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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

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 Space Shuttle consists of four main components:

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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