Space Shuttle - Reality

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21 JULY 2011

The final touchdown of Space Shuttle Atlantis in the early hours of the morning on 21st July 2011 marked the end of the costly American Space Shuttle programme; a programme which was received in a mixture of ways by both the public and the people who helped build, maintain and operate it. While the initial plans were extensive, structured and inspirational, the reality was much more convoluted; ruled by bureaucracy and overshadowed by flawed safety measures and tragic disasters.

After the very expensive Apollo effort, a lowcost space transportation system for both humans and cargo was seen as key to the future of the American space programme in the 1980s and beyond. So developing some form of new space launch system made sense as the major NASA effort for the 1970s, presuming the United States was committed to continuing space leadership.

But many consider it a mistake to develop this particular space shuttle design, and then to build the future US space programme around it.

The selection in 1972 of an ambitious and technologically challenging shuttle design resulted in the most complex machine ever built. Rather than lowering the costs of access

to space and making it routine, the space shuttle turned out to be an experimental vehicle with multiple inherent risks, requiring extreme care and high costs to operate safely.

The shuttle does, of course, leave behind a record of significant achievements. It is a remarkably capable vehicle. It has carried a variety of satellites and spacecraft to low-Earth orbit. It serviced satellites in orbit, most notably during the five missions to the Hubble Space Telescope. On a few flights, the shuttle carried in its payload bay a small pressurized laboratory, called Spacelab, which provided research facilities for a variety of experiments. That laboratory was a European contribution to the space shuttle programme.

With Spacelab and the Canadian-provided robotic arm used to grab and manoeuvre payloads, the shuttle set the precedent for intimate international cooperation in human spaceflight. The shuttle kept American and allied astronauts flying in space and opened up the spaceflight experience to scientists and engineers, not just test pilots. The space shuttle was a source of considerable pride for the United States; images of a shuttle launch are iconic elements of American accomplishment and technological leadership.

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THE FIRST ERA OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE – 1981-1986

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THE SECOND ERA OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE – 1986-2003

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THE THIRD ERA OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE – 2003-2011

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THE END OF AN ERROR – WAS THE SPACE SHUTTLE THE RIGHT CHOICE?

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THE LESSONS WE LEARNT FROM THE SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAMME

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21 July 2011 – Looking Back

THREE SHUTTLE PHASES

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

THE THREE DISTINCT PHASES OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAMME 04 | NEW SCIENTIST SHUTTLE SPECIAL | 28 JULY 2011

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

THREE SHUTTLE PHASES

When the Shuttle was designed the world was a very different place. Two giant superpowers strode the geographical scene like latter day colossi, each with the intention of changing the world forever. It was the Cold War, getting more threatening with each passing day. The Vietnam War was still escalating toward its horrifying finality, tensions in the Middle East threatened atomic war, and the Nixon administration was conducting talks with the Soviet Union on limiting the rate at which each country’s inventory of nuclear weapons was escalating. The Boeing Jumbo Jet opened a new era in mass air travel, and plans were well advanced for Concorde, the worlds first supersonic airliner, to enter service, carrying passengers across the Atlantic at more than twice the speed of sound. The moon race had been won, soon we would be on mars and Hilton was taking reservations for the first hotel in space.

Against this backdrop the Shuttle was born. It was a stepping stone to routine space transportation ferrying people, cargo, satellites and space station modules to low earth orbit, from where the nuclear-powered rock stages would send the next generation of astronauts to colonise the moon and plunge deeper into the great ocean of space that lay before us.

With unrecognised naivety we all believed the Shuttle to be capable of making up to sixty flights or more a year, and that this winged space plane would be the workhorse of the Space Age hauling everything that went into orbit. In 1979 Captain Chester M. Lee, Director of Space Transportation Systems Operations at NASA HQ, wrote. ‘Space has been called the last ‘frontier.’ Excursions to date by men into space have been compared with Conestoga wagon trips across the American continent in the 19th Century. The Space Shuttle is to the space launchers of the past as the train was to the Conestoga wagon of the West. It will be cheaper to operate, be capable of making many trips in its lifetime, and will provide access into a realm previously preserved for a precious few pioneers.’ Those words encapsulate the visionary zeal that permeated the first decade of Shuttle Development, but as the 1970s wore on, it became apparent that the extravagant expectations of the programme could not be met.

Hope that the Shuttle could be turned around within two weeks was impossible to fulfil, and the expectation that it would replace all expendable launch vehicles began to look increasingly difficult to achieve long before the first flight in 1981. The Shuttle was not going to be the cheap route to put payloads into space and technical challenged were proving difficult to overcome. As with any new flight vehicle there were unknown problems waiting to be discovered, and aspects of the design that would lead to difficulties both operationally and in specific flight regimes.

Examples include the selection of thermal insulation tiles that proves difficult to retain in place during launch and re-entry, and were subject to major damage from minor pieces of debris. This was a significant problem during the

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

preparation of the first flight vehicle for launch and did much to contribute to the near two-year delay in getting Columbia off the pad. But the pace of development was brisk in a tight financial environment. While management of the Shuttle programme went through significant changes which are not appropriate to delve into here, there were major successes in overcoming technical design and test difficulties.

One of the big success stories of the Shuttle was the SSME, the orbiters main cryogenic engines, which wee designed with higher operating specifications than had been accepted for any other production engine of their type.

With extraordinary demands made upon the theoretical extrapolation of flow dynamics, materials and maintainability of these engines, the challenge could not have been met without great effort in both design and test phases. On many occasions almost insuperable problems threatened the pace of development and test, and in the end it all came down to a national effort with key players.

The Shuttle began as a NASA project in the mid-1960s at the core of a so-called Post-Apollo programme, designed to capitalise on the technical, scientific, engineering and management success with events leading up to the moon landings. Inspired by the flight of the worlds first spaceman, Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, the Apollo moon goal laid down by President John F. Kennedy on 25 May 1961, was an eyewatering challenge and raised the level of space activity by several orders of magnitude. The next goal was how to capitalise on all that development and expansion in capability.

The Post-Apollo plan envisaged a reusable space transportation system lifting everything launched into space, thereby benefitting from an economy of scale in that several dozen flights each year would cut the cost of launching payloads into orbit, freeing up money for development of completely new activities in space. But even before the Shuttle had been formally approved by the White House, it was apparent that there would be insufficient money to build both the Shuttle and the permanently manned space station it was supposed to support. And as development merged into flight operations, it soon became clear that all hope of a low-cost space transportation system was still a dream and would never be realised by the Shuttle.

Because they spanned more than 30 years, Shuttle missions can be divided up in a variety of different ways.

To do so by function is perhaps the most logical and by this method the flight programme can be divided into three very distinct and separate phases: the firs 25 missions, in which and attempt was made to increase flight rates at any cost and carry all manner of government and commercial satellites, the next 67 flights during which the Shuttle was restricted to non-commercial payloads, flying military missions and docking with the Russian Mir space station; and the last 43 missions building the International Space Station, at last carrying out the role for which the Shuttle was designed.

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1981-1986

FIRST ERA

THE AMBITIOUS START OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAMME

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

By the late 1970s the role for the Shuttle had changed from the space station support vehicle to a launch system for satellites and spacecraft, and for conducting scientific research using equipment in the mid-deck area of the crew compartment, or in a laboratory fixed in the cargo bay. The emergence of a buoyant commercial satellite industry built around communication and TV broadcasting, and the imminent appearance of a new expendable launch vehicle from Europe called Ariane, spurred Shuttle managers to attract customers around the world to launch their satellites by Shuttle.

To do that it had to compete with much cheaper, and expendable, rockets so the US government had to massively subsidise Shuttle flights carrying commercial satellites. What had been anticipated as a replacement for expendable vehicles became a financial burden for NASA. Several early flights were only flown to carry these commercial payloads, satellites for Canada, India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Arab league, and Australia in addition to a hose of domestic US broadcasters such as AT&T and RCA. But to maintain commercial attractiveness the price these customers paid was a tiny fraction of what it cost NASA to fly the shuttle.

In early 1979, NASA awarded Space Shuttle orbiter manufacturer Rockwell a contract to convert STA-099 to a space-rated orbiter, OV-099. The vehicle’s conversion began late that year. Although the job was easier than it would have been to convert NASA’s first orbiter, Enterprise, it was a major process that involved the disassembly and replacement of many parts and components. The second orbiter to join NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet, OV-099 arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida in July 1982, bearing the name ‘Challenger.’

Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger was named after the British Naval research vessel HMS Challenger that sailed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the 1870s. The Apollo 17 lunar module also carried the name of Challenger. Like its historic predecessors, Challenger and her crews made significant scientific contributions in the spirit of exploration.

Challenger launched on her maiden voyage, STS-6, on April 4, 1983. That mission saw the first spacewalk of the Space Shuttle programme, as well as the deployment of the first satellite in the Tracking and Data Relay System constellation.

The orbiter launched the first American woman, Sally Ride, into space on mission STS-7 and was the first to carry two American female astronauts on mission STS 41-G. The first orbiter to launch and land at night on mission STS-8, Challenger also made the first Space Shuttle landing at Kennedy Space Centre, concluding mission STS 41-B. Spacelabs 2 and 3 flew aboard the ship on missions STS 51-F and STS 51-B, as did the first German-dedicated Spacelab

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FIRST ERA – 1981-1986

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

EXPECTATIONS THAT THE SHUTTLE COULD BE TURNED AROUND AND RETURNED TO SPACE WITHIN TWO WEEKS, THAT EACH ORBITER COULD MAKE 25 FLIGHTS A YEAR INTO SPACE AND THAT OVERALL THE ORBITERS WOULD BE FLYING IN EXCESS OF 55 MISSIONS A YEAR STILL PROVED WILDLY UNREALISTIC on STS 61-A. A host of scientific experiments and satellite deployments were performed during Challenger’s missions.

In its first 25 flights the Shuttle demonstrated what it would have achieved over the long term, carrying satellites into orbit from where strap-on rocket packs sent them into geostationary orbit, retrieving satellites stranded in the wrong orbit by failed boost motors, and rendezvousing with failed satellites so that space walking astronauts could repair and return them to full operations. In the first five years it seemed that each flight probed further into the corners of its capabilities, promising, albeit a much slower rate than anticipated, a dramatic new age of reusable space transportation. But all along, the launch of satellites was only a secondary role. Its prime function still lay unrealised.

The first four Shuttle flights carried a crew of only two and were known as OFT (Orbital Flight Test) missions, with the shuttle carrying arrays of development flight instrumentation to measure the orbiter’s performance. In June 1982 President Ronald Reagan witnessed the landing of Columbia afters its fourth flight and imprudently declared the shuttle ‘fully operational’, which it was not. A flurry of commercial satellite cargoes followed and in November 1983 it carried the first Spacelab scientific laboratory on a flight lasting more than ten days.

Spacelab had been financed by the European Space Agency (ESA), with 52 percent paid for by Germany. It comprised a pressurised module built in Germany, which could be carried inside the Shuttle Orbiter and a set of external pallets for carrying scientific equipment built in the UK attached to the rear of the module in the cargo bay.

Spacelab resulted from discussions with European countries in 1970 and a firm agreement was reached in 1973, a year after NASA got formal approval to build the Shuttle.

The idea had been that the ESA would pay for the design, development and fabrication of one Spacelab pressure module and associated pallets (about $1 billion) and that the US would buy four more pressure modules at $250 million each. The result was that Europe would gain expertise with

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

FIRST ERA – 1981-1986

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

manned space flight and get its money back while gaining the chance to fly European astronauts in the Shuttle. NASA would get to do science in a laboratory module that its own budget was incapable of buying, deferring the cost of expanding the number of Spacelab modules available until the development cost of Shuttle had been paid for.

Then NASA could go about planning for a permanently manned space station left in earth orbit, routinely serviced and replenished by the Shuttle with crew and equipment.

But developing the shuttle took longer than planned.

When NASA went to industry in 1970 for Phase B definition proposals it wanted the Shuttle flying into space operationally by 1977. After North American won the contract in 1972, developing the Shuttle proved harder than anticipated and an ever widening net of national resources was embraced by NASA and the manufacturers to solve problems and test new technology. By 1974 more than 30,000 people were working on the Shuttle; by 1977 more than 50,000. But the first flight had slipped into 1979 and still the delays kept piling up.

Expectations that the Shuttle could be turned around and returned to space within two weeks, that each Orbiter could make 25 flights a year into space and that overall the Orbiters would be flying in excess of 55 missions a year still proved wildly unrealistic. After the first flight in 1981 a different mood set in, but even then annual flight rates of 48 Shuttle missions a year were being predicted, around half of them carrying Spacelab modules preparing a new generation of scientists to work in the permanently manned space station that NASA pinned its future hopes on.

After the first Spacelab mission in November 1983 on the ninth Shuttle flight, there were three more in 1985, by which time, in January 1984, President Reagan had challenged NASA to build a permanently manned space station ‘and to do it within a decade’. This was the station it had been impossible to develop in parallel with the Shuttle and that would vindicate development of the space plane. While that was good news for NASA, it brought a mixed message to the Europeans. Now there would be no need, or money, to buy four more Spacelab modules, making the first one virtually a gift to the USA, while NASA money went on the space station.

Reagan named it Freedom and send NASA boss James Beggs on a globe trotting tour of non-communist countries asking for their financial and material support in building it.

Eventually, the Europeans agreed to participate. Before that, on 28 January 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger exploded within sight of thousands watching from Cape Canaveral and brought the first phase of Shuttle operations to an abrupt end.

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21 July 2011 – Looking Back

FIRST ERA – 1981-1986

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

IN 1986 SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER EXPLODED 73 SECONDS AFTER LEAVING THE LAUNCHPAD 10 | NEW SCIENTIST SHUTTLE SPECIAL | 28 JULY 2011

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

FIRST ERA – 1981-1986

The skies were clear and the sun shone on the cold freezing morning of January 28, 1986. Kennedy Space Centre in Florida was busy preparing the launch of the 25th space shuttle into space. Mission 51-L, the 10th flight of Orbiter Challenger. This was one of the most publicized launches because it was the first time that a civilian, a school teacher, was going into space. The launch of Challenger had been delayed five times due to bad weather, January 28 was the coldest day that NASA have ever launched a shuttle.

The time had come, at 11:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, Challenger left Pad 39B at Kennedy. Seventy three seconds into flight, the Orbiter Challenger exploded, killing all seven of its crew. Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch, but what actually happened at launch? What mechanically caused the explosion?

The temperature at ground level at Pad 39B was 36°F, that was 15°F cooler than any other previous launch by NASA. The Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB) was ignited, and the thundering noise started. At 0.68 seconds after ignition, videotape showed black smoke coming from the aft (bottom) field joint of the right SRB. The aft field joint is the lower portion of the SRB. The black smoke suggested that grease, joint insulation and rubber O-rings were being burned. The smoke continued to come from the aft field joint facing the Exterior Tank, on cycles of 3 puffs of smoke per second.

The last puff of smoke was seen at 2.7 seconds. The black smoke was an indication that the aft field joint was not sealing correctly. Later in flight, flashes were seen on Challenger. Three bright flashes shot across the challenger’s wings, 45 seconds after lift off. Each of the three flashes lasted only 1/13 of a second. As these flashes had been seen on other shuttle missions and were not considered problems. Theses bright flashes were completely unrelated to the flame that was seen later in flight.

At 58.8 seconds into flight on enhanced film a flame was seen coming from the right SRB. The flame was coming from the aft centre and aft joint, at 305° around the circumference of the SRB. The flame was burning gas that was escaping from the SRB. A fraction of a second later, at 59.3 seconds, the flame was well defined, and could be seen without enhanced film. As the flame increased in size, the flame had begun to push against the External Tank by the rushing air around the Orbiter. The SRB is attached to the External Tank by a series of struts along the side the External Tank. One of these struts is located at 310° of the circumference of the SRB. The flame as it grew pushed against this strut, with an intense heat of 5600°F, making it hot and weak.

From 72 seconds there was a very sudden chain of events that destroyed Challenger and the seven crew members on board. All of these events happened in less than two seconds.

By now the lower strut, connecting the right SRB to the External Tank was extremely hot and very weak. With the amount of force given by the SRB, the lower strut broke away from both the right SRB and the External Tank. Allowing the right SRB to rotate freely around the top struts. The SRB was out of control, the bottom of the SRB swung around hitting, burning and denting Challengers wing. At 73.12 seconds into flight a white vapour was seen from the bottom corner of the right SRB. The External Tank was weak due to the intense heat given by the flame. The dome structure under the External Tank failed and fell. The tank of Hydrogen inside the External tank ruptured and released the liquid Hydrogen contents. With the sudden absence of Hydrogen, there was an extreme force that shot the Hydrogen tank forward into the Oxygen tank, that too burst.

As the two intertanks collided, the top of the right SRB on the outside hit the top of the External Tank, and also broke the Oxygen tank. The white vapour seen was the mixture of Hydrogen and Oxygen. At 73.14 seconds, all the structures failed. Only milliseconds after the white vapour was seen from the right SRB, the glow had turned to a fireball in a huge explosion. The main explosion was the Hydrogen and Oxygen that come from the External Tank. Challenger was travelling at a speed of Mach 1.92, at a height of 46,000 feet, when it blow up. The last recorded transmission from Challenger was at 73.62 seconds after launch, when it truly fell apart.

Just before Challenger had blown up, it was engulfed in a cloud of smoke, that grew larger after the explosion. From under the gray smoke of the explosion, a red smoke was spreading. This red smoke was the reaction control system burning from the wreckage from Challenger. Debris from Challenger was seen falling and racing towards the ocean.

Both of the SRBs flew in opposite directions out of the fireball and cloud. The explosives on the SRB were detonated by the United States Air Force Safety Commander, 110.25 seconds after launch. (36.6 seconds after the explosion.) The SRB have parachutes in the top cone so they can slowly come back to the ground in a normal launch. The parachutes from

7 ASTRONAUTS

73 SECONDS

KILLED IN THE DISASTER

AFTER ITS LAUNCH

64.7 SECONDS

46,000 FEET

FIRST FLAMES SEEN ON SRB

HEIGHT CHALLENGER EXPLODED

O-RING FAILURE

32 MONTHS

CAUSED THE ACCIDENT

SHUTTLE WAS GROUNDED

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21 July 2011 – Looking Back

FIRST ERA –1981-1986

the blown SRB had come loose and were floating down to the ground. The watching public thought that the crew had escaped from the shuttle using their escape system. What the watches did not know was that there was no escape system on any of the shuttles. The SRB can be seen speeding away from the gulf of smoke caused by the exploding challenger.

The right aft field joint sealing was the prime suspect to the cause of the accident, because the smoke after ignition and flame during flight, came from the region of the aft field joint.

The failure of the right SRB aft joint sealing was most likely due to the extremely cold temperature on the morning January 28, 1986. Out of the two SRBs that were used, the one that was in the extreme cold was the one that failed.

O-rings when they are cold do not move as quickly as ones that are warm. Therefore if the O-rings were nearly frozen in place during ignition, the gases burnt the O-rings and produced the black smoke. Challenger left the launch pad and headed for space. During flight the O-rings continued to not seal the joint, and the gases leaked through the aft field joint. The flame grew larger and later blew Challenger up.

January 28, 1986 was the day when seven US astronauts died when their shuttle exploded 73 seconds after launch.

It was the coldest day in history that a shuttle has been launched. The cause of the accident was due to bad weather and the failure of the aft joint seal in the right Solid Rocket Booster. This tragic accident will always be remembered in the space programme.

REAGAN’S CHALLENGER SPEECH

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger.

We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.

Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we’ve never lost an astronaut in flight. We’ve never had a tragedy like this, and perhaps we’ve forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.

We mourn their loss as a nation together.

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New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, ‘Give me a challenge, and I’ll meet it with joy.’ They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.

We’ve grown used to wonders in this century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space programme has been doing just that. We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun. We’re still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers .And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s take-off. I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen.

It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons.

The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.

I’ve always had great faith in and respect for our space programme. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don’t hide our space programme. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute. We’ll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: ‘Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.’

There’s a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, ‘He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.’ Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”’

‘IF WE ARE TO SEND PEOPLE, IT MUST BE FOR A VERY GOOD REASON, AND WITH A REALISTIC UNDERSTANDING THAT ALMOST CERTAINLY WE WILL LOSE LIVES. ASTRONAUTS AND COSMONAUTS HAVE ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD THIS. NEVERTHELESS, THERE HAS BEEN AND WILL BE NO SHORTAGE OF VOLUNTEERS’ CARL SAGAN

1988-2003

SECOND ERA THE BEGINNINGS OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

SECOND ERA – 1986-2003

It took 32 months to get the Shuttle back into space and in that time a lot had changed. The Presidential Commission set up to investigate the disaster demonstrated that it was no accident but the result of a dangerous game of Russian roulette – to keep flying on time, every time, as a very senior NASA administrator admitted only a few months prior to the loss of challenger. The findings all but destroyed the national faith help in NASA by a grateful public, shocked by revelations that smacked of gambling with lives for faster flight rates and satisfied satellite customers.

By the time flights resumed in September 1988 all commercial satellite traffic had been banned from flying in the Shuttle. The commercial pressures were just too great ti push the shuttle to match the pace of less complicated expendable rockets. Europe’s Ariane was proving a great success at putting satellites into orbit and the Air Force turned its back on the shuttle and reopened the production lines for expendable rockets, subsidising a commercial launch vehicle industry that thrives today. The Air Force had some payloads that could only fly on the Shuttle and lifted those on eight dedicated military flights between December 1988 and December 1992. Added to the three launched before Challenger, a total of just 11 Air Force missions were flown by the Shuttle, which it had once claimed would be its workhorse for space.

A timely withdrawal of US AIr Force use of the Shuttle sounded the death knell for a second launch site, one located at Vanderberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California, situated on the pacific coast north of Los Angeles. Since 1972 VAFB had been assigned to launching all Shuttle missions into orbits with an inclination greater than 57 degrees, to prevent the ascending Shuttle from flying over the populated eastern seaboard of the continental United States. Heading south into high inclination and polar orbits the Shuttle would fly over water and not land.

While NASA, too, would have sent some missions from the VAFB, the Air Force was driving the requirement because it needed to launch and service certain classified missions and these high inclinations. The Air Force would have been the primary customer. The Challenger disaster changed those plans and the Air Force abandoned its use of the Shuttle.

Enterprise had been delivered to VAFB for a fit-check on the assigned launch complex but the idea of launching payloads from VAFB had been abandoned by 1986.

A consequence of the loss of Challenger was the manufacture of a sixth orbiter as replacement. Congress approved supplementary funding and in July 1987 NASA commissioned Rockwell International to build OV-105 Endeavour from a set of spare parts comprising major

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New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

vehicle sections held in reserve should they be needed to mend seriously damaged Orbiters. Final assembly was completed in July 1990 with rollout nearly 10 months later.

Its first flight was on 7 May 1992, three years and 8 months after Shuttle flights had resumed.

In this second phase of Shuttle operations only government missions were flown, scientific satellites, unmanned astronomical observatories and the awe-inspiring Hubble space telescope, lifted into orbit on 24 April 1990. Giant spacecraft were launched to Venus, to Jupiter and to Saturn and a wide variety of technological and scientific experiments were carried out.

The Shuttle was safer now, but still plagued with reoccurring incidents and technical problems sufficiently hidden to beguile the unwary into believing it could perhaps become a fully operational transportation system. It never was and the postchallenger reality stripped it of much of the pressure that had underpinned the disaster.

This phase of the Shuttle missions prepared the way for its definitive role – that of lifting into orbit all the many elements of a permanent space station called Freedom. Toward that end, more Spacelab missions were conducted. There had been four before challenger and 17 more between December 1990 and April 1998. But the real jewel in the list of achievements began in 1995, which would transform space station Freedom and unite former adversaries in the race for space.

After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent implosion of the Soviet regime in Russia, President Bill Clinton made it a purposeful aim of the State Department to extend a hand of cooperation to the former Soviet Union. Since Reagan announced his goal of a space station in 1984, every year NASA had been short-changed by Congress on the money it needed to press ahead. For 10 years Freedom limped along, studied endlessly, but with no launch date in sight for the first elements of a structure that would take years to assemble.

Inviting its former enemy to become a principle partner in the space station, the US brought Russia in to a great international venture that now included Europe, Japan and Canada.

In preparation for working closely on what would henceforth be renamed the International Space Station, or ISS, NASA ran a rendezvous mission to the Russian Mir space station in February 1995. Then, between June 1995 and June 1998, it carried out eight docking flights to Mir where US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts worked together on scientific experiments in space. What began as the next stage on a race withe the Soviet Union in the late 1960s had outlived the end of the Cold War, and forged an inseparable union with a former adversary.

The second phase of Shuttle Missions ended with those events.

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SECOND ERA – 1986-2003

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

IN 2003 SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA DISINTEGRATED WHILE ENTERING THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE 20 | NEW SCIENTIST SHUTTLE SPECIAL | 28 JULY 2011

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

SECOND ERA – 1986-2003

The second shuttle accident came on February 1st 2003, when shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission, STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in the death of all seven crew members.

The loss of Columbia was a result of damage sustained during launch when a piece of foam insulation the size of a small briefcase broke off from the Space Shuttle external fuel tank under the aerodynamic forces of launch. The debris struck the leading edge of the left wing, damaging the Shuttle’s thermal protection system, which shields it from the intense heat generated from atmospheric friction during re-entry. While Columbia was still in orbit, some engineers suspected damage, but NASA managers limited the investigation, on the grounds that little could be done even if problems were found.

NASA’s original shuttle design specifications stated that the external tank was not to shed foam or other debris; as such, strikes upon the shuttle itself were safety issues that needed to be resolved before a launch was cleared. Launches were often given the go-ahead as engineers came to see the foam shedding and debris strikes as inevitable and unresolvable, with the rationale that they were either not a threat to safety, or an acceptable risk. The majority of shuttle launches recorded such foam strikes and thermal tile scarring.

On STS-112, two launches before, a chunk of foam broke away from the external tank and hit the left solid rocket booster causing a dent four inches wide and three inches deep in it. After that mission, the situation was analysed and NASA decided to press ahead under the justification that ‘The ET is safe to fly with no new concerns (and no added risk)’ of further foam strikes, justification that was revisited while Columbia was still in orbit and Chair of the Mission Management Team Linda Ham re-assessed, stating that the ‘Rationale was lousy then and still is’.During re-entry of STS107, the damaged area allowed the hot gases to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure, rapidly causing the in-flight breakup of the vehicle. An extensive ground search in parts of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas recovered crew remains and many vehicle fragments.

Mission STS-107 was the 113th Space Shuttle launch.

It was delayed 18 times over the two years from its planned launch date of January 11, 2001, to its actual launch date of January 16, 2003. A launch delay due to cracks in the shuttle’s propellant distribution system occurred one month before a July 19, 2002 launch date. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board determined that this delay had nothing to do with the catastrophic failure six months later. The

Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s recommendations addressed both technical and organisational issues. Space Shuttle flight operations were delayed for two years, similar to the delay following the Challenger accident.

Construction of the International Space Station was put on hold, and for 29 months the station relied entirely on the Russian Federal Space Agency for resupply until Shuttle flights resumed with STS-114 and 41 months for crew rotation until STS-121. Major changes to shuttle operations, after missions resumed, included a thorough on-orbit inspection to determine how well the shuttle’s thermal protection system had endured the ascent, and keeping a designated rescue mission at the ready in case irreparable damage was found. Also it had been decided that all missions would be flown only to ISS so that the crew could use that spacecraft as a ‘safe haven’ if need be. Later NASA decided it would be an acceptable risk to make one exception to that policy for one final mission to repair Hubble in its high-altitude low-inclination orbit.

The final report delved deeply into the underlying organisational and cultural issues that led to the accident.

The report was highly critical of NASA’s decision-making and risk-assessment processes. It concluded the organisational structure and processes were sufficiently flawed and that compromise of safety was expected no matter who was in the key decision-making positions. An example was the position of Shuttle Programme Manager, where one individual was responsible for achieving safe, timely launches and acceptable costs, which are often conflicting goals.

7 ASTRONAUTS

15 DAYS INTO FLIGHT

KILLED IN THE DISASTER

TIME IT WAS DESTROYED

64.7 SECONDS

29 MONTHS

FIRST FLAMES SEEN ON SRB

SHUTTLE WAS GROUNDED

SKIES OVER TEXAS

‘ROGER, UH, BUH…’

LOCATION OF THE DISASTER

LAST AUDIBLE TRANSMISSION

1 IN 100,000

1 IN 100

PREDICTED ACCIDENT CHANCE ACCORDING TO MANAGEMENT

PREDICTED ACCIDENT CHANCE ACCORDING TO ENGINEERS

1 IN 10

6%

REALISTIC CHANCE OF ACCIDENT IN HINDSIGHT

REALISTIC CHANCE FIRST 25 FLIGHTS SURVIVING MISSIONS

28 JULY 2011 | NEW SCIENTIST SHUTTLE SPECIAL | 21

‘LET’S FACE IT, SPACE IS A RISKY BUSINESS. I ALWAYS CONSIDERED EVERY LAUNCH A BARELY CONTROLLED EXPLOSION.’ AARON COHEN

2003-2011

THIRD ERA

THE REALISATION OF WHAT THE SHUTTLE WAS BUILT TO DO

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

THIRD ERA – 2003-2011

In more than 40 flights beginning with Endeavour on 4 December 1998, the Shuttle has systematically launched the elements of what has been hailed as the greatest engineering venture of all time, arguably the greatest test of human cooperation in the most inhospitable environment encountered by humans. It is this for which the Shuttle was designed and built, and this will be its greatest legacy. In this period, a second orbiter was destroyed when on 1 February 2003 Columbia broke apart on re-entry due to damage to its thermal insulation.

And on other flights the Hubble telescope has been routinely serviced, upgraded, improved and given a new lease of life.

Undoubtedly, the loss of Columbia stimulated reappraisal of the Shuttle. This time there would be no replacement Orbiter and a decision was made shortly thereafter to retire it after completion of its last and more important role, the assembly of the International Space Station.

It is the ISS that has justified the Shuttle. The first element, called Zarya, was launched by the Russians on 20 November 1998, by Proton rocket, followed on 4 December with the launch of Endeavour carrying the Unity module, the first of many that would make up the ISS. The first US pressurised laboratory module, called Destiny, was lifted by Atlantis on 7 February 2001. Building on the experience with Spacelab, Europe’s Columbus module was lifted to the ISS on 2 February 20067, followed by Japan’s module on 31 May 2008.

The ISS now serves as a micro gravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars.

The station has been continuously occupied for 11 years and 132 days having exceeded the previous record of almost 10 years (or 3,644 days) held by Mir, in 2010. It is serviced by Soyuz spacecraft, Progress spacecraft, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, the H-II Transfer Vehicle, and formerly the Space Shuttle. It has been visited by astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations.

The ISS programme is a joint project between five participating space agencies, the American NASA, the Russian RKA, the Japanese JAXA, the European ESA, and the Canadian CSA. The ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements.

The station is divided into two sections, the Russian orbital segment (ROS) and the United States orbital segment (USOS), which is shared by many nations. The ISS is maintained at an orbital altitude of between 205 and 255 miles. It completes 15.7 orbits per day. The ISS is funded until 2020, and may

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New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

operate until 2022, and like many artificial satellites, the station can be seen from Earth with the naked eye.

Before sunrise or after sunset, the ISS can appear to observers on the ground, with the naked eye as a slow moving, bright, white dot, slowly crossing the sky in 2 to 5 minutes. This happens before dawn and after dusk when the ISS is sunlit but the ground and sky are dark, which is typically the case up to a few hours after sunset or before sunrise. Because of the size of its reflective surface area, the ISS is the brightest man made object in the sky. The ISS can also produce flares as sunlight glints off reflective surfaces as it orbits of up to 8 or 16 times the brightness of Venus. The ISS is also visible during broad daylight conditions, albeit with a great deal more effort.

THE SHUTTLE HAS SYSTEMATICALLY LAUNCHED THE ELEMENTS OF WHAT HAS BEEN HAILED AS THE GREATEST ENGINEERING VENTURE OF ALL TIME… IT IS THIS FOR WHICH THE SHUTTLE WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT, AND THIS THIS WILL BE IT’S GREATEST LEGACY. With a length of 167ft, a width of 357ft, a height of 66ft and a weight of more than 400 tons, it orbits the earth at 17,500mph and provides habitable space for a permanent crew of six from countries around the world. In the beginning, the Shuttle researched the possibility of producing new vaccines in the weightlessness of space, something that was impossible to manufacture in the gravity at earth’s surface.

New semiconductor crystals were grown five times bigger than anything that could grow on earth. And in conducting medical experiments in space, where astronauts bodies are overwhelmed by the same processes of deterioration that afflict senior citizens on earth, new methods on how to keep people healthy for longer is here now and being applied in hospitals around the world.

When evaluating the benefits to humans around the planet, it is difficult to count the cost of what has been made possible through the Shuttle and the ISS it has helped build.

From forging working relationships with former adversaries to unlocking secrets about the human body and the way it can be healed, this work goes on day after day by scientists and researchers flying to the space station. The operational history of the Shuttle is now at an end, its work done. It leaves a legacy and a wealth of engineering knowledge that will outlast the generation that built it. Of all the things with wings – this truly is the most magnificent of flying machines.

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

THIRD ERA – 2003-2011

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

ATLANTIS LANDED ON 21 JULY 2011 AND THE SHUTTLE ERA ENDED 28 | NEW SCIENTIST SHUTTLE SPECIAL | 28 JULY 2011

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

THIRD ERA – 2003-2011

The last space shuttle flight rolled to a stop just before 6am on Thursday, closing an era in the nation’s space programme.

‘Mission complete, Houston,’ said Captain Christopher J. Ferguson, commander of the shuttle Atlantis for the last flight.

‘After serving the world for over 30 years, the space shuttle has earned its place in history, and it’s come to a final stop.’

The landing, the 19th before daylight at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, concluded the 135th shuttle mission, which began 13 days earlier on 8 July. Just before the countdown to liftoff commenced, launch director Mike Leinbach told the crew ‘Good luck to you and your crew on the final flight of this true American icon. Good luck, godspeed and have a little fun up there’ to which commander Chris Ferguson replied ‘Thanks to you and your team Mike, We’re completing a chapter of a journey that will never end. The crew of Atlantis is ready to launch’. For the Atlantis, the final tally of its 26-year career was 33 missions, accumulating just under 126 million miles during 307 days in space and circumnavigating the Earth 4,848 times.

Workers used spray paint to mark the position of the Atlantis’s wheels; a permanent marker will be placed on the runway to indicate the final resting spot of the space shuttle programme. The last day in space went smoothly. At 4:49 am, the Atlantis fired its manoeuvring engines to slow down and begin its fall back into Earth’s atmosphere. Descending in a northeast trajectory, it passed over the southeast Pacific Ocean and crossed Central America toward Florida.

On the International Space Station, Michael Fossum, a NASA astronaut, floated in the station’s windowed cupola and observed the trail of hot plasma that marked Atlantis’s re-entry. Less than 10 minutes before landing, Captain Ferguson described the view from his window. ‘Beautiful view of the Yucatán, I think, going right under the wing right now,’ he said. ‘It’s a gorgeous thing.’

In the clear, windless predawn, twin sonic booms announced the impending arrival as the Atlantis slowed to less than the speed of sound. It made a wide turn to line up with the runway, concluding the 5,284,862 mile trip. During its 13-day mission, the Atlantis ferried 8,000 pounds of supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station and brought back some pieces, including a failed pump from the space station’s cooling system, which engineers want to examine more closely. With the retirement of the shuttles, NASA will no longer be able to return large pieces of equipment back to Earth.

Recognizing the historical enormity of the final landing, Commander Chris Ferguson just after wheels stop said ‘Mission complete, Houston, After serving the world for over 30 years, the shuttle has earned its place in history, and it has come to a final stop.’ To which Entry CAPCOM Barry Wilmore replied ‘We congratulate you, Atlantis, as well as the thousands of passionate individuals across this great space faring nation who truly empowered this incredible spacecraft which has inspired millions around the globe.’

Hundreds turned out at Kennedy Space Centre to witness the last-ever landing of a space shuttle. An estimated 4,000 shuttle programme workers also gathered to watch TV coverage at the Johnson Space Centre in Texas. Inside Mission Control, team members shook hands, hugged and took pictures of each other savouring the historical occasion.

NASA will now begin the work of transforming the Atlantis into a museum piece. It will be mounted nearby at the space centre’s visitor centre. At a news conference after the landing, Mike Leinbach, the shuttle launching director, talked about the mixed emotions of the workers and NASA officials who had gathered on the runway. ‘I saw grown men and grown women crying today,’ Mr. Leinbach said. ‘Tears of joy, to be sure, and that was just human emotions came out on the runway today.

You couldn’t suppress them.’

There was pride among the shuttle workers, Mr. Leinbach said, that even as the programme was shutting down, they had maintained their high standards. ‘Over the past three or four years, we’ve been concentrating on completing the job we were given to do,’ he said. ‘We’ve done that now, successfully. We have a lot of pride in that, and no one can take that away from us.’

135 MISSIONS

543 MILLION

COMPLETED BY THE SHUTTLES

TOTAL MILES TRAVELLED

1,334 DAYS

20,952 ORBITS

TOTAL TIME SPENT IN SPACE

EARTH ORBITS COMPLETED

852 ASTRONAUTS

2 SHUTTLES LOST

RODE THE SHUTTLE INTO SPACE

OVER THE WHOLE PROGRAMME

14 ASTRONAUTS

30 YEARS

KILLED IN TWO DISASTERS

TOTAL LENGTH OF PROGRAMME

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‘SOME THINGS SIMPLY ARE INHERENT TO THE DESIGN OF THE BIRD AND CANNOT BE MAE BETTER WITHOUT GOING AND GETTING A NEW GENERATION OF SPACECRAFT. THAT’S AS TRUE FOR THE SPACE SHUTTLE AS IT IS FOR YOUR TOASTER OVEN.’ MICHAEL GRIFFIN

END OF AN ERROR?

THE SPACE SHUTTLE MAY HAVE BEEN THE WRONG DECISION

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

END OF AN ERROR

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

THE WRONG CHOICE? One of the most powerful legacies of the Space Shuttle programme is that it resulted from a policy failure made in planning for the post-Apollo space programme and that it was, in essence, a mistake relentlessly pursued by NASA for more than a generation. The most recent major statement of this position came in the fall of 2005 when the NASA administrator of some six months, but a longtime member of the space community, publicly called the Space Shuttle a mistake. Then NASA Administrator Mike Griffin commented that NASA had pursued the wrong path with the shuttle when conceived in the 1960s and developed in the 1970s, and persisted with it long after its flaws had been discovered. That poor decision now had to be corrected, he noted, albeit more than thirty years after the fact.

‘It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path,’ Griffin told USA Today in an interview that appeared as a page one story on September 28, 2005. ‘We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can.’ When asked pointedly if the shuttle had been a mistake the NASA Administrator responded, ‘My opinion is that it was… It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible.’ Griffin’s assertion that the shuttle had been the ‘wrong path,’ a mistake persisted in for more than a generation set off a firestorm of debate within the spaceflight community to the extent that NASA issued a point paper explaining what Griffin had meant. It also triggered not a little soul-searching about the importance of the vehicle in both the history of human space exploration and in the larger context of world history and culture.

Griffin’s statement was the most recent, and certainly the most influential, exposition of a long-standing criticism of the shuttle programme among a large segment of the space intelligentsia as well as among certain elements of the broader space community. The first serious, well publicised statement of this belief came in 1985 when Alex Roland, a former member of the NASA History Division who went on to become a professor at Duke University, offered a thoughtful and reasoned criticism of the shuttle in the era before the Challenger accident. Far from the muckraking journalism of some, Roland approached his subject with detachment and an attention to analysis. He asserted that the shuttle was over-sold as a practical and cost-effective way to gain routine access to space. It had not delivered on that promise, he noted, and it was essentially an experimental vehicle that offered a spectacle but its costs outweighed its benefits.

Its much-touted capabilities had not been realised and he concluded that the shuttle programme had been misguided, uninspired, and wasteful. Roland’s arguments about the

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THESE MISTAKES PRODUCED A PROGRAMME THAT JUST CANNOT WORK. NASA COULD CONCEIVABLY OPERATE THE SHUTTLE SAFELY AND RELIABLY, BUT IT DARES NOT ADMIT WHAT IT WOULD COST. THE EVIDENCE FOR THIS WAS ABUNDANT BEFORE THE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT. INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO THE DATA, NASA CONSISTENTLY ALLOWED ITS JUDGEMENT TO BE CLOUDED BY ITS HOPES AND PREDICTIONS FOR HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN SPACE. shuttle as a mistake have continued to the present. He summarised his critique in testimony before the US Senate in the aftermath of the 2003 Columbia accident: ‘Briefly stated, NASA made two mistakes in shuttle development in the late 1960s and early 1970s. First, it traded development costs for operational costs. Second, it convinced itself that a recoverable launch vehicle would be inherently more economical than an expendable. NASA promised savings of 90%, even 95%, in launch costs. In practice, it costs more to put a pound of payload in orbit aboard the shuttle than it did aboard the Saturn launch vehicle that preceded it. These mistakes produced a programme that just cannot work. NASA could conceivably operate the shuttle safely and reliably, but it dares not admit what it would cost. The evidence for this was abundant before the Challenger accident. Instead of listening to the data, NASA consistently allowed its judgment to be clouded by its hopes and predictions for human activities in space. The agency cares about astronaut safety, but it is trapped by its own claims about shuttle costs. And, unlike expendable launch vehicles, the shuttle grows more dangerous and more expensive to fly with each passing year.’

Other space policy analysts, including the dean of the community, John M. Logsdon, also weighed in to criticise the Space Shuttle as a flawed decision that was unable to meet expectations. In a thoughtful and influential 1986 article in Science Logsdon contended that the decision to build the Space Shuttle emerged from a murky policy making process that did not properly analyse the approach or gauge the operational capability and, more importantly, compromised the funding levels so badly that serious technological concessions resulted as well. He noted that NASA allowed its shuttle hopes to be held hostage by political and economic forces, and that the programme only

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

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21 July 2011 – Looking Back

gained its support on a cost-effective basis, rather than on scientific, technological, or other grounds.

This ensured that the budget-cutters would hack away at the programme every year. It also suffered from a lack of strong support from key political figures, as there were no Kennedys or Johnsons to champion the Space Shuttle and the result was a politicisation of the process. It was, in Logsdon’s parlance, a ‘policy failure’ that set in train a succession of negative consequences that eventually led to the Challenger accident on January 28, 1986.

Since that time many others have criticised the Space Shuttle effort as ill-conceived, politically suspect, and poorly executed. The result has been a steady stream of critiques of the shuttle programme, especially coming whenever there is a public failure. Virtually all of these appraisals emphasise the convoluted history of the Space Shuttle’s origins, evolution, operation, and the continuing challenge of space access.

Sometimes the criticisms are well reasoned and temperate, and at other times they are muckraking and outrageous; sometimes they are also erroneous. Always they emphasise missteps, policy reversals, organisational inertia, and leadership failings, as well as seemingly impossible technical challenges, which combined to prevent the realisation of the vision that NASA had set about for itself in advocating the Space Shuttle.

Ironically, while there is no question that the Space Shuttle is a creature of compromise that does not enjoy a universally positive perception, its faults may have been exaggerated over the years. As only one measure of shuttle programme performance, the cost of the development effort has come under heavy scrutiny and overruns of the budget have received considerable attention from such organisations as the General Accounting Office (GAO), which criticised it in the latter 1970s.

But the cost from programme approval through first flight was $5.974 billion (when adjusted for inflation to 1972 dollars), a 17 percent overrun above the $5.15 billion budget originally approved. For the development effort, NASA did not do too badly in estimating costs in an era of rampant inflation.

Contrarily, the Apollo programme, which has a reputation as a highly-successful, well-managed programme spent $13.45 billion (in 1961 adjusted dollars, $21.4 billion in non-adjusted funds) from project start to first Moon landing.

NASA engineers had told NASA Administrator James E. Webb that Apollo would cost between $8 and $12 billion to complete the first mission. ‘Because no one could anticipate all contingencies, he [Webb] enlarged the figure NASA sent Kennedy to $20 billion for the first lunar journey… using administrative realism to counter technical optimism in setting Apollo’s deadline and price.’ If Webb had accepted

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21 July 2011 – Looking Back

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the lower numbers, and instinct was the only reason he did not, clearly NASA would have seriously underestimated the cost of the lunar landing programme. Other factors beyond the management of the research and development (R&D) effort for the shuttle must account for its poor reputation.

Likewise, in terms of operational costs, individual shuttle missions are comparable to individual Apollo missions when adjusted for inflation although, of course, there is a difference between an orbital mission on the Space Shuttle and the lunar landings.

Rather, it seems that NASA officials created seriously false expectations about what the shuttle would be able to do in terms of costs. George M. Low, NASA’s deputy administrator, set the bar quite high in 1970 when he announced: ‘I think there is really only one objective for the Space Shuttle programme, and that is ‘to provide a low-cost, economical space transportation system. To meet this objective, one has to concentrate both on low development costs and on low operational costs.’ From the outset, therefore, the econom­ics of the shuttle outweighed any other aspects of the programme. This was strikingly different from the Apollo programme and certainly unfortunate.

At a basic fundamental level, from the perspective of its operational era NASA spent heavily on the shuttle programme. All NASA spending on the shuttle through 2011 totalled approximately $119 billion (real year dollars), which approaches the amount spent to put Americans on the Moon when adjusted for inflation. Accordingly, it has been widely acknowledged that the cost of operating the Space Shuttle did not meet its original expectations. Although, surprisingly, if NASA could have launched 50 missions per year as it originally envisioned it would not have been far off the original estimates. This has been a difficult reality for the shuttle programme.

Couple that with a persistent drumbeat for the shuttle as the end-all, one-size-fits-all space truck, and expectations could never be realised. Indicative of these broad expectations NASA published in 1983 a marketing brochure entitled We Deliver that touted the vehicle as ‘the most reliable, flexible, and cost-effective launch system in the world.’ It suggested that the Space Shuttle could satisfy every requirement in the United States. NASA and the Space Shuttle programme may have fallen victim to its own highly successful marketing.

Public opinion polls have consistently shown a perception of the Space Shuttle as a good investment.

Over time, as the two shuttle accidents and other difficulties with the programme became apparent it took on the perception of a failure rather than the unadulterated

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New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

IT WAS THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT A REUSABLE, EXPERIMENTAL VEHICLE. THE SHUTTLE PROGRAMME PROBABLY ACHIEVED ABOUT 80 PERCENT OF ITS TECHNICAL OBJECTIVES, BUT FAILED MISERABLY IN MEETING ITS ECONOMIC OBJECTIVES… THERE ENDED UP BEING NO REASON TO FLY 24 MISSIONS A YEAR. success that Apollo was perceived to be. It probably did not deserve that characterization, but perceptions and myths are almost as significant as facts and reality in public discourse and the result has been a legacy of the entire shuttle program as a mistake persisted in for more than thirty years.

Perhaps the shuttle program is no more deserving of being remembered as a mistake than the Apollo program is deserving of its perception as an unmitigated success.

Certainly, the shuttle’s appropriate legacy rests between those two poles. Hope that the Shuttle could be turned around within two weeks was impossible to fulfil, and the expectation that it would replace all expendable launch vehicles began to look increasingly difficult to achieve long before the first flight in 1981. The Shuttle was not going to be the cheap route to put payloads into space and technical challenged were proving difficult to overcome. As with any new flight vehicle there were unknown problems waiting to be discovered, and aspects of the design that would lead to difficulties both operationally and in specific flight regimes.

In reality, it was the first attempt at a reusable, experimental vehicle. The shuttle program probably achieved about 80 percent of its technical objectives, but failed miserably in meeting its economic objectives. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that there ended up being no reason to fly 24 missions a year since satellites became larger, more capable, and longer lived. There was also a huge misstep in how NASA chose to operate the vehicle, where the standing army necessary to develop it was maintained into the ‘operational era’ since 1982 because NASA managers (and their contractors) did not want to diminish capability by reducing personnel and budgets.

Probably, NASA could have operated the vehicle with significantly less personnel—and about two-thirds of the budget—ultimately used. Beyond that, its principal failing may have been in staying with the shuttle for so many years instead of treating it as an experimental program that would lead to future reusable vehicles.

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

END OF AN ERROR

COST AND REUSABILITY Now that the space shuttle Atlantis has rolled to a standstill, NASA is closing the books on its shuttle program, prompting a final reckoning. One piece of the history is surprisingly elusive: the price tag. Some media outlets have pegged the total cost of the shuttle program, and its 135 launches, at between $115 billion and nearly twice that amount, demonstrating the challenge of tallying a bill over such a long time span. Among the difficulties are properly accounting for inflation and imprecise budgeting in the program’s early years. Furthermore, none of the figures include about $18 billion, in today’s dollars, spent by the Defence Department on the shuttle program, by one estimate.

It turned out, though, to require ‘a lot of archival work and budget reconstruction.’ Tracing the program since 1971, when the first significant outlays were made, Prof.

Pielke came up with a total of $83.7 billion through fiscal year 1993. Earlier this year, he and Dr. Byerly reported in Nature an updated total of $193 billion in 2010 dollars, including an estimate of this year’s shuttle spending.

NASA prefers to count the spending differently, mainly by not adjusting for inflation. That yields a far smaller figure: $115.5 billion, which amounts to $860 million per launch, far more than the $7 million the agency projected in its early days, when it anticipated weekly launches. NASA didn’t maintain shuttle-specific spending figures in the early years of the program, which accounts for Prof. Pielke’s archival digging, but it has done so for the past quarter-century.

NASA spokesman Joshua Buck says the agency’s method, without an inflation adjustment, is preferable because ‘that’s really how much cash we spent.’ Adding to the confusion, NASA also has released an inflation-adjusted figure, despite its preference for a figure representing cash outlays. That number is even higher than Prof. Pielke’s: about $211 billion.

Beyond inflation, there are other wild cards with the space-shuttle cost estimates. As Prof. Pielke noted in his original report on space-shuttle costs at the behest of a journal reviewer, his calculations don’t account for the opportunity costs of capital invested that otherwise might have been spent elsewhere, which often is included in estimates of private-sector spending but not government spending. His calculation doesn’t include Defence Department spending on the shuttle, which by 1996 had totalled roughly $18 billion, in today’s dollars, according to Mr. Schwartz. And it excludes some non-itemised NASA spending in the shuttle program’s first two decades.

Prof. Pielke says he is encouraged that the latest estimates he and NASA have produced are both close to $200 billion, once NASA’s figures are adjusted for inflation.

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‘I’m not going to quibble about $10 billion more or less.’

It seems likely, in retrospect, that the project was doomed for a variety of reasons, including the challenging reusable spaceplane design and the huge range of often conflicting demands on the craft. Tellingly, the US space program is abandoning spaceplanes and going back to Apollo-style rockets. The Russians have always relied on cheaper and more reliable disposable rockets; China plans to do the same.

But hindsight is 20/20, and there may well be no way NASA could have known that the shuttle would flop back in the ‘70s when it was being planned and built, or possibly even while it was flying in the early ‘80s, before its bubble of innocence was pricked by disaster. But it would soon become clear to anyone that the shuttle program was deeply troubled—at least, to anyone who bothered to look.

Hope that the shuttle could be turned around within two weeks was impossible to fulfil, and the expectation that it would replace all expendable launch vehicles began to look increasingly difficult to achieve long before the first flight in 1981. Despite initial expectation of 55 launches a year and the turn around time of two weeks, the reality was that the shuttle was not going to be the cheap route to put payloads

COST PER SHUTTLE LAUNCH

$54 MILLION

1972 PREDICTION FOR COST OF EACH LAUNCH

$450 MILLION 2011 ESTIMATE FOR COST OF EACH LAUNCH

833 PERCENT AMOUNT EACH LAUNCH WAS OVER BUDGET

2011 COST ESTIMATE – 100% 1972 COST PREDICTION – 12% 1972 BUDGET PREDICTED 12% OF THE ACTUAL AMOUNT SPENT (ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION)

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

END OF AN ERROR

into space and technical challenges were proving difficult to overcome. As with any new flight vehicle there were unknown problems waiting to be discovered, and aspects of the design that would lead to difficulties both operationally and in specific flight regimes.

Examples include the selection of thermal insulation tiles that proved difficult to retain in place during launch and re-entry, and were subject to major damage from minor pieces of debris. This was a significant problem during the preparation of the first flight vehicle for launch and did much to contribute to the near two year delay in getting columbia off the pad, prolonging the time taken to turn the shuttles around ready for relaunch. It was the dislodging of one of these tiles that played its part in the destruction of the shuttle during the reentry of STS-107.

While the dream of reusable spacecraft wasn’t entire unsuccessful, the compromise to fit around a constantly decreasing budget pushed the design into something that was far from able to routinise space travel. The expected 55 launches a year were soon seen as impossible, and the reality was that the most launches in one year came in 1985, when shuttles lifted off from the launch pad only nine times.

AVERAGE YEAR

55 LAUNCHES 1972 PREDICTION FOR LAUNCHES PER YEAR

TOTAL COST OF PROGRAM

$43 BILLION 1972 PREDICTION FOR TOTAL COST OF PROGRAM

$200 BILLION

2011 ESTIMATE FOR TOTAL COST OF PROGRAM

9 LAUNCHES MOST LAUNCHES ACHIEVED – 1985

465 PERCENT

AMOUNT TOTAL COST WAS OVER BUDGET

2011 COST ESTIMATE – 100% 1972 COST PREDICTION – 22% 1972 BUDGET PREDICTED 22% OF THE ACTUAL AMOUNT SPENT (ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION)

4.5 LAUNCHES AVERAGE YEARLY LAUNCHES ACHIEVED

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‘MANKIND IS DRAWN TO THE HEAVENS FOR THE SAME REASON WE WERE ONCE DRAWN INTO UNKNOWN LANDS AND ACROSS THE OPEN SEA. WE CHOOSE TO EXPLORE SPACE BECAUSE DOING SO IMPROVES OUR LIVES, AND LIFTS OUR NATIONAL SPIRIT. SO LET US CONTINUE OUR JOURNEY.’ GEORGE W. BUSH

THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE

THE INVALUABLE KNOWLEDGE GAINED FROM THE SHUTTLE

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

THE SUCCESSES It is easy to dismiss the Space Shuttle Program as a failure. After all, it did fail to meet many of the goals for it, went massively over budget, launched rarely and achieved only a fraction of it’s promised potential. While all this is undeniably true, the knowledge and information that was learnt from the program is what establishes it as far from a failure.

The knowledge learnt covers almost every angle, and will provide us with a lasting legacy of the Shuttle. From the technical and managerial mistakes made that caused the destruction of shuttles Challenger and Columbia and killing fourteen people, to the outstanding view of the universe that we have experienced through the giant eye of the Hubble telescope, launched and maintained by the fleet of shuttles. We have also learnt how to live in space, building an orbiting home away from the surface of our planet as the International Space Station, a structure built by the cooperation between countries across the world, proving that the exploration of space is a worthy enough cause to pull old enemies together and work as a team.

Perhaps the most important thing we have learnt, though, is how fragile our own world is. Known as the goldilocks planet, we have found few other that would be capable of supporting our life, meaning that ours is potentially the only one we will ever live on the surface of.

This, combined with the current focus on global warming, gives a real sense of fragility to our pale blue dot, which is easy to see as indestructible.

Perhaps one of the hardest lessons learnt from the Space Shuttle Program was that learnt from the Challenger and Columbia disasters. Mistakes made during these eras will help to shape the face of future space programs, inheriting the heightened sense of safety that was put into place after the Columbia incident in 2003. Just after the 2003 tragedy occurred many experts concluded that technology was to blame. But a more thorough and comprehensive investigation, undertaken by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, CAIB, concluded differently. It maintained that management was as much to blame for the failure as was the foam strike.

The Board described an organisational culture in which, at every juncture, program managers were resistant to new information. It was a culture in which people were unwilling to speak up or if they did speak up were never heard. In their report they wrote that the organisational failure was a product of NASA’s history, its culture, and its politics.

While there are many lessons that can be learned from this disaster, the one that stands out is what organisational psychologists refer to as the ‘recency effect.’ It occurs when decision makers rely on only the most recent information. In

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this situation foam insulation had broken away on previous flights and caused no harm. To those responsible for the mission, these recent events distorted the real danger presented by this problem. In addition to the recency effect, a second factor was conservatism, a situation in which new information is ignored or given too little weight. Senior management largely ignored the data from previous flights where foam had broken away on every launch; they failed to revise their prior belief that the system was operating properly.

A third factor was overconfidence. During the flight, engineers, concerned that the foam strike may have caused a problem, asked the Mission Management Team to request satellite imagery of the spacecraft. Management, however, was apparently confident that there was no safety issue and a decision was made against imagery. Had the imagery been authorized, and the damage discovered, the conjecture is that a rescue attempt would have had a reasonable chance of success. A fourth factor may have been selective perception in which management of the shuttle program had shifted from an engineering focus to a managerial focus. This shift was captured by an organisational culture whose motto was ‘Better, Faster and Cheaper.’ It created a culture in which engineering problems were less likely to be recognized and more likely to be dominated by schedules and budgets.

The International Space Station is a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. It follows the Salyut, Almaz, Skylab and Mir stations as the ninth space station to be inhabited.

The ISS is a modular structure whose first component was launched in 1998. It has since grown to become the largest and most expensive space station ever built. Like many artificial satellites, the station can be seen from Earth with the naked eye. The ISS consists of pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other elements, all of which have been launched by American Space Shuttles as well as Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets. The ISS serves as a micro gravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and other fields.

This research has a very real effect on our every day lives back on Earth, effecting technology, medicine and the way we look at the world around us.

One example of this is the study of protein crystals.

Analysis of these crystals helps scientists better understand the nature of proteins, enzymes and viruses, perhaps leading to the development of new drugs and a better understanding of the fundamental building blocks of life. Similar experiments have been conducted on the Space Shuttle, although they

New Scientist Space Shuttle Special

21 July 2011 – Looking Back

THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE

are limited by the short duration of Shuttle flights. This type of research could lead to the study of possible treatments for cancer, diabetes, emphysema and immune system disorders, among other research. It is more productive to experiment with these in space than on Earth as more pure protein crystals may be grown in space.

It is also a perfect place to observe life in low gravity.

The effects of long-term exposure to reduced gravity on humans; weakening muscles, changes in how the heart, arteries and veins work; and the loss of bone density, among others, will be studied aboard the station. Studies of these effects may lead to a better understanding of the body’s systems and similar ailments on Earth.

A thorough understanding of such effects and possible methods of counteracting them is needed to prepare for future long-term human exploration of the solar system.

In addition, studies of the gravitational effects on plants, animals and the function of living cells will be conducted aboard the station. A centrifuge, located in the Centrifuge Accommodation Module, will use centrifugal force to generate simulated gravity ranging from almost zero to twice that of Earth. This facility will imitate Earth’s gravity for comparison purposes; eliminate variables in experiments; and simulate the gravity on the Moon or Mars for experiments that can provide information useful for future space travels.

Lastly, as the Space Station orbits around the earth, it becomes the perfect place to observe the planet beneath us. Observations of the Earth from orbit help the study of large-scale, long-term changes in the environment. Studies in this field can increase understanding of the forests, oceans and mountains. The effects of volcanoes, ancient meteorite impacts, hurricanes and typhoons can be studied. In addition, changes to the Earth that are caused by the human race can be observed. The effects of air pollution, such as smog over cities; of deforestation, the cutting and burning of forests; and of water pollution, such as oil spills, are visible from space and can be captured in images that provide a global perspective unavailable from the ground In the history of astronomy, no telescope since Galileo’s original has had a greater impact that the eleven tonne machine called Hubble. The Hubble Space Telescope was conceived in the 1970s and given the go ahead by congress during the tenure of President Jimmy Carter, with a launch date of 1983.

The premise of the telescope was simple; by photographing the universe from outside the Earth’s atmosphere, much clearer, further images could be captured. Named after Edwin Hubble, the man who discovered the universe is expanding, this complex project was plagued with problems from the

start. By 1986 the telescope was ready to launch, but the Challenger disaster closed the shutters not just on the Hubble project, but on the whole Space Shuttle Program.

With the restart of the Shuttle program, Hubble was finally launched seven years behind schedule in 1990.

As the new eye pointed towards the heavens, the first images to come back were far from clear. The Hubble team discovered that a tiny optical flaw in the mirror was distorting the telescope’s vision. Such was the promise of the telescope that a mission to fix it was launched in 1993.

This was possible as Hubble was designed to be the first telescope able to be serviced by astronauts in space. A new mirror could not be fitted, but by precisely calculating the effect of the faulty mirror they could correct the problem by giving Hubble a contact lens. In a ten day repair mission, astronauts from Space Shuttle Endeavour spent ten days fixing Hubble’s vision, and on 13th January 1994 NASA opened Hubble’s corrected eye to the cosmos.

For almost two decades the Hubble Space Telescope has captured the faintest lights and enabled us to rebuild these spectacular images, providing a window onto places billions of light years away and events that happened billions of year ago. These are places far beyond our reach. Hubble’s orbit outside the distortion of Earth’s atmosphere allows it to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light. Hubble’s Ultra-Deep Field image, for instance, is the most detailed visible-light image ever made of the universe’s most distant objects. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

2O2 ASTRONAUTS

161 SPACEWALKS

HAVE VISITED THE STATION

HAVE TAKEN PLACE

1.5 BILLION

8 MILES OF WIRE

MILES TRAVELLED IN ORBIT

ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

EDWIN HUBBLE

347 MILES

TELESCOPE’S NAMESAKE

HEIGHT OF HUBBLE’S ORBIT

2.4 METRES

2019 TO 2032

APERTURE OF HUBBLE’S EYE

HUBBLE WILL FALL TO EARTH

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‘NOTHING IS SO DANGEROUS TO THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN MIND THAN TO ASSUME THAT OUR VIEWS OF SCIENCE ARE ULTIMATE, THAT THERE ARE NO MYSTERIES IN NATURE, THAT OUR TRIUMPHS ARE COMPLETE AND THAT THERE ARE NO NEW WORLDS TO CONQUER.’ HUMPHRY DAVY