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The End of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program

Sebastián A. Calderón (00329460)

Universidad San Francisco de Quito

NRC 1575: History of Science

Prof. Elisa Sevilla Pérez

October 12, 2023

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Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3
Unveiling of factors for the termination of the Space Shuttle Program .................................. 4
COST OVERRUNS AND FUNDING CHALLENGES .............................................................................. 4
SHIFTING POLITICAL PRIORITIES ................................................................................................... 6
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 10
Bibliography .................................................................................................................................11

Abstract

The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program conducted by NASA, the

United States' space agency, as a continuation of the Apollo missions. The main goal was to

develop an efficient, reusable method of carrying astronauts and satellites to low earth orbit (LEO).

On April 12, 1981, the first Space Shuttle mission was carried out with the launch of the Columbia

Orbiter (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2023). The shuttles Challenger,

Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour followed, leading human spaceflight missions for over three

decades. However, in 2011, three decades of space exploration ended with the Atlantis orbiter's

final landing. This essay aims to analyze the economic and political issues that contributed to the

end of the Space Shuttle era.

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Introduction

Throughout the history of humanity, people have made continuous efforts to explore their

surrounding cosmos and reach new frontiers. Few endeavors have made transcendental

contributions to our understanding of the universe quite like NASA's Space Shuttle program. The

first ideas of its creation can be traced back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, during the Apollo

program's success as the need for a reusable spacecraft arose after considering the high costs

associated with single-use launch vehicles (Lethbridge, 1996). In 1972, NASA officially

announced the Space Shuttle program to the public, beginning the construction of the six shuttles

that operated during the program's existence (Lethbridge, 1996). Since the first launch of the

Columbia orbiter in April 1981 (STS-1 mission), this iconic fleet of spacecraft participated in 135

missions, that among many achievements helped build the International Space Station (ISS) and

the Hubble Space Telescope (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2023). However,

the program was never without problems. NASA faced a serious drawback in 1986 after the

Challenger disaster, caused by a catastrophic failure during the launch phase that claimed the lives

of seven crew members (99th Congress COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,

1986). Another devastating event occurred in 2003, when the Columbia Orbiter disintegrated

during the reentry into Earth's atmosphere, causing the loss of seven more astronauts (National

Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2008). These tragic events, along with factors like high

operational costs, aging infrastructure, and the public backlash against the program, led to the

decision to retire the Space Shuttle permanently in 2011. This essay aims to explore the political

and economic reasons behind the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program to understand how

this event shaped the future of space exploration for the 21st century.
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Unveiling of Factors for the Termination of the Space Shuttle Program

Cost Overruns and Funding Challenges

To understand the economic problems that the shuttle program faced, it would be better to

recognize the issues involving the previous Apollo program, which also contributed to its end in

the early 1970s. While the Apollo missions were very successful in their goal to explore the moon

and give the U.S. a victory to outshine their soviet competitors after 1969 the Soviet Union changed

their focus to Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and stopped investing in their lunar

program, which eliminated one of the biggest incentives for the development of the Apollo

program (Siddiqi, 2019). As a result, the public deemed the program unnecessary and overpriced,

which in conjunction with President Nixon's administration's concerns, resulted in budget

limitations and ultimately made NASA divert money to the newly proposed Space Shuttle program

(Lethbridge, 1996).

The problem that the Space Shuttle intended to solve was the huge cost of having single-

use space vehicles with multiple stages, which were dumped after depleting their fuel reserves.

Only the last stage that carried the payload or astronauts was designed to return to Earth's surface.

To fund a transport vehicle like this would be like traveling in a commercial airplane from one city

to another and dumping the airplane after reaching the intended destination, increasing the ticket

prices for commercial routes by close to a few million dollars.

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Another thing to consider is the escape velocity rockets need to reach to escape Earth's

gravity. To reach the necessary speed, a rocket needs to accelerate its combined mass of payload

and propellant, the last one being a combination of fuel and an oxidizer that will be mixed and

burned in the combustion chamber to produce the force necessary to lift the payload. However,

that does not factor in the weight of the fuel and oxidizer themselves, which means more propellant

is needed to lift the added weight. Therefore, the amount of fuel and oxidizer increases

exponentially with every unit of weight added to the cargo, which can be described mathematically

with the Rocket Equation.

In short, the cost of launch systems before the Space Shuttle was significantly higher due

to the cost of a single-use rocket and the volume of fuel needed to reach escape velocity. The Saturn

V rocket used in the Apollo program is the biggest operational rocket built to this day because it

had to transport enough propellant to travel to the moon and back, which meant huge operational

costs. However, the Space Shuttle program was designed for missions to low earth orbit (LEO),

which meant the engineers at NASA could develop a smaller launch vehicle that had to carry less

fuel and oxidizer inside. Also, two of its three main components of the Shuttle could return to

Earth’s surface to be serviced and reused, the two Solid Rocket Boosters and the Orbiter itself,

meaning only the External Tank would be destroyed during its reentry to Earth’s atmosphere

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2023).

Nevertheless, reality is often very different from dreams. While the Space Shuttle achieved

its goal of making most of its components reusable, for NASA to service the Solid Rocket Boosters,
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refurbish the Orbiter after each flight, maintain the ground infrastructure, and pay the large

workforce, every mission needed to have excessive operational costs. Each Shuttle launch is

estimated to have cost an average of $1.6 billion per flight in 2021 dollars, close to $30,000 per

pound of payload (Roberts, 2022). This was higher than the operational costs of expendable launch

systems like the Mercury and Gemini, the first two space programs in U.S. history. These high

expenses meant NASA had to divert funds from other space exploration or scientific missions;

therefore, as the program continued, it became apparent that the reusable aspect of the Shuttle did

not translate into the promised large cost savings.

Another factor to take into consideration is the aging infrastructure of the Space Shuttle

fleet, which made maintenance increasingly expensive. NASA had already spent close to $10.6

billion in 2020 dollars to develop the Space Shuttle (The Planetary Society, 2020). “This also

includes $444 million in construction costs to build out the shuttle's production, launch, and

processing facilities” (The Planetary Society, 2020). However, new advances in aerospace

technology that surpassed the capabilities of the Shuttle meant costly upgrades were needed.

Nonetheless, these changes were never implemented as they would reduce NASA's budget even

more, making funding projects like the International Space Station (ISS) much more difficult if

not impossible.

Shifting Political Priorities

The Space Shuttle program was born in a growing and economically stable era, with the

intention of reviving the nation's leading position in space exploration. However, it never got the

same support as the Apollo missions received from President John F. Kennedy in 1961 (Logsdon,

2019). “Even as Apollo 11 achieved the goal set by Kennedy, Richard Nixon decided that there
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was no need to set an ambitious post-Apollo objective” (Logsdon, 2019). This meant that during

Nixon's administration, the Space Shuttle program had to compete with other government

initiatives to get the funding necessary for its development. When the program was ready for the

first official missions, President Ronald Reagan kept Nixon’s footsteps in limiting NASA’s share

of the government budget to far less than what it had been during the Apollo era (Logsdon, 2019),

even though he was a firm advocate for the development of the U.S. the space program “as an

example of American exceptionalism and global leadership” (Logsdon, 2019).

Reagan also wanted NASA to be part of the joint construction project with other nations of

a permanently manned space station, thinking of it as “the next logical step” (Logsdon, 2019).

While this idea fulfilled one of the primary objectives for the development of the Space Shuttle, it

also became one of the reasons for the program's cancellation. To build the International Space

Station (ISS), the United States promoted international cooperation in space, consequently the ISS

became a symbol of collaboration between nations. This resulted in a change of focus in the

aerospace industry, transitioning from individual space programs to international collaboration

projects, which enhanced the importance of private space companies and cheaper solutions through

international cooperation, but also diminished the space shuttle's role in construction and

maintenance missions. After the completion of the ISS and the development of cheaper

transportation systems like the Soyuz capsule, the Space Shuttle was left aside for most of the

subsequent resupply missions to the station.

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Nonetheless, other national space agencies were not the only ones to develop cheaper

launch systems. Private space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic began to

show potential to compete with the traditional dominance of government agencies in space

transportation. While most government officials opposed these changes in the beginning, many

policymakers supported the idea after seeing the potential to stimulate innovation, reduce costs,

and create a more competitive and dynamic space industry.

Another major reason behind the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program came as a direct

consequence of The Great Recession or the financial crisis between 2008 and 2009, which was

characterized by economic uncertainties and an expanding national debt during this period

(Franke-Folstad, 2023). Not only did the cost of maintaining and operating the aging shuttle fleet

become increasingly unsustainable, but the political priorities during the Bush presidency shifted

towards issues such as national security, healthcare, and climate change to align with the new social

movements that appeared in the 21st century.

However, the main reason for the government’s disapproval of the Space Shuttle was the

safety concerns that arose after the tragic accidents of the Challenger and Columbia orbiters, which

resulted in the loss of a total of 14 astronauts, the deadliest space tragedy to this day. The public

opinion raised serious questions about the safety of the Space Shuttle which sparked a reevaluation

of NASA's organizational and safety procedures. The Challenger mission (STS-51-L) was set to

be the tenth flight of the Space Shuttle program, however, the shuttle disintegrated just 73 seconds

after liftoff, killing seven passengers, including a civilian schoolteacher by the name of Christa

McAuliffe (99th Congress COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 1986). President

Ronald Reagan created the Rogers Commission to investigate the accident, which included figures
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like the first man to put a foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, and the renowned theoretical physicist

Richard Feynman (99th Congress COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 1986).

The disaster was attributed to the failure of an O-ring seal in one of the solid rocket boosters, a

possibility that NASA officials had foreseen but decided to ignore (99th Congress COMMITTEE

ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 1986). As a result, the Shuttle program was suspended for

over two years and NASA was forced to redesign the booster rockets. Then in 2003, the Columbia

mission (STS-107), the 28th flight of the Space Shuttle program, suffered a catastrophic failure

that resulted in the death of another seven astronauts. During the re-entry to Earth, the spacecraft

disintegrated 16 minutes before its scheduled landing (National Aeronautics and Space

Administration, 2008). An impact in the left wing from a piece of foam insulation that was part of

the External Tank made a hole in the thermal protection of silica tyles, allowing hot gases to enter

and fracture the spacecraft (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2008). The program

faced another temporary suspension to make significant safety improvements. However, the

pursuit of safer and more reliable alternatives already had gained political traction and doomed the

program to its end in 2011.

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Conclusion

The Space Shuttle program was born in the pursuit of an ambitious cost-effective and

reusable launch system, and it had a significant role in various scientific, military, and commercial

missions for over three decades. However, the program's high operational costs, complex

refurbishment procedures, aging infrastructure, budgetary constraints, safety concerns, and

shifting political priorities contributed to the eventual cancellation of the program. The end of the

Space Shuttle missions in 2011 marked the end of an iconic era in space exploration, but the legacy

of the Space Shuttle program will continue to influence space efforts for a long time.
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