History
Many orbital expendable launchers are derivatives of 1950s-era ballistic missiles. Many see this as unfortunate because cost was not a major consideration in their design. A prime example of this is the Titan IV, probably the costliest per-unit launch vehicle in history (perhaps following the Space Shuttle).
On the other hand, a reusable launcher such as the Shuttle requires a heavier structure and a recovery system (wings, thermal protection system, wheels, etc.) that reduce payload capacity. The Shuttle additionally carries a crew (though not inherent to a reusable system) whose weight, supplies and life support systems further decrease payload capacity.
A Shuttle orbiter is a major national asset, and its high cost (far more than a single expendable launch vehicle) and presence of a crew require stringent "man rated" flight safety precautions that increase launch and payload costs. Only five orbiters were built, and the loss of two (Challenger and Columbia) significantly impacted the capacity and viability of the Shuttle program. Each loss also resulted in an extended hiatus in Shuttle flights compared to that following most expendable launch failures, each of which impacted only that model of launcher.
For these reasons it is generally agreed that the Space Shuttle has not delivered on its original promise to reduce the costs of constructing and launching payloads into orbit. The Shuttle was originally intended to replace expendable launchers in the launching of satellites, but after the loss of Challenger the Shuttle was reserved for previously planned missions and those requiring a crew.
Spacecraft launched by the Shuttle included several TDRSS communications relays heavily used by the Shuttle program itself, a series of commercial communication satellites, and the interplanetary probes Magellan, Galileo and Ulysses. Several classified military payloads were also carried.
Read more about this topic: Expendable Launch System
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)