Spirit Approaches "Methuselah" Outcrop on Mars This false-color rendering shows the scene acquired by NASA's Spirit rover on martian day, or sol, 454 (April 13, 2005), using its panoramic camera filters at 750-, 530-, and 430-nanometer wavelengths. In the background is "Clark Hill," nicknamed for one of the Columbia astronauts. Spirit is looking down at the outcrop on the left, nicknamed "Methuselah," from a slightly higher position, and will spend some time studying the outcrop before searching for a different route. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

Image Below form NASA: Tiny Craters on Meridiani Planum These two craters, each smaller than a foot in diameter and less than one-half inch deep, were found intact by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Methuselah in False Color 5/24/05

Space Shuttle Endeavour
Space Shuttle Endeavour Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour (NASA Designation: OV-105) is the most recent Space Shuttle orbiter to be built. Construction began in 1987 to replace the Challenger, lost in an accident in 1986. Endeavour was first launched in 1992. The orbiter is named for the HM Bark Endeavour, the ship commanded by 18th century explorer James Cook (which explains the British spelling). Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Flights 2 Related articles 3

Space Shuttle program
Space Shuttle program Space Shuttle Columbia, 1981 (NASA) NASA's Space Shuttle program is an ongoing endeavor, started in the late 1960s, that has created the world's first partially reusable space launch system, and the first spacecraft capable of carrying large satellites both to and from low Earth orbit. Each shuttle is designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches. The original purpose of the program was to ferry supplies to a space station. In reality, the Shuttle is the United States' sole manned launch vehicle and has totally dominated NASA's operations since the mid 1970s. With the construction of the International Space Station the Shuttle has finally begun to be used for its original purpose. In January 2004, it was announced that the Shuttle fleet would

Space Shuttle Challenger
Space Shuttle Challenger Shuttle Orbiter Challenger (NASA Designation: OV-99) was a Space Shuttle orbiter. Challenger was the second shuttle orbiter to be placed into service (after Columbia) and was constructed using a body frame (STA-099) that had initially been produced for use as a test article. Its maiden voyage was on April 4, 1983, and made eight subsequent round trips to low earth orbit before it was destroyed during launch for its tenth mission, mission 51-L. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Flights 2 Flight Log 3 Related articles 4

Space Shuttle Enterprise
Space Shuttle Enterprise The Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise (NASA Designation: OV-101) was the first Space Shuttle built for NASA. It was initially constructed without engines or a functional heat shield and was therefore not capable of space operations without a refit. It was intended to be the second space shuttle to fly after the Space Shuttle Columbia even though it was built first, however, it was found to be cheaper to refit a test article (STA-099) into the Space Shuttle Challenger. Originally planned to be called Constitution, the test vehicle was renamed following a write-in campaign after the starship featured on the television show Star Trek, which in turn was named for the various ships named USS Enterprise. Amusingly, in one of the subsequent Star Trek movies

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster Crew of STS-107 on launch day () STS-107 was a space shuttle mission by NASA using the Space Shuttle Columbia. The entire seven member crew was killed on February 1, 2003, when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.This was the second total loss of a Space Shuttle, the first being Challenger. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Timeline 2 Effect on US space program 3 Investigation 3.1 The Columbia Accident Investigation Board 4 Shuttle Crew of Flight STS-107 5 External Links Timeline At about 05:54 PST (08:54 EST), a California news photographer observed pieces breaking away from Columbia as it passed overhead, as well as a red flare coming from the shuttle itself. At about 09:00 EST (14:00

Space Shuttle Columbia
Space Shuttle Columbia Shuttle Orbiter Columbia (NASA Designation: OV-102) was the first space shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet, first flying mission STS-1 from April 12 to April 14, 1981. It was lost with all crew when it disintegrated during re-entry on its 28th mission, STS-107, which lasted from January 16 to February 1, 2003. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 History 2 Final Mission 3 Cultural Reaction 4 Missions 5 Related articles 6

Space Shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (NASA Designation: OV-103) is a NASA Space Shuttle. First flown on August 30, 1984, Discovery is the third operational shuttle (excluding test shuttle 'Enterprise'). The orbiter is still operational today, and has performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions. The craft takes its name from a ship used by explorer James Cook. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Flights 1..1 Related articles 1..2

Space Shuttle Atlantis
Space Shuttle Atlantis Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis (NASA Designation: OV-104) In its most recent flight, Atlantis and her six-person crew completed an eleven-day mission in October 2002 to the International Space Station that involved three space walks. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Flights 2 Related articles 3

Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST, or Hubble) is a telescope located at the outer edges of Earth's atmosphere, about 600 kilometerss above the ground, orbiting the Earth every 100 minutes. It was placed into orbit, in April 1990, as a joint project of NASA and the ESA. The telescope can achieve optical resolutions greater than 0.1 arcseconds. The HST is named after Edwin Hubble. It is scheduled for replacement, by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), in 2009. Every day, the Hubble Space Telescope archives 3 to 5 gigabytes of data and delivers between 10 and 15 gigabytes to astronomers. Working outside the atmosphere has advantages because the atmosphere obscures images and filters out electromagnetic radiation at certain wavelengths, mainly in the infrared. Hubble

Spacelab
Spacelab is a microgravity laboratory flown into space on the Space Shuttle. It consists of a large cylindrical main laboratory that is flown in the rear of the Space Shuttle cargo bay, connected to the crew compartment by a long tube. In April 1973 NASA and the ESA (then known as the ESRO) agreed to build a modular science package. Construction of Spacelab started in 1974 by the ERNO (represented by VFW-Fokker GmbH, later bought by MBB, and since 2003 part of EADS Space Transportation). The first lab, LM1, was given to NASA free of charge in exchange for flight opportunities for european astronauts. A second lab, LM2, was bought by NASA for its own needs. The system also included a system of external pallets for experiments in vacuum, built by

Canadian space program
Canadian space program Canada has contributed expertise and personnel to the world space effort, especially in collaboration with NASA. Eight Canadians have participated on 11 NASA missions to date: Name Shuttle Mission Launch Date Notes Marc Garneau Challenger STS-41-G October 5, 1984 First Canadian in space Roberta Bondar Discovery STS-42 January 22, 1992 First Canadian woman in space Steven G. MacLean Columbia STS-52 October 22, 1992 Chris Hadfield Atlantis STS-74 November 12, 1995 Marc Garneau Endeavour STS-77 May 19, 1996 Robert Thirsk Columbia STS-78 June 20, 1996 Bjarni Tryggvason Discovery STS-85 August 7, 1997 Dafydd Rhys Williams Columbia STS-90 April 17, 1998 Julie Payette Discovery STS-96 May 27, 1999 Marc Garneau Endeavour STS-97 November 30, 2000 Chris Hadfield Endeavour STS-100 April 19, 2001 First spacewalk by a

James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a planned orbital infrared observatory, intended (in part) to replace the aging Hubble Space Telescope. Formerly called the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), it was renamed after NASA's second administrator, James E. Webb, in 2002. The telescope's launch is planned for sometime between 2009 and 2011. Its orbit (at the L2 lagrangian point point, around 1.5 million km from Earth) is considerably beyond the maximum altitude achievable using the Space Shuttle, so JWST will probably be placed in orbit using a European Ariane 5 launcher. This height also means that, unlike Hubble, it will not be possible to repair or upgrade the observatory during its 5-10 year design life. Although JWST has a planned weight half that

Teacher in Space Project
Teacher in Space Project Christa McAuliffe (left) and Barbara Morgan pose in front of the Space Shuttle mission simulator (SMS) after their selection for TISP. The Teacher in Space Project (TISP) is a NASA program designed to educate students and spur excitement in math, science, and space exploration. Christa McAuliffe was selected to be the first teacher in space in 1984 with Barbara Morgan as her alternate. McAuliffe died during the launch of the 25th Space Shuttle mission, STS-51-L, which was to make her the first teacher in space. NASA halted the TISP until 1998 amid concerns surrounding the risk of sending civillians to space. Morgan was selected as the first Educator Astronaut in January, 1998. Morgan is assigned to the crew of STS-118 which may launch

Space Camp
Space Camp Space Camp is a 1986 movie which was based on a book written by Patrick Bailey and Larry B Williams and a screenplay by WW Wicket and Casey T Mitchell. In the movie, four teenagers and a twelve year old boy go to a NASA space camp, to spend three weeks of their summer training as astronauts and learning about the space program in general. There, they will meet a female instructor who is frustrated at the fact she still hasn't gotten a chance to be up there, despite this being her life's dream. But things start to unravel when the 12 year old boy, Max, saves the life of a robot named Jinx, and, to return the favor, Jinx decides to send Max

International Space Station
International Space Station Continuing on from the United States' Skylab and Russia's Mir, the International Space Station (ISS) represents a permanent human presence in space. The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 386 km, a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit. (The actual height varies over time by several kilometres due to atmospheric drag and reboosts.) It orbits Earth at a period of about 92 minutes; on December 1, 2003 it had completed over 28,700 orbits since launch. It is serviced primarily by the Space Shuttle, and Soyuz and Progress spacecraft units. It is still being built, but is home to some experimentation already. At present, the station has a capacity for a crew of three, who

John F. Kennedy Space Center
John F. Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the NASA space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) at Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site is midway between Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. It is 55 km long and around 10 km wide, covering 56,700 hectares. Around 17,000 people work at the site. There is a visitor center and public tours and KSC is a major tourist destination for visitors to Florida. Because much of KSC is off limits to development, the site also serves as an important wildlife sanctuary. Operations are currently controlled from Launch Complex 39, the location of the Vehicle Assembly Building. 6 km to the east of the assembly building are the two launch pads. 8 km south

Ulysses (spacecraft)
for the Latin translation of Odysseus) was launched in October 1990 from the Space Shuttle Discovery (mission STS-41) as a joint venture of NASA and the European Space Agency. The spacecraft first flew to Jupiter for a swing-by maneuver which brought it out of the ecliptic plane, in order to investigate the polar regions of the sun. It did explore both the northern and southern solar pole, which gave many unexpected result. Especially the southern magnetic pole was found to be much more dynamical and without any fixed clear magnetic pole. The short version "The sun has no magnetic south pole" is misleading, as the sun is not a magnetic monopole. Ulysses' mission is extended until at least 2004.

List of human spaceflights
3 Mercury Missions 4 Shenzhou Missions 5 Skylab Missions 6 Soyuz Missions 7 Space Shuttle Missions 8 Voskhod Missions 9 Vostok Missions 10 Space stations 11 Spacecraft not yet flown with crew Apollo Missions Apollo 1 - crew perished in fire during training Apollo 7 Apollo 8 - first human flight around the moon Apollo 9 Apollo 10 Apollo 11 - first human moon landing Apollo 12 Apollo 13 - explosion en route to Moon forced emergency return to Earth by using free return trajectory Apollo 14 Apollo 15 Apollo 16 Apollo 17 Apollo-Soyuz - first joint Soviet-US mission Gemini Missions Gemini 3 Gemini 4 Gemini 5 Gemini 6A Gemini 7 Gemini 8 first docking in space Gemini 9A Gemini 10 Gemini 11 Gemini 12 Mercury Missions Mercury 3 Mercury 4

John Glenn
and politician. John Glenn during the Mercury program 1962 (NASA) Born in Cambridge, Ohio, he obtained a BS in Engineering from Muskingum College. He enrolled in the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in 1942, and was assigned to the Marines VMO-155 group in 1944. Glenn flew a Corsair over the Marshall Islands, specifically Maloelap, where he was tasked with attacking anti-aircraft gunnery and ground bombardment. By 1945, he was transferred to the Patuxent River Test Pilot School, where he became a test pilot and was promoted to Captain by the war's end. After the war, Glenn flew patrol missions in North China, based in Guam, but in 1948 he became an flight instructor at Corpus Christi, Texas, then undertook an amphibious warfare course and was assigned a staff assignment, all the while

Jean Michel Jarre
displays and fireworks. One of his albums, Musique pour supermarchés had a print run on only a single copy, which was auctioned to raise money for French artists. In 1986 he worked with NASA; astronaut Ronald McNair was to play the saxophone part of Jarre's piece Rendez-Vous VI while in orbit on board the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was to have been the first piece of music recorded in space, for the album Rendez-Vous. After the Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986, the piece was recorded with a different saxophonist, retitled Ron's piece and the album dedicated to the seven Challenger astronauts. He was married to actress and photographer Charlotte Rampling. He is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. Discography Oxygene (1976) Equinoxe (1978) Magnetic fields (Les Chants Magnétiques) (1981) Concerts in China

ALT
Tim Finn and Liam O'Maonlai. ALT is also an abbreviation for Assistant Language Teacher, the job title of people on the JET Programme. ALT was also an acronym by the NASA for the Approach and Landing Tests of the Space Shuttle in 1976. ALT can mean alternative lengthening of telomeres, a mechanism (other than telomerase) that cells use to maintain telomere length.

Kalpana Chawla
(July 1, 1961 - February 1, 2003) was an astronaut and space shuttle mission specialist of STS-107 (Columbia) who was killed when the craft disintegrated after reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Kalpana Chawla Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Early Life 2 Education 3 NASA Career 4 Personal Characteristics 5 Memoria 6 See also 7 External Links Early Life Chawla was born in Karnal, Haryana, India. Her interest in flight was inspired by J. R. D. Tata, India's first pilot. Education Chawla studied aeronautical engineering at the Punjab Engineering College in Punjab, India in 1982 where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree. Thereafter she moved to the United States to obtain a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas (1984). Dr. Chawla earned a doctorate in aerospace

X-Prize
two weeks. This must be essentially the same vehicle: propellant can be replaced, but most of the rest of the vehicle must be reused. Even NASA's space shuttle falls short of this performance requirement, since it takes much more than two weeks to ready a given shuttle between flights. This prize foundation was created to encourage the development of private space travel, which is why government-funded projects are not allowed. The X Prize is designed to help create a space industry, and is modeled after many prizes from the early 20th century that helped prod the development of air flight—notably the $25,000 Orteig Prize that spurred Charles Lindbergh to make his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The X-Prize Foundation (based in St. Louis, Missouri) maintains a list of organizations registered

Barbara Morgan
R. Morgan (November 28, 1951 - ) is the first NASA Educator Astronaut, scheduled to fly on STS-118. Morgan trained to fly on the ill-fated STS-51-L mission of Space Shuttle Challenger as backup to Christa McAuliffe and has remained involved in the space program since then. Personal Data Born November 28, 1951, in Fresno, California. Married to Clay Morgan of McCall, Idaho. They have two sons. She is a classical flutist who also enjoys jazz, literature, hiking, swimming, cross-country skiing, and her family. Her parents are Dr. and Mrs. Jerry Radding. Her mother-in-law is Mrs. Clay Morgan. Education Hoover High School, Fresno, California, 1969; B.A., Human Biology, with distinction, Stanford University, 1973; Teaching Credential, College of Notre Dame, Belmont, California, 1974. Teaching Experience Morgan began her teaching career in 1974 on

1998 in science
1999 in science and the list of years in science Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Astronomy and space exploration 2 Biology 3 Computer science 4 Geology 5 Mathematics 6 Medicine 7 Technology 8 Awards 9 Births 10 Deaths Astronomy and space exploration January 6 - The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon and later found evidence for frozen water on the moon's surface. January 8 - Cosmologists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing. March 2 - Data sent from the Galileo spaceprobe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice. March 5 - NASA announced that that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon had found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and

Astronaut
astronaut, cosmonaut or taikonaut is a person who travels into space, or who makes a career of doing so. The criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight vary. In the United States, persons who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 kilometers) are designated as astronauts. The FAI defines spaceflight as over 100 km. To March 3, 2003, a total of 437 humans by the US definition had spent a total of 26,320 crew-days in space including 98 crew-days of spacewalks. 431 people qualify under the FAI definition. Astronauts from at least 32 countries have gone into space. By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency or its Soviet predecessor is called a cosmonaut. "Cosmonaut" is an anglification of the Russian word kosmonavt, which in

Houston, Texas
covers about 600 square miles in area, and is also the largest city in the United States which does not have zoning laws. Houston is world renowned for its energy industry (particularly oil),aeronautics industry and ship channel. The Port of Houston is the second busiest port in the United States, fifth busiest in the world. Because of the economic trades, many residents have moved in from other U.S. states, as well as hundreds of countries worldwide. Officially, Houston has been nicknamed the Space City. "Houston" was the first word uttered on the moon, as Neil Armstrong reported back to NASA. It is known by the locals, however, as the Bayou City. (Other nicknames include "Clutch City", and "Magnolia City".) The city had placed an unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Catherine Coleman
participated at the analysis of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) experiment launched with STS-41-C and retrieved with STS-32. In 1991 she received doctorate in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts. She was selected by NASA in 1992 to become a mission specialist astronaut. She took part in two space shuttle missions so far. In 1995 she was member of the STS-73 crew on the scientific mission USML-1 with experiments including biotechnology, combustion science and the physics of fluids. She also trained for the mission STS-83 to be the backup for Donald Thomas, however as he recovered on time she did not fly that mission. STS-93 was Catherine Coleman second space flight. On that mission the Chandra X-ray Observatory was sent to orbit.

Christa McAuliffe
was a American teacher and astronaut from New Hampshire who died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-51-L. She was born Sharon Christa Corrigan in Boston, Massachusetts. McAuliffe was selected to be the first teacher in space on July 19, 1985. She joined the STS-51-L crew as a mission specialist with plans to teach lessons from space. Selected from among more than 11,000 applicants from the education profession for entrance into the astronaut ranks, McAuliffe had been born the oldest child of Edward and Grace Corrigan. Her father was at that time completing his sophomore year at Boston College, but not long thereafter he took a job as an assistant comptroller in a Boston department store and the family moved to the Boston suburb of Framingham. As a

HAL/S
computer language, best known for its use in the Space Shuttle. It was written by Intermetrics in the 1970s for NASA. HAL/S is written in a dialect of PL/I known as XPL The three key factors in writing the language were reliability, efficiency, and machine-independence. The language is designed to allow tasks such as performing aerospace related vector/matrix arithmetic to be accomplished in a way that is easily understandable to people who have studied the subject. HAL/S is written without functions (such as GOTO in BASIC) that are known to be the cause of many errors. There are no abreviations for keywords, and keywords are all reserved so that they cannot also be used as variables. Considerations such as this are designed to reduce the chances of errors occurring, and also

America's first space station, the 75 ton Skylab was launched May 14, 1973 by a two-stage version of the Saturn V booster (the SL-1 mission). Severe damage was sustained during launch, including the loss of the station's micrometeoroid shield/sun shade and one of its main solar panels. Debris from the lost micrometeroid shield further complicated matters by pinning the remaining solar panel to the side of the station, preventing its deployment and thus leaving the station with a huge power deficit. The station underwent a extensive repair by the first crew launched on May 25, 1973 (the SL-2 mission) atop a Saturn 1B. Two additional missions followed on July 28, 1973 (SL-3) and November 16, 1973 (SL-4) with stay times of 28, 59, and 84 days, respectively. The last Skylab crew returned to Earth on February 8, 1974.

Skylab was actually the refitted S-IVB third stage of a Saturn V booster, a leftover from the Apollo program originally intended for one of the canceled moon landing missions (Apollos 18-20). A product of the Apollo Applications program (a program tasked with finding long-term uses for Apollo program hardware), Skylab was originally planned as a minimially-altered S-IVB to be launched on a Saturn IB rocket. The small size of the IB would have required Skylab to double as a rocket stage during launch, only being retrofitted as a space station once on-orbit. With the cancellation of Apollo missions 18-20 a Saturn V was made available and thus the "Wet Workshop" concept, as it was called, was put aside and Skylab was launched dry and fully outfitted. Skylab's grid flooring system is a highly visable legacy of the wet workshop concept.

Following the last mission the Station was positioned in a parking orbit expected to last at least 8 years. Increased solar activity heating the outer layers of the earth's atmosphere and thereby increasing drag on the Station led to an early reentry on July 11, 1979. Skylab disintegrated over Western Australia and the Indian Ocean, casting large pieces of debris in populated areas (without injury). The reentry prevented any further use by the then unfinished Space Shuttle as was envisioned by some at NASA.

Two flight-quality Skylabs were built, the second, a backup, is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

NASA's Space Shuttle program is an ongoing endeavor, started in the late 1960s, that has created the world's first partially reusable space launch system, and the first spacecraft capable of carrying large satellites both to and from low Earth orbit. Each shuttle is designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches. The original purpose of the program was to ferry supplies to a space station. In reality, the Shuttle is the United States' sole manned launch vehicle and has totally dominated NASA's operations since the mid 1970s. With the construction of the International Space Station the Shuttle has finally begun to be used for its original purpose. In January 2004, it was announced that the Shuttle fleet would be replaced by 2010.

Table of contents

1 Components Statistics 3 Shuttles 4 The Shuttle decision 5 Shuttle development 6 The Shuttle in retrospect 7 Shuttle description 8 Shuttle accidents 9 Previous Programs 10 External links

Components

• the reuseable orbiter itself
• a large expendable external fuel tank (ET) containing liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen (at the forward and aft ends, respectively) for the three main engines of the orbiter; it is discarded 8.5 minutes after launch at an altitude of 109 kilometers and breaks up in the atmosphere upon reentry; the pieces fall in the ocean and are not recovered)
• a pair of reusable solid-fuel rocket boosters (SRB); the propellant consists mainly of ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer, 70 % by weight) and aluminum (fuel, 16 %); they are separated two minutes after launch at a height of 66 km and are recovered after landing in the ocean, their fall slowed byparachutes

Statistics

Shuttles

• test vehicle only suitable for glide/landing tests:
  • Enterprise
• lost in accidents (see below):
  • Challenger
  • Columbia
• in use:
  • Atlantis
  • Discovery
  • Endeavour

NASA had conducted a series of paper-projects throughout the 1960s on the topic of reusable spacecraft to replace their expedient "one-off" systems like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

Meanwhile the Air Force had a continuing interest in smaller systems with more rapid turn-around times, and were involved in their own spaceplane project called Dynasoar. In several instances groups from both worked together to investigate the state of the art.

With the major Apollo development effort winding down in the second half of the 1960s, NASA started looking to the future of the space program. They envisioned an ambitious program consisting of a large space station being launched on huge boosters, served by a reusable logistics "space shuttle", both providing services for a permanantly manned Lunar colony and eventual manned missions to Mars.

However reality was to interject and NASA found themselves with a rapidly plunging budget. Rather than stepping back and looking at their future as a whole given their new financial situation, they attempted to save as many of the individual projects as possible. The mission to Mars was quickly eliminated, but the Space Station and Shuttle continued on. Eventually only one of them could be saved, so it stood to reason that a low-cost Shuttle system would be the better bet, because without it a large station would never be affordable.

A number of designs were proposed, but many of them were complex and varied widely in their systems. An attempt to re-simplify was made in the form of the "DC-3" by one of the few people left in NASA with the political clout to pull it off, Maxime Faget, who had designed the Mercury capsule, among others. The DC-3 was a small craft with a 20,000lbs (or less) payload, a four-man crew, and limited manuverability. At a minimum, the DC-3 provided a baseline "workable" (but not terribly advanced) system by which other systems could be compared for price/performance tradeoffs.

The final defining moment was when NASA, in desperation to see their only remaining project saved, went to the Air Force for its blessing. NASA asked that the AF place all of their future launches on the shuttle instead of their current expendable launchers (like the Titan II), in return for which they would no longer have to continue spending money upgrading those designs -- the shuttle would provide more than enough capability.

The Air Force relucantly agreed, but only after demanding a large increase in capability to allow for launching their projected spy satellites (mirrors are heavy). These were quite large, weighing an estimated 40,000 lbs, and needed to be put into polar orbit, which requires more energy to get to than the more common LEO. And since the AF also wanted to be able to abort after a single orbit (as did NASA), and land at the launch site (unlike NASA), the spacecraft would also require the ability to manuver significantly to either side of its orbital track to adjust for the launching point rotating away from it while in polar orbit - in a 90 minute orbit Vandenberg would move over 1,000 miles, whereas in a "normal" equatorial orbit NASA needed the range would be less than 400. This large 'cross-range' capability meant the craft had to have a greater lift to drag ratio than originally planned. This required the addition of bigger, heavier wings.

The result was that the simple DC-3 was clearly out of the picture because it had neither the cargo capacity nor the cross-range the Air Force demanded. In fact all existing designs were far too small, as a 40,000 lbs delivery to polar orbit equates to a 65,000 lbs delivery to a "normal" 28 degree equatorial orbit. In fact any design using simple straight or fold-out wings was not going to meet the cross range requirements, so any future design would require a more complex, heavier delta wing.

Worse, any increase in the weight of the upper portion of a lauch vehicle, which had just occurred, requires an even bigger increase in the capability of the lower stage used to launch it. Suddenly the two-stage system grew in size to something larger than the Saturn V, and the complexity and costs to develop it skyrocketed.

While all of this was going on, others were suggesting a completely different approach to the future. They stated that NASA was better off using the existing Saturn to launch their space station, supplied and manned using modified Gemini capsules on top of the Air Force's newer Titan II-M. The cost of development for this looked to be considerably less than the shuttle alone, and would have a large space station in orbit earlier.

The answer within those groups dedicated to the shuttle was to show that as long as you have enough launches, the development cost of the system would be overwhelmed by the cost of the rockets you would otherwise throw away. One factor that needs to be considered is inflation though, and in the 1970s this was high enough that the payback from the development had to happen very quickly or that money would never pay for itself. In other words you needed a very high launch rate to make the system work.

But there was no way that a space station or Air Force payloads could demand such rates (roughly 1 to 2 per week), so they went further and suggested that all future US launches would take place on the shuttle, once built. In order to do this the cost of launching the shuttle would have to be lower than any other system with the exception of the very small, which they ignored for practical reasons, and very large, which were rare and terribly expensive anyway.

With a baseline project now gelling, NASA started to work though the process of obtaining stable funding for the five years the project would take to develop. Here too they found themselves increasingly backed into a corner.

With the budgets being pressed by inflation at home and the Vietnam war abroad, Congress and the Administration generally couldn't care less about anything as long-term as space exploration and were therefore looking to make further deep cuts to NASAs budget. But with a single long term project on the books, there wasn't much they could do in terms of cutting whole projects -- the shuttle was all that was left, cut that and there would be no US manned space program by 1980.

Instead they looked to reduce the year-to-year costs of development to a stable figure. That is, they wished to see the development budgets spread out over several more years. This is somewhat difficult to do--you can't build half a rocket. The result was another intense series of redesigns in which the re-usable booster was eventually abandoned as impossible to pay for. Instead a series of simpler rockets would launch the system, and then drop away for recovery. Another change was that the fuel for the shuttle itself was placed in an external tank instead of internal tanks from the previous designs. This allowed a larger payload bay in an otherwise much smaller craft, although it also meant throwing away the tankage after each launch.

The last remaining debate was over the nature of the boosters. NASA had been looking at no less than four solutions to this problem, one a development of the existing Saturn lower stage, another using "dumb" pressure-fed liquid fuel engines of a new design, and finally either a large single solid rocket, or two (or more) smaller ones. The decision was eventually made on the smaller solids due to their lower development costs (a decision that had been echoed throughout the whole Shuttle program). While the liquid fueled systems provided better performace and enhanced safety, delivery capability to orbit is much more a function of the upper-stage performance and weight than the lower. The money was simply better spent elsewhere.

Shuttle development

The shuttle program was launched on January 5, 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable low cost space shuttle system.

The project was already to take longer than originally anticipated due to the year-to-year funding caps. Nevertheless work started quickly and several test articles were available within a few years.

Most notable among these was the first complete Orbiter, originally to be known as Constitution. However a massive write-in campaign on the part of fans of the TV show Star Trek convinced the White House to change the name to Enterprise. Enterprise was rolled out on September 17, 1976 and later conducted a very successful series of landing tests which was the first real validation of the gliding abilities of the design.

The first fully functional shuttle orbiter was the Columbia, which was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979 and was first launched on April 12, 1981 with a crew of two. Challenger was delivered to KSC in July 1982, Discovery was delivered in November 1983, and Atlantis was delivered in April 1985. Challenger was destroyed in an explosion during launch in January 1986 with the loss of all seven astronauts on board, and Endeavour was built as a replacement (using spare parts originally built for the other orbiters) and delivered in May 1991. Columbia was lost, with all seven crew, in a re-entry mishap on February 1, 2003.

The Shuttle in retrospect

One issue appears to be inflation. During the 1970s the US suffered from the worst inflation in modern history, driving up costs about 200% by 1980. In contrast, the rate between 1990 and 2000 was only 34% in total. This has the effect of magnifying the development costs of the shuttle tremendously.

However this doesn't explain the high costs of the continued operations of the shuttle. Even accounting for inflation the launch costs on the original estimates should be about $100 million today. To explain this you have to look at the operational details of maintaining and servicing the shuttle fleet, which have turned out to be tremendously more expensive than anticipated.

When originally conceived the shuttle was to operate similar to an airliner. After landing the Orbiter would be checked out and start "mating" to the rest of the system (the ET and SRBs) and be ready for launch in as little as two weeks. Instead this turnaround process in fact takes months. This is due, in turn, to the continued "upgrading" of the inspection process as a result of hardware decisions made to reduce short-term development costs which resulted in higher maintenance requirements which where exacerbated by the fallout from the loss of Challenger. Even simple tasks now require unbelievable amounts of paperwork. This paperwork results from the fact that, unlike current expendable launch vehicles, the Space Shuttle is manned and has no escape systems to speak of and therefore any accident which would result in the loss of booster would also result in the loss of the crew which is, of course, unacceptable. Because loss of crew is unacceptable, the primary focus of the shuttle program is to return the crew to earth safely, which can conflict with other goals, namely to launch satellites cheaply. Furthermore, because there are cases where there are no abort modes, no potential way to prevent failure from becoming critical, many pieces of hardware simply must function perfectly and so must be carefully inspected before each flight.

The result is a massively inflated manpower bill. There are 25,000 workers in shuttle operations (perhaps an older number), so simply multiply any figure that you choose for an average annual salary, divide by six (or 4 or 7...launches per year), and there you have it.

The lessons of the shuttle have been seen as different depending on who you ask. In general, however, future designers look to systems with only one stage, automated checkout, and in some cases, overdesigned (more durable) low-tech systems.

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the shuttle system is to consider the Air Force participation. While the blame rests solely at the feet of NASA for getting them involved in the first place, it was the Air Force requirements that drove the system to be as complex and expensive as it is today. Ironically neither NASA nor the Air Force got the system they wanted or needed, and the Air Force eventually threw in the towel and returned to their older launch systems and abandoned their Vandenburg shuttle launch plans. The capabilities which most seriously hobbled the Shuttle system, namely the 65,000 payload, large payload bay, and 1000 mile cross-range, have in fact, except for the payload bay, never been used.

Shuttle description

The Space Shuttle consists of four main components; the reuseable orbiter itself, a large expendable external fuel tank, and a pair of reusable solid-fuel booster rockets. The fuel tank and booster rockets are jettisoned during ascent. The longest the shuttle has stayed in orbit in a single mission is 17.5 days, on mission STS-80 in November 1996.

The Shuttle has a large payload bay taking up much of its length. The payload bay doors have heat radiators mounted on their inner surfaces, and so are kept open while the Shuttle is in orbit for thermal control. Thermal control is also maintained by adjusting the orientation of the Shuttle relative to Earth and Sun. Inside the payload bay is the Remote Manipulator System, also known as the Canadarm, a robot arm used to retrieve and deploy payloads. Until the loss of Columbia, the Canadarm has only been included on missions where it will be used. Since the arm is a crucial part of the Thermal Protection Inspection procedures now required for shuttle flights, it will likely be included on all future flights.