For Billy, if he is back online.
Tl;dr - nice idea, impressive technology, unrealistic business model ---- Final shuttle launch for Discovery: Was shuttle program worth it? - Why did the US build the shuttle? - CSMonitor.com http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0223/Final-shuttle-launch-for-Discovery-Was-shuttle-program-worth-it/Why-did-the-US-build-the-shuttle Final shuttle launch for Discovery: Was shuttle program worth it? - Why did the US build the shuttle? For 30 years, the space shuttle launch has served as the centerpiece of the US space program. But Feb. 24 will mark the last shuttle launch of Discovery, with the final flight of Endeavour to follow in April and – if there’s enough money – Atlantis’s last flight of the entire program in June. Here are five questions about what the shuttles have – and haven’t – accomplished. - Pete Spotts, Staff writer For many space enthusiasts, including Wernher von Braun, who headed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Marshall Space Flight Center from 1960 to 1970, a shuttle of some sort was part of an overall long-term vision for the US human-spaceflight program that dated to the early 1950s. The vision included a winged craft that could carry crews and cargo and be used to loft and repair satellites, and a space station as a jumping-off point for exploring the moon and eventually Mars. Proponents also argued that reusable shuttles would be more economical than rockets that were good for only one launch. In some ways, yes. “Technically, it was a remarkable achievement,” says Louis Friedman, executive director emeritus of the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif. Shuttles launched satellites and initially carried classified payloads for the Pentagon. They served as test beds for technologies that would lead to the International Space Station. They played an indispensable role in the construction and stocking of the space station. And their crews repaired and even rescued satellites and the Hubble Space Telescope. But experience would show, through two fatal accidents that killed 14 astronauts and through numerous modifications, that the orbiters never truly shifted from being R&D vehicles to craft capable of routine operation. And, Mr. Friedman adds, “it was a programmatic disaster.” Cost savings that planners envisioned – and oversold, many analysts say – never materialized. One widely cited early study indicated that for a $12.8 billion investment in orbiters and infrastructure, the shuttles would pay for themselves if they flew 39 flights a year between 1978 and 1990. But flight rates averaged just 4.5 launches a year through 2010. By some estimates, once the final mission ends, the program will have cost $174 billion, with payload launch costs of about $10,000 per pound, compared with some initial estimates of $120 a pound. (via Instapaper) Sent from my iPhone -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
