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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. 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.

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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.

The Shuttle in retrospect

Whilst the shuttle has been a reasonably successful launch vehicle, it had been unable to meet its goals of radically reducing flight launch costs, as each flight costs on the order of $500 million rather than initial projections of $10 to $20 million.

Although the design is radically different than the original concept, the project was still supposed to meet the upgraded AF goals as well as be much cheaper to fly in general. What went wrong?

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.

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

Discover NASA

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

Shuttles

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

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.

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.

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