"The Space Shuttle is the most effective device known to man for destroying dollar bills."
Dana Rohrabacher, U.S. Congressman
Booster rockets—such as the Saturn V that launched the Apollo astronauts toward the Moon—are extremely wasteful. They can fly only once, parts are thrown away after use, and 97 percent of the mass is Consumed in the first few minutes. Clearly, what was really needed for advanced and economic space exploitation was a spacecraft that could take off and return, to be reused time after time.
In 1972 NASA-.in the United States decided to build the Space Shuttle. Rockets were to be used to assist the launch. Crew facilities were to be provided for up to eight people, and the huge cargo bay would be used to take satellites and sections of the International Space Station (ISS) into orbit. New instruments would also be taken up to existing spacecraft, and In-orbit repairs would be carried out.
The Space Shuttle would glide back to earth through the atmosphere, the nosecap and underwing tiles reaching temperatures of 2,600°F (1,430°C) as it came in. The craft would then land on a normal runway. Columbia, the first Shuttle, blasted off on April 12, 1981. Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor followed. Everything went fine until the twenty-fifth flight, in January 1986. One of the solid rocket boosters blew up, leading to the death of the Challenger crew.
The Russian shuttle, Buran, had a test flight in 1988 but was soon abandoned. In January 2003 the U.S. craft Columbia broke up during re-entry. After a hiatus of two-and-a-half years, the U.S. launches were restarted. Six were planned for 2008, in an attempt to finish the construction of the ISS.
No U.S. Space Shuttle launches are scheduled beyond 2010. Even though Discovery has made thirty trips, the cost and the long turnaround time have never been satisfactory.
