The Space Shuttle Program of NASA Paper Example

Background

The space shuttle program ended in 2004 when President George W. Bush announced his plan to replace the space shuttle program with the moon program. The return to the moon program headquarters was to be run in Houston which was later canceled by president Barrack Obama in 2010 due to budgetary concerns. NASA selected two spacecrafts to replace the shuttles program in 2017. The two spacecraft include spacex Dragon and Boeing CST-100. The programwas responsible for the commercial crew programs including the one in 2017 to shipped astronauts to the international space station. The space shuttle launch cost NASA a total of $196 billion in 2011 after adjusting for inflation. There were a number of non-recurring costs and recurring cost that brought the final costs of the space shuttle launch to $450 million per every mission. From the studies, it is clear that the costs of launching an aircraft into space havebecomecostly which means that there were financial constraints in maintaining a program of this magnitude.

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The private sector's increased interest in the space shuttle programs begs the questions of the motivation? Carrying out such a costly transportation programs with such uncertainty may deter investors from investing. If the government divested from such programs, then there is little, or no attractiveness to attached to such an investment.

Problems

• The infrastructure and integrated technologies needed to enable permanent, as well as self-sufficient human settlements away from Earth, are currently nonexistent and more research and development should be done.
• The costs associated with such projects is high and the private sector is not liquid enough to sustain the spaceflight projects in the long run.
• Access to space is limited to mainly a few robotic spacecraft and to very few select highly-trained individual participants limiting the space and prospects of landing people on space.
• How will the private sector sustain their operations in the long run.

The History of Space Shuttle

NASA's space program was launched in April 1981.The Space shuttle program closed in 2011; the programwas not the final human spaceflight program as NASA had already successfully completed three additional human space flight programs. The programs accomplished the routine transportation of the man from earth to the orbit with cargo using the space transportation systems (STS). The purpose of the program focusses on reducing the cost of space travel by transitioning expendable rockets to reusable rockets and to provide support in future endeavors in space. Typically, cargo flows from a maritime network to a road network shift from a scale-free structure to a regular structure, thus following different topologies that are not easily combined; air and sea terminals remain few in the world due to the difficulty of combining and integrating technically air and sea networks physically at the same locations. Since the beginning of the space shuttle program, NASA had already had four space shuttles including thecolumbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. These four shuttles completed 135 missions and eventually led to the construction of the first International Space Station. The space shuttle program has inspired future interest including the spacex programs manager Elon Musk and Virgin Atlantic's Richard Branson who have both joined the space flight program.

After the Columbia disaster, NASA realized that there has been an increase in the expenses of the shuttle programs and the inherent risks were too great for the programsto be viable. The risk and costs of the space shuttle programs, therefore, precluded the long-term reliance of the shuttles. The Columbian accident investigation board, reported that there was internal risk in the design of their space shuttle as the technologies on which the space shuttle was funded were obsolete and the system was already aging . Therefore, the most logical step was to replace the shuttle as the primarymeanof transport for human and cargo.

NASA has been a significant player in ensuring the various aspects of its Space Shuttle program. NASA was first launched on April 12, 1981 and operated for 30 years until July 21, 2011. During the period of its operation, the space shuttle fleet spanning from Challenger, Columbia, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour achieved135 missions.This level of achievement helped in the construction of the International Space Station. However, it is important to note that there are a number of reasons why changes were needed to make NASA a viable long term program.

A great deal of interest has been building over the ultimate closure of the NASA program. Equally, a good number of individuals consider the inquiry to be an old question, but it remains to trouble everyone since a proper answer has not been found However, the exact reason of the program's failuremay have been rooted in the Columbia disaster than any other phenomenon. The Columbia disaster has shown that the growing expense and the inherent risks which were recognized within the shuttle program and actually precluded the long-term usage of the Shuttle

In spite of the in-depth study on the Space Shuttle Program, the NASA Board has not been able to make any significant conclusion. Further analysis suggest that the Board could have retired the Shuttle program which the decision came shortly after the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) compiled and forwarded their report. The closure of the program is also attached to the role that President George W. Bush played. President Bush suggested that there was a need to review the goal so that the Space Shuttle flight would be more focused. This would ensure that the organization will be able to identify some consistency and safety concerns while complying with the CAIB. The primary role of the Shuttle program is best illustrated inthe completion of the assembly of the International Space Station.

The suggested changes from CAIB immediately influenced some of the decisions makingwithin the organization, in which it immediately began incorporating a new mandate in its key organizational activities. The year 2004 is remembered as the point of the operational life of the organization. The shuttle program was in the process of resuming its operations after returning of the flight. The move was used as a strategic approach geared towards the completion of the construction of International Space Station. This is also considered to have been directly associated with the plan to achieve the ultimate closure of the Shuttle in 2010. However, the ultimate retirement of the program's operations was a delayed until 2011 rather than 2010. It is the same period during which President Obama is remembered for adding two additional flights to the original plans.

In the beginning of 2004, a decision was made to ensure that the various shuttle flights were appropriately maintained in terms of the replacement of sensitive equipment.The logisticsbehind the maintenance of the shuttles included in taking into consideration of the number of anticipated flights so that it would ensure that the program could properly maintain the shuttles and were well stocked of the shuttle's vital components. Moreover, the organization needed to establish a program base on the required contingency flight parts and the exact number to buy. The shuttles were known to required bolts and connectors of a specific design which were constructed with materials that was more resilient and less common. In addition to the materials that were needed for the overall construction of the shuttle, the electronics onboard of the shuttles were found to be archaic. The electronic equipment on board the shuttle was said to have been dated back in 1970's. Due to the scarcity of the equipment, the manufacturing of the parts were constructed through the use of local contractors.

The main reason why cargo and passenger can stays longer in space is the primary business of the Space-X. Because the costs of developing non-reusable launchers were too high, the space shuttle programs were suspended. However, Elon musk and his space-x have cracked the code and developed a reusable launcher and this has contributed in lowering the operation costs of the space shuttles. While the decision to terminate shuttle programs in 2009 was irrevocable, it has become increasingly clear that some of the main factors that drove space shuttles to closure include patterns that are not recognized by the younger generations.

Spacex is believed to have upended the rocket industry which made the founder Elon Musk to become the world's most disruptive space pioneer.To further this belief, spacex is noted to be the No. 1 company during the 2018 CNBC Disruptor, "The visionary entrepreneur is adjusted to fit the building the giant low-cost reusable rockets and the spaceships".

The development of private investors into the space program has given hope that private space exploration is possible. Companies such as spacexhas influence the operational aspects of mammoth aerospace companies like Boeing. The evaluation and the ultimate positioning of the spacex resulted has made the company a forefront in the privatization of space travel. Spacex value has been estimated to be $28 billion. The long-term prospects of the company continued to soar, and it has steadily raised funds from global investors to encourage its lofty ambitions. The company had made quite a number of achievements in this decade; for example, it was able to launch the world's most-powerful rocket as one of its first moves since the NASA's Saturn V.

The spacex Falcon Heavy rocket was developed and launched from the historic launch-pad 39-A, Kennedy Space Center in the Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2018. However, it is still a negligible achievement since Elon Musk is far from done. Spacex is believed to be able to complete most of its trip mission to Mars and the constellation of 4,425 satellites. While, the Falcon Heavy was originally designed specifically for human travel, it has been noted that Elon Musk has no initial plans to have it certify for human-rating certification. The certification is required for spacecrafts if it plans to transport human passengers. The achievement of this plan is expected to bring the basic needs for building infrastructures for future missions. Following its successful launch on February 6, 2018, the program seems to have the potential to inspired future generations into this endeavor.The achievement associated with spacex has also been attached to the subsequent steps achieved by NASA.Even with its failure to maintain its shuttle fleets, NASA has made a sizeable contribution into the present-day success. Spacex still hopes to come up with a manned flight of the new Dragon capsule fitted to the top of the Falcon 9 rocket. The planis to test the probability of safely transporting human beings to the International Space Station. The ability of the company to achieve this, is rested on its past achievements; the organization recently launched the final and most powerful version of the Falcon 9 known as the Block 5. This is also used to determine the fate of NASA,whereby spacex is set to fly approximately seven times before NASA will reach its final decision of certifying it for flight of human beings.

Over the last ten years, there have been renewed interest in space travels with most of the private investors focus on space tourism for economic reasons and personal interest. Spacex is a commercial company that has already made several successfully attempts at landing humans and cargo into space. Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk are the main private investors in space travel. Jeff Bezos is the founder of the blue origin who has also shown interests in...