Was The Space Shuttle Doomed From The Start?

Written by Josh G for Onkla

The Space Shuttle or the Space Transport System (STS) was NASA's first step to attempting rocket re-usability. The Space Shuttle has three main goals which were set by NASA. However, none of the goals were reached during its thirty year lifespan. Is it because NASA didn't have the correct design, and they were hoping to do it with luck? Was it because the companies involved were not trying hard enough? Or was the whole program just doomed from the start. This is a longer article, so lets get to the point.

First we will start by talking about how the design came about. NASA was looking for a re-usable type of rocket. One that could fly many times, and not need to be refurbished or any major changes needed to be made inbetween flights. NASA then designed the Shuttle. However before it was finalized, it went through many early design phases. Some were

better than others, however none of the early shuttle designs were practical or were safe and reliable. However, once NASA came across the current shuttle design, the liked it. So they began the construction of the shuttle. The shuttle program involved almost every state in the United States of America. The reason that they did that is so that it would look more appealing to the government so that they would get more funding for the project. The shuttle began construction many years before it was set to first fly. The shuttle had gone through almost three years of construction prior to the design being ready and on the pad before its first launch.

The first shuttle launch was named STS-1 or Space Transport System - 1. This mission would carry the mission commander John Young. He had flown on the first crewed mission of the Gemini program, which was a very historical mission. He then flew on Gemini 10 which was the eigth crewed flight of the Gemini Program. He then flew on Apollo 10 which served as a testing mission for the upcoming moon landing with Apollo 11, and then he became the ninth person to walk on the moon during the Apollo 16 mission. Then it was his time to fly on STS-1. Aside from John Young would be Robert Crippen. This would be Robert's first space flight, however he would be chosen for three other missions after this launch.

The STS-1 mission lifted off from the historic Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. It successfully completed its roll program and began heading on its proper allignment into its desired Low Earth Orbit. The SRB's or solid rocket boosters then separated from the vehicle around two minutes after launch. At around eight minutes after the liftoff, the three RS-25 engines shutdown, and the orbiter vehicle separated from the external tank. The two OMS (Orbital Maneuvering Thrusters) then began their two minute burn to get the shuttle into its final orbit. If you need to know more about the shuttle, or what I am talking about, I made a Youtube video titled "Space Shuttle vs Buran".

After the first successful launch of the shuttle the whole country was happy that they had another vehicle that could carry them to space. It has been over 10 years since the last Apollo mission, so it was nice to be able to reach orbit again.

The program continued very smoothly until the icy morning of January 28, 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger was nearing its launch at 11:38am. The Space Shuttle Challenger successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 39B. The vehicle had a steady climb until the vehicle experienced an unexpected breakup at 73 seconds into the flight. A 2 billion dollar spacecraft was lost, but more importantly, seven lives of the crew onboard were lost.

The tragedy halted the shuttle program for over two and a half years, but then they were ready for another launch. This launch was to be made by the Space Shuttle Discovery for the STS-26R mission. The launch was a success!

Another failure that the shuttle experienced was on the STS-107 mission. The space shuttle columbia was re-entering Earth's atmosphere at the speed of over 15 times the speed of sound. First the left wing got destroyed, and then the rest of the orbiter vehicle was lost. It again, killed all seven crew members on board.

All of these failures left the shuttle in a bad place. With a total of 135 flights, which two were lost, that gives the shuttle a success rate of 98.5%. Which is the exact same success rate that the Falcon 9 rocket has. The Falcon 9 however has had 163 missions, and has lost three, but no crews were lost.

These failures were worrying NASA as their three main goals for the shuttle were to have a re-usable launch vehicle that could be reused many times without major refurbishment. The second being access to space quickly and often. And the third being a safe, reliable and cheap option for customers to be able to launch on. However, none of these goals were met.

The first goal which was to have a re-usable launch vehicle was not met because the shuttle just couldn't. The shuttles heat shield was made with silica tiles. These little tiles were placed all over the belly of the orbiter, but could easily be damaged. During the launch, the large orange external tank would have some of its insulation fall off, and damage the heat shield. This could result in the loss of mission if it hit the wrong place. The tiles also erroded a lot during the atmospheric re-entry of the shuttle. The reason that heat is generated is because of air friction. The friction between the fast moving shuttle and the air can heat the shuttles heat tiles up to over 2.6 thousand degrees farenheit. That means that around all of the tiles would need to be inspected and around half of them would need to be replaced.

Another issue with recovery that they encountered was re-using the solid rocket boosters. The twin SRB's are those large powerful rocket boosters mounted to the side of the large orange external take. Solid fuel is made of primarily ammonium perchlorate and atomized aluminum powder. This fuel, once ignited, would not be able to be shut down until the fuel is depleted. That is what made the boosters so dangerous. But lets get back to talking about the refurbishment. The boosters would separate and then deploy a series of parachutes to then land in the ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Everything inside of the boosters would then be removed, except for the metal casing. So, the only part of the booster that could be reused was the outer shell, which wound up being more expensive to reuse than just build a new one for each launch.

The next goal that they didn't reach was that they could access space quickly and very often. NASA originally intended to launch a shuttle once every week or two. However the shuttle ended up launching around five times per year. That means that it was not very often. Also back to the past issue, the refurbishment process would take so long, and since they only had five orbiter vehicles, they could only keep that launch cadence and not make it faster. The five orbiter vehicles were Columbia (Destroyed), Discovery (Retired), Atlantis (Retired), Challenger (Destroyed), Endeavor (Retired). The shuttles that are retired are currently on display. Space Shuttle Atlantis is on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center, Florida. The Space Shuttle Discovery is on display in the Udvar Hazy Center in Washington DC. Endeavor is on display in the California Science Center. And the Shuttle Enterprise (Test Vehicle) is on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York.

The final goal that they didn't meet was having a safe, reliable and cheap vehicle for customers to fly on. The shuttle ended up being a pretty dangerous vehicle killing crew, and ground crew. It has killed crew during the launch, and on re-entry. And it has killed ground crew by the ventilation system failing, and resulting in over six people suffocating in the space shuttle Columbia.

The shuttle was not safe, however it was relatively reliable as it has the same success rate as the Falcon 9 rocket, which hasn't failed for over 6 years! The Falcon 9 rocket can also land its first stage, and those landings haven't failed for over a year, and the landings now have a streak of over 50 consecutive successful landings!

The shuttle was also very expensive. It cost 49 billion dollars to develop, and over half a million dollars per launch. The overall program cost over 209 billion dollars. That is a almost a quarter of a trillion dollars.

The main reason that the shuttle failed was because of its design. It would have been a lot more successful if they had stayed with the classic rocket design with each stage ontop of the other. However, you cannot tell me that the shuttle is not the coolest looking rocket. I will not change my mind. The design with the orbiter on the side of the external tank was not smart because the insulation resulted in lots of damages to the vehicle.

But that is a conclusion to this article. The shuttle was a very dangerous launch vehicle, however one of the coolest looking rockets to ever exist!