---
title: "Criticism of the Space Shuttle program"
chunk: 4/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:37:15.004523+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

John Young and Jerry L. Ross were among those astronauts who believed that the shuttle was always an experimental craft, not an operational vehicle for routine spaceflight as President Ronald Reagan declared after STS-4. Rick Hauck said in 2017 that before STS-1 he saw an analysis estimating the risk of loss of the vehicle as 1 in 280, but an internal NASA risk assessment study (conducted by the Shuttle Program Safety and Mission Assurance Office at Johnson Space Center) released in late 2010 or early 2011 concluded that the agency had seriously underestimated the level of risk involved in operating the Shuttle. The report assessed that there was a 1 in 9 chance of a catastrophic disaster during the first nine flights of the Shuttle but that safety improvements had later improved the risk ratio to 1 in 90. In 1984 Reagan signed a National Security Decision Directive stating that the shuttle would not be "fully operational" until it could fly 24 missions a year, perhaps by 1988; the shuttle never flew more often than the nine missions of 1985, and averaged about six missions a year between 1988 and 2003.
Although many NASA astronauts criticized the payload specialist program, in part because they did not believe less-trained outsiders were fully aware of the risks of spaceflight, full-time astronauts may not have been either. Charles Bolden was amazed to learn after the loss of Columbia that the "impenetrable" leading wing edges of the vehicle he flew for 14 years were less than an inch thick. NASA in October 1982 predicted 37 shuttle flights by early 1986, but Challenger's loss was the 25th shuttle flight. Hauck, with much experience flying dangerous aircraft at the United States Naval Test Pilot School, said "If I knew in advance that one in twenty-five would fail, I would probably think twice about flying three (as I did) out of the first twenty-six flights".

== Retrospect ==
While the system was developed within the original cost and time estimates given to President Richard M. Nixon in 1971, the operational costs, flight rate, payload capacity, and reliability by the time of the February 2003 Columbia accident proved to be much worse than originally anticipated. A year before STS-1's April 1981 launch, Gregg Easterbrook in The Washington Monthly accurately forecasted many of the Shuttle's issues, including an overambitious launch schedule and the consequently higher-than-expected marginal cost per flight; the risks of depending on the Shuttle for all payloads, civilian and military; the lack of a survivable abort scenario if a Solid Rocket Booster were to fail; and the fragility of the Shuttle's thermal protection system. General Lew Allen, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, reportedly said that year that he would have canceled the shuttle.
In order to get the Shuttle approved, NASA over-promised its economies and utility. To justify its very large fixed operational program cost, NASA initially forced all domestic, internal, and Department of Defense payloads to the shuttle. When that proved impossible (after the Challenger disaster), NASA used the International Space Station (ISS) as a justification for the shuttle. NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin argued in a 2007 paper that the Saturn program, if continued, could have provided six crewed launches per year – two of them to the Moon – at the same cost as the Shuttle program, with an additional ability to loft infrastructure for further missions:

If we had done all this, we would be on Mars today, not writing about it as a subject for "the next 50 years." We would have decades of experience operating long-duration space systems in Earth orbit, and similar decades of experience in exploring and learning to utilize the Moon.
Some had argued that the Shuttle program was flawed. Achieving a reusable vehicle with early 1970s technology forced design decisions that compromised operational reliability and safety. Reusable main engines were made a priority. This necessitated that they not burn up upon atmospheric reentry, which in turn made mounting them on the orbiter itself (the one part of the Shuttle system where reuse was paramount) a seemingly logical decision. However, this had the following consequences:

a more expensive "clean sheet" engine design was needed, using more expensive materials, as opposed to existing and proven off-the-shelf alternatives (such as the Saturn V mains);
increased ongoing maintenance costs related to keeping the reusable SSMEs in flying condition after each launch, costs which in total may have exceeded that of building disposable main engines for each launch.

A concern expressed by the 1990 Augustine Commission was that "the civil space program is overly dependent upon the Space Shuttle for access to space." The committee pointed out, "that it was, for example, inappropriate in the case of Challenger to risk the lives of seven astronauts and nearly one-fourth of NASA's launch assets to place in orbit a communications satellite."
There are some NASA spin-off technologies related to the Space Shuttle program which have been successfully developed into commercial products, such as using heat-resistant materials developed to protect the Shuttle on reentry in suits for municipal and aircraft rescue firefighters.

== See also ==

Buran (spacecraft)
Skylab 4

== References ==

== External links ==
When Physics, Economics, and Reality Collide: The Challenge of Cheap Orbital Access
Review of ELV cost-to-orbit per pound Archived 2021-10-01 at the Wayback Machine
Space Transportation Costs: Trends in Price Per Pound to Orbit
Popular Science November 1974, "Reusable space shuttle" by Wernher von Braun