They estimated that it would cost $5.15 billion (equivalent to $33 billion in 2021 dollars) to design, develop and build the Shuttle fleet and each launch would cost $7.7 million ($55 million in 2021 dollars). In 1972, when Nixon announced the approval of the Shuttle programme, NASA expected that they would be launching 50 Shuttle missions a year by the time the it was fully operational. After it had landed, the Shuttle would be refueled and serviced and could be launched again within 10 days. Each would be launched like a traditional rocket into Earth orbit and after it had completed its mission would land like a conventional airplane on a runway. It was planned that there would be an initial fleet of four Space Shuttles. “…designed to to help transform the space frontier of the 1970s into familiar territory easily accessible to human endeavor in the 1980s and 1990s … It will revolutionize the transportation into space by routinizing it.” (Gehrman et al 2003:22) The Space Shuttle was announced by president Richard Nixon in 1972 as the first step in this process, saying it would be At the time many people thought that, with continual improvements in technology, in the 2020’s travelling into space might become commonplace just like flying in a plane. In the early 1970’s, as the Apollo programme to put a human on the Moon was drawing to a close, the next stage of manned space exploration was logically seen as widening it out so that many more people would be able to venture into space at a much lower cost. This meant access to space was restricted to a very small number of people. It took months to build each launcher and space capsule, and unlike the SpaceX rockets used today, there was no re-use of any the technology. Prior to the Space Shuttle, all astronauts were launched into space in a small capsule which was stacked on top of a tower which consisted of a number of large rockets. Development of the Space Shuttle in the 1970’s The landing of Atlantis on 21 July 2011, which brought the Space Shuttle programme to a close – Image credit NASA. In this post I’ll review this fascinating and unique piece of technology. Ten years ago, on 8 July 2011 Atlantis took off for the final mission of a Space Shuttle, bringing to close a programme which had lasted nearly 40 years and had cost the equivalent of $220 billion in 2021 dollars.
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