Continued from Part II: Cost Man-rated launch vehicles require a higher safety standard than unmanned launch vehicles. Human beings can’t tolerate high G-forces, and rockets carrying crew must have launch-escape capability to deliver them from danger in the event of an explosion or fire. Crew capsules are placed at the top of their rockets withRead More
Month: January 2017
The Space Shuttle Was Not Great, Part II: Cost
Continued from Part I: Goals By the time of the Challenger accident in 1986, just five years after the first launch of the space shuttle, it was clear that the program would never be able to achieve its goals. Challenger showed that the shuttle could not deliver safe and routine access to space, and theRead More
The Space Shuttle Was Not Great, Part I: Goals
Nothing symbolizes American economic achievement and dominance in space quite like the space shuttle. It is an image of technological power – a skyscraper sized vehicle which thundered into space on top of two massive columns of fire produced by a pair of solid rocket boosters, each larger than the body of a Boeing 737.Read More