![]() adhered to a shuttle-only launch policy for all space missions. Policymakers were so confident of the vehicle’s capabilities that for a time, the U.S. The Space Shuttle operated as a multipurpose space truck that could launch civilian, military, and commercial payloads to space. It first flew inġ981 following a development cost of almost $47 billion. Reusability and high flight rate would reduce the cost of spaceflight,Ĭemented its place as the future of human spaceflight. But those dreams did not mesh with the NixonĪdministration’s post-Apollo, pragmatic approach to spaceflight, which saw the agency as just another government program competing for resources.īudget constraints, along with a promise that the shuttle’s NASA originally envisioned the shuttle as just one piece ofĪ grand plan to expand humanity’s presence into the solar system, Only the shuttle’s orange-brown external fuel tank couldn’t be ![]() The world’s first reusable spacecraft: the orbiter, its 3 main engines,Īnd twin solid rocket boosters could be refurbished and flown again. Gumdrop-shaped capsules that preceded it, the shuttle carried its crewīack to Earth upright and landed gently on a runway like a plane. The shuttle program was wildly ambitious, beginning a mere a decade years after the first person flew into space. Inspiring new generations to pursue space science-related careers. Rode in the iconic orbiters, diversifying NASA’s astronaut corps and NASA's five Space Shuttles are arguably the world’s most
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