Criticism of the Space Shuttle program stems from claims that NASA's Shuttle program has failed to achieve its promised cost and utility goals, as well as design, cost, management, and safety issues. More specifically, it has failed in the goal of reducing the cost of space access. Space Shuttle incremental per-pound launch costs ultimately turned out to be considerably higher than those of expendable launchers: by 2011, the incremental cost per flight of the Space Shuttle was estimated at $450 million, or $18,000 per kilogram to low Earth orbit (LEO). By comparison, Russian Proton expendable launchers, still largely based on the design that dates back to 1965, are said to cost as little as $110 million, or around $5,000/kg to LEO. When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg to LEO. This should be contrasted with the originally envisioned costs of $118 per pound of payload in 1972 dollars ($1,400/kg, adjusting for inflation to 2011).
It failed in the goal of achieving reliable access to space, partly due to multi-year interruptions in launches following Shuttle failures. NASA budget pressures caused by the chronically high NASA Space Shuttle program costs have eliminated NASA manned space flight beyond low earth orbit since Apollo, and severely curtailed more productive space science using unmanned probes. NASA's promotion of and reliance on the Shuttle slowed domestic commercial expendable launch vehicle (ELV) programs until after the 1986 Challenger disaster.
Read more about Criticism Of The Space Shuttle Program: Purpose of The System, Costs, Cultural Issues and Problems, Shuttle Operations, Accidents, Retrospect, Future
Famous quotes containing the words criticism of, criticism, space, shuttle and/or program:
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)
“And the shuttle never falters, but to draw an encouraging conclusion
From this would be considerable, too odd. Why not just
Breathe in with the courage of each day, recognizing yourself as one
Who must with difficulty get down from high places?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The square dance fiddler’s first concern is to carry a tune, but he must carry it loud enough to be heard over the noise of stamping feet, the cries of the “caller,” and the shouts of the dancers. When he fiddles, he “fiddles all over”; feet, hands, knees, head, and eyes are all busy.”
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)