Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific experiments.ĭid you know? After "Teacher in Space" Christa McAuliffe was killed during the 1986 Challenger disaster, her backup, a former math teacher named Barbara Morgan, served as a mission specialist during a 2007 flight of the shuttle Endeavor.Ĭhallenger, NASA’s second space shuttle to enter service, embarked on its maiden voyage on April 4, 1983, and made a total of nine voyages prior to 1986. When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and its main engines, the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around Earth. The total amounts are the same, but the component costs differ by varying degrees, with additional costs (likely out of the Orbiter account) ascribed to NASA center management.In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unveiled the world’s first reusable manned spacecraft, known as the space shuttle.įive years later, flights began when the space shuttle Columbia embarked on a 54-hour mission. thesis analyzing the accuracy of the project's cost estimation efforts. Inflation for the construction of facilities used the Production Workers Compensation index, which attempts to normalize wages of non-salaried workers in construction-related jobs.įor additional consideration and analysis of Shuttle development costs, see this table of expenditures provided by NASA in Humboldt Mandell's Ph.D. Inflation for the R&D component was calculated using NASA's New Start Index, a product of the agency's Office of the Chief Financial Officer, which is tuned specifically for aerospace projects. While there is certainly a portion of R&PM budget applied to the Shuttle program, public reporting is opaque throughout this period and a closer examination of the data and additional research is needed to properly attribute the costs of overhead for the Shuttle project. R&PM represents civil servant salaries and other administrative overhead. Shuttle-related facilities construction amounts were reported and identified in the CoF account. Project development was primarily a function of the R&D account. For clarity, these data are omitted from charts.ĭuring the period of the Space Shuttle's development, NASA's budget was divided into three major accounts: Research & Development (R&D), Construction of Facilities (CoF), and Research & Program Management (R&PM). fiscal year from July 1st to October 1st of each year. Obligations reflect contracted amounts, and actual expenditures may vary somewhat in both absolute terms and in timing.Īll total costs reported here include obligations made during the 1976 transition quarter-a 3-month period that accommodated a shift of the start of the U.S. Costs begin to decline when most of the challenging engineering problems have been solved and the project moves into regular operations.ĭollar amounts reflect actual obligations reported in NASA's budget requests between the fiscal years 19. The project displays a classic aerospace development cost curve, with the project starting modestly, rapidly increasing as it gains steam, staff, and complexity as a result of moving from paper design to testing physical hardware, and peaking in resource needs a few years prior to its first launch. It takes time to design, refine, and build reliable flight hardware, and the Shuttle was no exception. The costs to develop and build the Shuttle were not all spent at once. "Launch & Landing" activities accounted for the necessary ground equipment and procedures to prepare the Shuttle for launch and refurbishment for reuse.Īnother critical component, generally omitted in the discussion of spaceflight development, is the construction of the ground elements necessary to support launch, landing, and post-flight processing-all of which had to be designed and built specifically to the needs of the STS project. The "Space Shuttle" is a colloquial term for the Space Transportation System (STS), which consists of the orbiter, the reusable RS-25 engines, the external fuel tank, and the solid rocket boosters.
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