Editing Space Shuttle (section)

===Criticism===
{{main|Criticism of the Space Shuttle program}}

The partial reusability of the Space Shuttle was one of the primary design requirements during its initial development.<ref name="dev_space_shuttle" />{{rp|164}} The technical decisions that dictated the orbiter's return and re-use reduced the per-launch payload capabilities. The original intention was to compensate for this lower payload by lowering the per-launch costs and a high launch frequency. However, the actual costs of a Space Shuttle launch were higher than initially predicted, and the Space Shuttle did not fly the intended 24 missions per year as initially predicted by NASA.<ref name="griffin">{{cite magazine |last=Griffin |first=Michael D. |title=Human Space Exploration: The Next 50 Years |magazine=Aviation Week |date=March 14, 2007 |url=https://aviationweek.typepad.com/space/2007/03/human_space_exp.html |access-date=June 15, 2020 |archive-date=August 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807201318/https://aviationweek.typepad.com/space/2007/03/human_space_exp.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=jenkins2016 />{{rp|III–489–490}}

The Space Shuttle was originally intended as a launch vehicle to deploy satellites, which it was primarily used for on the missions prior to the ''Challenger'' disaster. NASA's pricing, which was below cost, was lower than expendable launch vehicles; the intention was that the high volume of Space Shuttle missions would compensate for early financial losses. The improvement of expendable launch vehicles and the transition away from commercial payloads on the Space Shuttle resulted in expendable launch vehicles becoming the primary deployment option for satellites.<ref name=jenkins2016 />{{rp|III–109–112}} A key customer for the Space Shuttle was the [[National Reconnaissance Office]] (NRO) responsible for spy satellites. The existence of NRO's connection was classified through 1993, and secret considerations of NRO payload requirements led to lack of transparency in the program. The proposed [[Shuttle-Centaur]] program, cancelled in the wake of the ''Challenger'' disaster, would have pushed the spacecraft beyond its operational capacity.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cook |first1=Richard |title=Challenger Revealed: An Insider's Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Ag |date=2007 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-1560259800}}</ref>

The fatal ''Challenger'' and ''Columbia'' disasters demonstrated the safety risks of the Space Shuttle that could result in the loss of the crew. The spaceplane design of the orbiter limited the abort options, as the abort scenarios required the controlled flight of the orbiter to a runway or to allow the crew to egress individually, rather than the abort escape options on the [[Apollo (spacecraft)|Apollo]] and [[Soyuz (spacecraft)|Soyuz]] space capsules.<ref name="shuttle_safety_comparison">{{cite magazine |last=Klesius |first=Mike |title=Spaceflight Safety: Shuttle vs. Soyuz vs. Falcon 9 |magazine=[[Air & Space]] |date=March 31, 2010 |url=https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/spaceflight-safety-shuttle-vs-soyuz-vs-falcon-9-134341766/ |access-date=June 15, 2020 |archive-date=August 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807105239/https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/spaceflight-safety-shuttle-vs-soyuz-vs-falcon-9-134341766/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Early safety analyses advertised by NASA engineers and management predicted the chance of a catastrophic failure resulting in the death of the crew as ranging from 1 in 100 launches to as rare as 1 in 100,000.<ref name="ieee_challenger">{{cite magazine |last1=Bell |first1=Trudy |last2=Esch |first2=Karl |title=The Challenger Disaster: A Case of Subjective Engineering |magazine=IEEE Spectrum |publisher=[[IEEE]] |date=January 28, 2016 |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-space-shuttle-a-case-of-subjective-engineering |access-date=June 18, 2020 |archive-date=May 29, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529071012/https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/heroic-failures/the-space-shuttle-a-case-of-subjective-engineering |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="feynman_appendix">{{cite web |last=Feynman |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Feynman |title=Appendix F – Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle |work=Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident |publisher=NASA |date=June 6, 1986 |url=https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt |access-date=June 18, 2020 |archive-date=August 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807102802/https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt |url-status=live}}</ref> Following the loss of two Space Shuttle missions, the risks for the initial missions were reevaluated, and the chance of a catastrophic loss of the vehicle and crew was found to be as high as 1 in 9.<ref name="npr_safety">{{cite web |last1=Flatow |first1=Ira |last2=Hamlin |first2=Teri |last3=Canga |first3=Mike |title=Earlier Space Shuttle Flights Riskier Than Estimated |work=Talk of the Nation |publisher=[[NPR]] |date=March 4, 2011 |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/03/04/134265291/early-space-shuttle-flights-riskier-than-estimated |access-date=June 18, 2020 |archive-date=August 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808054138/https://www.npr.org/2011/03/04/134265291/early-space-shuttle-flights-riskier-than-estimated |url-status=live}}</ref> NASA management was criticized afterwards for accepting increased risk to the crew in exchange for higher mission rates. Both the ''[[Rogers Commission Report|Challenger]]'' and ''[[Columbia Accident Investigation Board|Columbia]] '' reports explained that NASA culture had failed to keep the crew safe by not objectively evaluating the potential risks of the missions.<ref name="feynman_appendix" /><ref name="columbia_report">{{cite web |title=Columbia Accident Investigation Board |publisher=NASA |date=August 2003 |url=https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/sts-107/investigation/CAIB_medres_full.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041109135216/http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/sts-107/investigation/CAIB_medres_full.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 9, 2004 |access-date=June 18, 2020}}</ref>{{rp|195–203}}