If you have a fixed budget, and your boss assigns you new work to complete, you have to give something up. NASA had to take money from multiple programs, but the assumption was that the bulk would come from the Space Shuttle program budget. The Space Shuttle program was expensive to operate, and maintaining the twenty-plus year old Orbiters was getting more costly. The Space Shuttle was essential for completing the ISS, but would not be helpful for the new program called Constellation that would take us out of low Earth orbit.
It wasn't just the money though. There is a very limited pool of people that have expertise in space flight operations, and even an even smaller pool for human spaceflight operations.
ISS couldn't spare its people, but if the Space Shuttle was being phased out, its workers could be shifted to the new program. Although unfortunate, there was logic to it all. The problem was that building brand new spacecraft that have new missions means developing new technologies. That means entering unknown territory in which surprises and complications always arise and things take longer and cost more than anticipated - especially when that anticipation is wrapped in lowest bidder contracts.
First conceived during the heady and well-funded time around the initial Moon landings, the Space Shuttle was intended to provide NASA with a low-cost means to bring humans and payloads to low-Earth orbit. All these potential benefits of the shuttle were piled on top of one key promise: rapid turnaround of the spacecraft between flights.
Some NASA personnel even anticipated that a shuttle would be able to carry out back-to-back flights within just a week or two. Many of the predictions for the Space Shuttle came true: the fleet helped build the ISS, docked with the Mir space station , made extensive use of Spacelab, and carried many important payloads to orbit — including the Hubble Space Telescope , the Chandra X-ray Observatory , and interplanetary probes Magellan , Ulysses , and Galileo , among others.
By any yardstick, NASA can be proud of these accomplishments. First — and perhaps most importantly — the program was wildly expensive. While the shuttle was proposed to make disposable rockets a thing of the past, it did exactly the opposite. Most customers who wanted to put satellites into orbit found conventional rockets to be a cheaper alternative. Second, the proposed launch schedules and turnaround times for the shuttle fleet were essentially fantasy. The fastest turnaround for any shuttle in the history of the program was 54 days.
And after the Challenger disaster, the fastest turnaround was 88 days — a far cry from what NASA officials thought they could accomplish. Slower turnarounds meant fewer flights, which meant less access to space for paying customers, further driving business away from NASA. Safety was also an issue of paramount importance for the Space Shuttle Program.
By the mids, much of the American public thought that spaceflight was routine. NASA was even launching astronauts into space wearing just simple coveralls and helmets, having ditched the pressure suits used in the Mercury , Gemini , and Apollo programs. This forever dispelled the notion that spaceflight was routine.
The shuttle was revealed to be a high-risk, experimental vehicle — something most astronauts had known all along. Still, the space agency took its lashings and made the changes required to get the shuttle flying again. Yet again, the entire crew — this time featuring the highly publicized first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon — was killed. Although the technical cause of the Columbia disaster was very different than what led to the loss of Challenger , the investigation again found deep cultural problems at NASA.
The crew of STS, seen here, had their flight aboard Space Shuttle Columbia delayed 18 times before launching in Make a reservation, go to the designated meeting place, and either a shuttle bus or a full-sized motor coach brought you to your hotel. The bus driver loaded and unloaded your luggage, and after you checked into your hotel, bell services could bring your stuff to your room, or you could bring it yourself just like any other hotel, LOL.
Reverse the steps for when you were going home. Walt Disney made us aware of their decision. While we are disappointed Disney will no longer offer this service, we intend to continue offering transportation services between the airport and all area theme parks and hotels to meet the demand of our visitors now and in the future.
Of course, DME was a free service. Disney promoted DME as a convenience for 15 years. A free convenience, at that. When they feel comfortable to go again, it will be interesting to see, especially for those who are more price-sensitive, how or if this change will affect their vacation planning.
Demo-2 will be the first time that the Dragon spacecraft takes astronauts into space, and if the demonstration mission goes to plan, SpaceX is contracted to supply six more flights to the ISS. The return of launches to U. Boeing is slightly behind SpaceX though, with the company hoping to conduct a manned test flight of the Starliner in Read more.
Newsweek magazine delivered to your door Unlimited access to Newsweek.
0コメント