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FTA: "I think the space shuttle was a serious error. It hardly did anything except have an exciting launch, but it never lived up to its promise," Few people
by mgamache 8y ago
FTA: "I think the space shuttle was a serious error. It hardly did anything except have an exciting launch, but it never lived up to its promise,"
Few people are willing to call the shuttle a failure, but it was. It cost much more per mission than estimated and was supposed to lunch every two weeks. It averaged approximately one every 3 months. The payload was supposed to cost $635 per pound, but ended costing $27,000. You need a critical review of NASA if they are going to be effective in the future (Humans or no). This article may read as overly negative, but there is a lot of Pollyanna reporting regarding NASA.
- admax88q 8y agoI mean it did go to space, numerous times. Just because the budgeting projections were way off doesn't make it a failure.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bostonpete 8y agoI think the point is that we didn't need it to get to space. There were cheaper alternatives.
- mgamache 8y agoRight, the Russians were sending LEO payloads for < $2500/pound. Event our own old rockets were much cheaper.
- na85 8y agoI don't understand the cost argument. NASA is allocated less than half a percentage point of your federal budget. $20B is nothing to the United States Government. You could double their budget and DOD would still be spending 16x more. NASA is cheap. Direct your ire at Rockwell, not NASA.
- ptero 8y agoThe main problem is not wasting 20B/year, but that this puts a super conservative, risk averse incumbent in the driver seat for technology development which shuts out competition. SpaceX used up 1B in the first 10 years; I would rather spend that 20B/yr to fund 200 spacex-es. My 2c.
- wpietri 8y agoAccording to Wikipedia: "The goal, as presented by NASA to Congress, was to provide a much less-expensive means of access to space that would be used by NASA, the Department of Defense, and other commercial and scientific users." [1] So yes, if the goal was for it to be cheap and it turned out to be expensive, then it was pretty clearly a failure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Conception_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Concepti...
- FullyFunctional 8y agoI apologize for not providing data to back this up, but I recall reading about how the space shuttle project was derailed by political meddling. Certainly before faulting NASA too quickly, we should probably have some insight into exactly what happened.
- ptero 8y agoIf a major exploration blew the budget but achieved its primary goal it could still be considered a success. But it must achieve its goal. However, for the shuttle the lower price was the #1 goal which it failed to achieve. So it is a failure. Sorry. And that overfunded failure held back other options, because it is hard to compete when the competitor has many extra billions for development.
- friedman23 8y ago> Few people are willing to call the shuttle a failure Almost everyone calls the shuttle a failure
- mawburn 8y agoI went to a Chris Hadfield talk and I'm pretty sure he called it a failure. He may not have said it out right, but it was certainly implied. He said the Russian capsule was a much better design.
- masonic 8y agoThe contract award was based on utter lies. Aside from the financial waste, the Challenger disaster never would have happened with the other team's bid because that subcontractor manufactured on the East coast -- boosters would have been manufactured in one piece and floated down on barges, not broken into segments to fit in rail cars (hence the seams and O rings).
- greenyoda 8y agoNot to mention that we lost two of the five shuttles (Challenger and Columbia) and 14 astronauts' lives.
- mitchtbaum 8y agoIf the shuttle was a failure, does that mean so is the ISS?