Editing Space Shuttle (section)

===Budget===
The overall NASA budget of the Space Shuttle program has been estimated to be $221&nbsp;billion (in 2012 dollars).<ref name=jenkins2016 />{{rp|III−488}} The developers of the Space Shuttle advocated for reusability as a cost-saving measure, which resulted in higher development costs for presumed lower costs-per-launch. During the design of the Space Shuttle, the Phase B proposals were not as cheap as the initial Phase A estimates indicated; Space Shuttle program manager Robert Thompson acknowledged that reducing cost-per-pound was not the primary objective of the further design phases, as other technical requirements could not be met with the reduced costs.<ref name=jenkins2016 />{{rp|III−489−490}} Development estimates made in 1972 projected a per-pound cost of payload as low as $1,109 (in 2012) per pound, but the actual payload costs, not to include the costs for the research and development of the Space Shuttle, were $37,207 (in 2012) per pound.<ref name=jenkins2016 />{{rp|III−491}} Per-launch costs varied throughout the program and were dependent on the rate of flights as well as research, development, and investigation proceedings throughout the Space Shuttle program. In 1982, NASA published an estimate of $260&nbsp;million (in 2012) per flight, which was based on the prediction of 24 flights per year for a decade. The per-launch cost from 1995 to 2002, when the orbiters and ISS were not being constructed and there was no recovery work following a loss of crew, was $806&nbsp;million. NASA published a study in 1999 that concluded that costs were $576&nbsp;million (in 2012) if there were seven launches per year. In 2009, NASA determined that the cost of adding a single launch per year was $252&nbsp;million (in 2012), which indicated that much of the Space Shuttle program costs are for year-round personnel and operations that continued regardless of the launch rate. Accounting for the entire Space Shuttle program budget, the per-launch cost was $1.642&nbsp;billion (in 2012).<ref name=jenkins2016 />{{rp|III−490}}