What do Macaulay Culkin, Danny Bonaduce, Gary Coleman and the Space Shuttle have in common?

…

Ok, you know what? I can’t do this. I was really trying to give you a snappy opening relating the shuttle to tragic child actors, but I like the shuttle way too much to do that.

With the next Space Shuttle launch coming up next week, I was looking at the launch manifest for the last 5 shuttle missions. It struck me that I’ve lived in a world where the Space Shuttle has always existed. Astronauts were always featured in videos eating food in humorous fashions. There was always another mission.

But not anymore.

September 16, 2010 will mark the final launch of the Space Shuttle and with it, it will bring to close an era of space flight. In respect to this once in a lifetime event I’ll be writing a series of articles dedicated to the most complex, high performance machine ever built. We’ll look at its development and early years, the incredible achievements of the program, as well as the tragedies that have beset the Shuttle. We will examine how the Space Shuttle changed the world. It’s a story of passion and politics. Of science and showmanship and exploration. A story equal parts danger and discovery.

It is a big story to be sure. I’ll do my best to liven up the dry parts, shed light on little known anecdotes, and side-step the controversies. (Just kidding. Controversy is the best part!)

In the Beginning…

It’s hard to talk about the Space Shuttle without first talking about the motivations behind it.

In 1969 NASA was flush with success. They had repeatedly landed humans on the moon and brought them safely home (If you don’t believe this, feel free to go here and discuss it). Serious talk had begun about long term lunar outposts, explorations of Venus and Mars and large space stations. Looking back at these ideas it’s easy to scoff at their seemingly unreachable goals, but at the time NASA had already accomplished the impossible; from where they stood, nothing seemed out of reach.

However, outside of NASA things weren’t quite as rosy. Public interest in the space program had fallen and landing on the moon signaled an end to the space race that had been vital to NASA’s funding. Add to that a government entangled in an expanding conflict in Vietnam and “less expensive” become a politically attractive buzzword.

This change in budget lead to a shift in vehicle design: Large, heavy lift launch vehicles capable of putting people and material into orbit around other heavenly bodies were replaced with smaller vehicles capable of only low earth orbit. The smaller vehicles were cheaper to build and launch and hinged on economies of scale. This system of numerous launches happening every few weeks was focused on building an infrastructure in space.

Gone were to Conestoga wagons that were the massive Saturn V’s, NASA started planning to build a rail road to space.

To be continued…

Part 2

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Craig the Rocket Scientist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.