America Prepares to Give Up Space

6 False Lessons Of The Space Shuttle

With the final flight of shuttle Atlantis sparking inspired debate over where NASA should go from here, PM contributor Rand Simberg warns against some of the conclusions that observers are drawing from 30 years of shuttle flights.

1. The Shuttle Proved That Reusable Launch Vehicles are Not Cost Effective

This is a pernicious myth‚ one that has driven NASA policy for years, since the failure of the X-33 program and through former NASA head Mike Griffin's policy of reverting to expendable systems with the now-canceled Constellation program. But the reality is that the shuttle taught us nothing about the cost of a properly designed, fully reusable launch system, because that's not what it was.

2. The Shuttle Proved That We Must Move Beyond Chemical Rockets

The perennial myth is that we simply can't cut the costs of going to space if we're still using rockets. If the most cost-effective rocket-propelled vehicle possible‚ the space shuttle‚ couldn't do it, the thinking goes, it must be time to give up on them. The flaw in this argument is that, as noted, the shuttle wasn't a very cost-effective rocket. And, people who make this argument assume that the high cost of rocketry is all of the fuel that is expended, but in fact fuel costs are typically only about 1 percent of the total operations cost for a rocket-based launcher.

3. The Shuttle Proved that Cargo and Passengers Should Travel on Different Vehicles

But this isn't a philosophy that we use with any other form of transportation. Every airliner carries both passengers and cargo, and even cargo transport flights have a flight crew. The real lesson isn't to separate crew and cargo, but to design the launch systems to be more reliable, because both crew and cargo are far too expensive to lose.

Read the rest.  I remember Sputnik, and the American response, the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.  The US has had a presence in space almost continuously for most of my life.  And now we're backing down and looking inward. NASA isn't cheap, but it's not what's breaking the bank.

 Thanks to Ted for the cartoon.