired, imposing but genial figure. "They were not interested in such a programme because they calculated it would do them no good in their term of office. They wanted a faster fix."
Instead, says Logsdon, Nixon and his aides simply took a map of the United States and looked at key states they needed to win to ensure victory in the 1972 presidential election. The decision came to set up a major aerospace programme involving these states. Construction of a reusable space shuttle, an idea that Nasa had also being toying with, fitted the bill. The agency was ordered to prepare detailed plans – on a very tight budget.
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