1972: President Richard M. Nixon announces that NASA will develop a space shuttle system, touting its reliability, reusability and low cost.
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NASA: 50 Years of Towering AchievementThe Mercury and Gemini programs had put Americans into Earth orbit. Apollo had been to the moon seven times — landing four times — and would return to land twice again later in 1972.
But NASA wanted a reusable rocket ship to explore Earth orbit and to supply and staff a space station. Nixon gave the go-ahead:
NASA director James Fletcher's remarks referred once again to the shuttle's "modest budget" and reduced complexity. The plan was to make 48 flights a year (.pdf) at about $50 million per launch ($260 million in today's money).
Starting in 1981, the shuttles have made 132 space flights in 30 years, averaging four or five missions a year. The years immediately following the Challenger and Columbia disasters saw no flights. 1985 had a record high nine missions, and 1990 to 1997 averaged eight flights a year.
University of Colorado researcher Roger Pielke Jr. calculated in early 2005 that the shuttle program to that point had cost $145 billion, or about $1.3 billion per flight. (Based on a 1995 midpsoint, that's about $1.9 billion per flight in today's dollars.)
The Apollo program cost a total $19.4 billion from 1960 to 1973. That averages almost $2.2 billion for each of the nine lunar missions. (Based on a 1967 midpsoint, that would be about $14 billion each today.)
So, space shuttle flights have certainly been less expensive than Apollo lunar missions. But even adjusting for inflation and despite their many achievements, shuttle launches cost seven or eight times what was promised.
Source: Various
Photo: The first flight of the Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour launched on May 7, 1992.
NASA
An earlier version of this article appeared on Wired.com Jan. 5, 2009.
See Also:
- Sept. 17, 1976: Prototype Enterprise Rollout Launches Shuttle Era
- April 11, 1984: Shuttle Makes House Call, Repairs Satellite
- Feb. 17, 1972: Beetle Outruns Model T
- April 10, 1972: The World Outlaws the Use of Toxic Weapons, Mostly
- Oct. 13, 1972: Survival Instincts Put to the Test
- Nov. 29, 1972: Pong, a Game Any Drunk Can Play
- 1972: Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera
- Jan. 5, 1943: George Washington Carver Bites the Dust He Enriched
- Jan. 5, 1996: Introducing the Cell phones Bomb