Sadly, the statistics were ultimately not in Columbia’s favor.ĭespite the tragedies, the shuttle continued to fly for another seven years after the Columbia disaster, existing as what Hersch calls “a working monument to bad design” that operated “under the growing weight of its own history”. It was, he adds, “decision-making by statistics.” Still, “bean counters” at NASA denied the request, citing “calculations indicating high risk and low probability of success,” writes Hersch. When it was struck by debris on launch in 2003, it was suggested that the astronauts could carry out a spacewalk to repair the damage to its crucial insulation while in orbit before its return. “Instead, the lost astronauts of Challenger and Columbia became martyrs to American technological greatness, with the nation honoring their loss without calling into question the necessity of their deaths,” writes Hersch.Ĩ Although he’s described as a ‘space speptic,’ In January 1972, President Nixon directed NASA to start development on a new reusable Space Transportation System (STS), or what came to be known as the “Space Shuttle.” Those defects, created by a combination of institutional pressure, political interference and poor risk management, made the two space shuttle disasters – Challenger, which exploded just 73 seconds after launch in January 1986, and Columbia, which disintegrated re-entering the earth’s atmosphere in February 2003 - not entirely surprising.īoth events resulted in the death of all seven astronauts on board but neither led to the immediate cancellation of the shuttle program. “The shuttle was a knowingly flawed solution to a problem, later billed as a success, but no amount of post-construction remediation could fix its flaws,” he writes. Still, argues Hersch, in many ways the shuttle was the wrong craft at the wrong time. The Nixon Presidential Library/ Foundation Nixon, seen here in 1968, understood the boost a successful space shuttle program could have on America’s global image. To that end, the role of the space shuttle remained key in national security.Īlong with conventional astronomy experiments, classified missions were used to launch surveillance and communication satellites for agencies such as the US National Reconnaissance Office and the Central Intelligence Agency.īut while the initial success of the shuttle might have showcased America’s ability to outmaneuver the Soviets in the space race, the vast majority of its missions were carried out long after the Cold War ended and were spent engaged in scientific research, not peering furtively behind the Iron Curtain.Ĩ Pres. The initial design received some tinkering, so much so that “the shuttle underwent physical transformations between 19 that muddled its design, until reusability and even basic safety were fatally compromised,” adds Hersch.Ī decade on, when the shuttle took its maiden flight in April 1981, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were already poor and rapidly deteriorating. It also reveals how a revolutionary idea designed to build on the success of Project Apollo and the moon landings and bolster the United States’ position as the undisputed leader in the space race soon found itself waylaid by a rapidly changing political landscape and vested scientific interests.Ĩ The astronaut crew aboard the Space Challenger just before its accident in 2003. Taking its title from John Carpenter’s 1974 cult science-fiction film of the same name, “Dark Star” examines the 30-year, 135-flight life of an iconic American spacecraft, from its origins in the Cold War through to its eventual 2011 retirement. “The space shuttle was daring it was messianic,” he writes. Hersch explains in “Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle” (MIT Press), the craft proved to be a costly flop. When the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Fla., for its Apmaiden voyage, it ushered in a new and exciting age of space travel and exploration.īut as Matthew H. North Korea says interference in its satellites would be declaration of war Pentagon’s mysterious X-37B unmanned space drone set to launch againĭrug startup aims to cure blindness by developing medications in spaceĪrtemis 3 moon landing likely years behind schedule, report finds
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