What is the Space Shuttle's True Legacy?

I feel that the shuttle was an idea ahead of its time! Much like the demise of supersonic commercial air travel with the Concorde's retirement in 2003, I view the loss of the shuttle's unprecedented capabilities as a symbol of decline. As we regress to "spam in a can" capsules, I have to believe that at some point people will be bold enough to advance the state of the art once again. Perhaps the next generation will pick up where we left off and build upon what was a good, even if flawed, first step toward making spaceflight more routine.

The Space Shuttle era could have been the greatest space era in American history if it had been coupled with the development of a Shuttle-C.

However, we did learn:

1.that a winged vehicle can return safely from orbit (beneficial for both the DreamChaser and X-37 programs)

2.that large payloads could be returned from space from orbit (beneficial for the X-37)

3.the SSME are very safe and reliable engines (beneficial for future shuttle derived vehicles).

Marcel F. Williams

I have a lot to say on this subject but first I'll just answer the essay questions:

1. Was the Shuttle retirement after ISS appropriate? Yes..IF they would have FUNDED a replacement BUT THEY DID NOT. In hindsight they probably should have kept the Shuttle around for another ten years to maintain the ISS and use the last Shuttle mission to go pick up and bring the Hubble back home. That would have been a great ending. If the Hubble ends up burning on re-entry I'll be pissed.
2. Technological lessons? We've learned thousands of tech lessons but I choose these three:
a. We can do anything, absolutely anything.
b. Launching in cold weather is ridiculous.
c. Foam can kill.
3. How will space operations of the next manned spacecraft incorporate the Shuttle experience? God, I don't know how to answer this one. The only thing I can think of is they'll use many of the techniques they use to inspect the Shuttle in orbit and they might listen more to the engineers.
4. How do I personally assess the era of the Shuttle? Fantastic machine, there were many high points such as the MMU, Galileo and Hubble launch and repairs, built the ISS. However, it never achieved the ultimate goal for which it was built. Almost, but not quite, ended up a White Elephant.
5. My Personal memories and experiences of the Shuttle? I've got a hundred of these:
a. Staying home from school (and making my parents chuckle) to watch the first shuttle landing. Yes. THE LANDING lol!
b. Waking up late in the morning, turn on the T.V. and Dan Rather saying the Challenger blew up.
c. Forcing my co-workers to watch the first post Challenger Shuttle launch..and getting yelled at for doing this.
d. Reading an article in Discover by Terry Dunkle called "The Big Glass" and getting excited about NASA all over again. http://www.terrydunkle.com/glass.php
e. I watched the Hubble mission launch in Korea in 1990. Three years later I was back in Korea and caught Hubble Repair mission updates while working the midnight shift.
f. Waking up and finding out the Columbia and disintegrated over Texas. I was almost positive they'd never launch another Shuttle mission. Whoever decided to fix the Shuttle problems and continue to launch deserves a medal.
g. Watching the Astronauts repair the Hubble live on the Internet. It was fantastic and I was totally in awe. NASA knew this was probably the last visit to the Hubble. They put all their eggs in one basket AND GOT THE JOB DONE.
h. I won't mention the cost of g lol!

Some of my favorite events or missions are:

- The Intelsat repair mission that used 3 astronauts on an EVA, and was really the first mission (although not intentionally) that had the payload launched on one flight (an unmanned rocket) and another stage launched on another mission (shuttle) and attached and used to send the payload further into space. This had been talked about before for lunar missions and (on a much bigger scale) Mars missions.

- Seeing the tethered satellite after separating from the shuttle flying overhead with the tether looking like a florescent bulb.

- Seeing an OMS burn directly overhead!

- Seeing the shuttle and Solar Max just after release overhead and being able to see with binoculars two separate object 300 feet apart.

The Shuttle's main legacy is the ISS. If that becomes viewed as valuable, then the Shuttle becomes more justified.

NASA has devised a concept of human space activity which is more limited than the concept that existed during then Shuttle's design period.

Speaking of memories of the Shuttle, for most Americans there will probably be just the images of take offs and landings. Some may recall the Hubble repair missions. I followed the last one step-by-step on Internet TV.
But we can't forget the outrageous yet well meaning Armageddon (the movie) view of the Shuttle, with probably it's most lionizing representation, however questionable. Armageddon showed NASA as bold and pro-active. I hope it manages to stay that way, after this difficult period.

We're in a strange situation now. We're not so much trying to build a successor to the Space Shuttle as we are trying to make lemonade out of the failed Constellation Project.
So my thinking about a successor to the Shuttle is what I think is the badly needed conceptual proposition:
-Build a larger x37-b, giving it a larger cargo bay, at least 8 X 14 feet.
-Build a cylindrical human module to fit inside, enabling a manned as well as unmanned space plane. The module can carry one or more robotic arms on its exterior.
-Build a space-tug to take that module on BEO excursions, returning to the space plane for reentry.

Thanks for asking.

The Shuttle has been amazing it brought routine access to space it brought space lab and lead the way to the construction of the international space station, it brought national defence capability for the united states and showed it was possible to service satellite's on orbit the biggest thing to come out of the shuttle was the Hubble space telescope which probably brought astronomy 300 years forward the biggest leap since Galileo

but even with all this at the end of the day the shuttle was still under utilised, had upgrades proposed back in the 80s and early 90s happened the shuttle still could have many years service left.

The Shuttle's main legacy is the ISS. If that becomes viewed as valuable, then the Shuttle becomes more justified.

NASA has devised a concept of human space activity which is more limited than the concept that existed during then Shuttle's design period.

Speaking of memories of the Shuttle, for most Americans there will probably be just the images of take offs and landings. Some may recall the Hubble repair missions. I followed the last one step-by-step on Internet TV.
But we can't forget the outrageous yet well meaning Armageddon (the movie) view of the Shuttle, with probably it's most lionizing representation, however questionable. Armageddon showed NASA as bold and pro-active. I hope it manages to stay that way, after this difficult period.

We're in a strange situation now. We're not so much trying to build a successor to the Space Shuttle as we are trying to make lemonade out of the failed Constellation Project.
So my thinking about a successor to the Shuttle is what I think is the badly needed conceptual proposition:
-Build a larger x37-b, giving it a larger cargo bay, at least 8 X 14 feet.
-Build a cylindrical human module to fit inside, enabling a manned as well as unmanned space plane. The module can carry one or more robotic arms on its exterior.
-Build a space-tug to take that module on BEO excursions, returning to the space plane for reentry.

Thanks for asking.

In the history of aviation, has anyone not improved on the existing technology to improve what we have to make it better, after the first commercial failures of jet aircraft, did we thow it all away to go back to prop jobs? Also to those who think that the SSP program was and is exspensive, wait till we launch as much cargo and humans as we could with one shuttle, believe me, it will be more than one launch and add that up.

Some shuttle history links from the NASA history office:

"The Space Shuttle Decision
NASA's Search for a Reusable Space Vehicle"

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/sp4221.htm

Links to flight history,Rogers Challenger Report,SSME history,etc.

http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html

Thanks for a nice piece, Frank. I conveyed some of my most heartfelt observations just last week over at The Space Review, but it would be difficult to fit so much more (and there is much more) here on a blog posting. My dorm-mates in college called me "Space Shuttle Bob"...I think that's a tiny indication of how much my pysche had become wrapped up in shuttle (it's first launch occurred while I was a senior in high school).

The most intense experience I had in relation to shuttle ops was participating as a rendezvous/dynamics instructor on the Tethered Satellite System missions. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Incredibly difficult (it put me in the hospital once!), it was in fact the most rewarding times (among many, in what I've dubbed "the coolest job in the world") I spent at JSC. We were blazing new territory with tether operations, certainly the closest I've ever been to what Apollo must have been like. The things the TSS team had to invent just to accomplish the straightforward nominal mission were legion...and what a bunch of folks that team was. Wow.

As for the shuttle's value/contribution, that of course depends on what we choose to learn from it. I am sure we will rue its absence soon because its capabilities, which we've taken for granted for nearly 30 years, are significant. As I suggested in my other piece, the shuttle's fate was written in large part into its conception—not its initial conception, but in the cheaper half-reusable 'affordable' version approved as a govt program. While bad decisions precipitated both accidents, the underlying technical causes of those accidents were imposed on the shuttle's design as cost-saving measures more than a decade before it first flew. But could it have been built at all if those cheaper options had not been incorporated?

We'll never know. Thus, so often, is history.

The Space Shuttle, like the Great Eastern, was a couple of generations ahead of its time. But just as the Great Eastern found its success laying the Transatlantic Cable, the Shuttle found its success building the ISS.

NASAWATCH posters, here's my essay questions this week:
- Was retirement of the Shuttle following ISS completion appropriate? If not why not?
- What technological lessons have we learned from 132 (135) Shuttle missions, the good and the bad?
- How will space operations of the next manned spacecraft incorporate the Shuttle experience?
- How do you personally assess the era of the Shuttle? And
- Give us some of your personal memories and experiences of the Shuttle in your life and career.

- Was retirement of the Shuttle following ISS completion appropriate? If not why not?

Is the ISS appropriate? For a very long time the ISS is a place to fly the shuttle to and the shuttle is needed on order to get to the ISS. In the 80s I saw the ISS as a way point or station as part of a much larger space transportation network as opposed to a terminus. The space station was to be a station, not a laboratory but a station, that is a regular stopping place in a transportation route. The shuttle and ISS were to be part of integrated space transportation system with destinations that included the Moon and Mars! The retirement of the shuttle with out a replacement marks the end of these goals and aspirations. I expect the ISS will simply fade away and be turned over to Russia and/or Europe. It may still come to the point were the Russian segments are undocked from the ISS and used as the foundation for a new Russian station while the American segment is abandoned. The Shuttle being retired with out a replacement unfortunately makes this pessimistic view plausible.

- What technological lessons have we learned from 132 (135) Shuttle missions, the good and the bad?
Innumerable lessons have been learned as they are on all programs and technological development efforts. The problem is there is no good way to capture these lessons and use then over again decades into the future. These lessons are not only technical but also societal and cultural. This knowledge has a large component where one generation passes what they have learned on to the next as coworkers. If too much time passes, and there is no overlap in time from one generation to the next, then this mentoring does not get a chance to happen. One major lesson learned is that the majority of time in the life of a vehicle is spent in maintenance and refurbishment, as such it needs to be designed for this environment. The shuttle was is very hard to work on, repair and modify, but its the first of its kind. Future versions will ( or would have ) incorporate advancements in technology and technique.

- How will space operations of the next manned spacecraft incorporate the Shuttle experience?

A lot of thought will be given to whether cargo and crew should be on the same vehicle. With orbital fuel depots and improvements in orbital maneuvering it may be better to keep them separate.

- How do you personally assess the era of the Shuttle?
As an incremental step on the way to a space fairing civilization is was great advancement technology, even with now known engineering, operation and financial flaws. The ISS and the Shuttle were to be part of a much much larger transportation system that was not realized. The Shuttle and ISS are components of a much larger space transportation system that was never realized, as such the full potential of these components has never been realized. For example, there could have been Solar Power Satellites now helping to solve and alleviate problems caused by dwindling terrestrial energy reserves. Alas, that is not the way the future and history have played out.

- Give us some of your personal memories and experiences of the Shuttle in your life and career.

Now that is very bitter sweet. I was a coop in the 80 at the Design Engineering Division at Kennedy Space Center in the 1980s. My first assignment was to prototype, test and integrate test equipment for Space Lab telemetry up/down link equipment. It was a dream job come true to be working on Shuttle related equipment at KSC and being there for several launches. The feeling of enthusiasm and sense of mission I had at the time has never been equaled. I used to stand on the right hand end of the countdown clock from where I saw 8 launches in total, both day and night. On one occasion, we needed to get a project done on time for the launch. Spent 36 hour working with short naps for sleep. It was one of the best experiences in this engineers life to be part of some so much larger then myself. We got it done, it worked, and it flew. We were ON TOP OF THE WORLD!

Then came the launch of Challenger. The feeling of euphoria and the high moral, enthusiasm and sense of mission for all who worked at the center turned into 2 years of extreme introspection and doubt. One day, every one at KSC stood by the NASA causeway and watched 7 Hearst drive slowly by. It was the end of an era for me, that day, at that moment. I have waited all these years since for the era to return, but, alas, there is little chance of that now. I have always been excited by shuttle launches and operations while at the same time realizing the operational cost is too high. BUT for a first proto type of more advanced future systems and capabilities to come, it is a spectacular engineering accomplishment that is based on technology from the 1960s and early 1970s. 35 years earlier WWII had just started, 35 years later we are retiring what was to have been a prototype for more advanced systems and capabilities.

While driving to work at Edward's AFB one morning in 1992, I saw in the distance a strange craft silhouetted by the morning sun. It had appendages pointing in all directions and was less then 500 ft altitude and headed towards me. Rodgers dry lake bed was flooded and flat so a mirror image was being reflected. As it came closer, the craft was a 747 with the shuttle mounted on top. It was flying in the cool morning to take advantage of the dense air and maintained a low altitude until some of the fuel burned off. It was an amazing sight and I was the only one there to see it. A camera would have been a good thing at that moment.

The SSME!
may she live again someday,in another form such as in the proposed Air force EELV CBC fly back booster.This would be a smaller version and I would hope you folks who are design engineers would maker her both reusable and air startable.

May the lessons learned from large massed reentry vehicles live again someday, perhaps as someone posted above as smaller crew return vehicles who earn a living in part from tourism.large down mass winged reentry vehicles some day will be needed, but in our far future when large amounts of commercial space based mineral wealth processed into manufactured products need to make there way back to earth's deep gravity well.

Much has been said about cargo and crew, and safety,Shuttle proves this is a issue!Inline folks claim it is not!this argument misses a key point, even if its safe to launch both on the same vehicle, will it make economic sense to do so in the near future?
so we come full circle.................
will a future government or commercial crew architecture have learned from the shuttle? Does not budget and policy enter into the consideration along with engineering?
A SD-HLV could be transitional,
cheap to build( side mount)
add back in later reusable features that are our shuttle legacy,A joint reusable DOD/NASA CBC and engine could perform duty on EELV and SD-HLV
poster Bob Mahoney above points out that the shuttle was a cost cutting engineering project, but the lessons learned from Shuttle are that cost cutting in development are sometimes required but should be better managed over the projects life cycle,
this means we should have built Shuttle C in the early 1980's
this means we should have phased out SRB with the then expendable launchers as CBC's or built Expendables with the SRB!
so a alternative history with out the Challenger loss but we lose Columbia?

Much has been said about shuttle lessons learned, one that has not been learned is that government operated and commercial systems as fall back launchers to the other are lessons not learned if you craft a budget that does not allow for it in fact.IE if you do not plan for a development plan that solves for cargo and crew,and is operational in a planned timeline that matches your goals then there is a potential for engineering/programmatic failure(another GAP)(astronaut deaths)(both)

those of you who deride spam in a can have not learned the shuttle lessons,
spam in a can and small winged reentry vehicles are safe and cost effective.
I use to steal away from grade school to watch black and white television transmissions of Gemini water landings.Shuttle lesson #1 safe AND cost effective.
Shuttle lesson #2 build a little fly a little, repeat process. This is ULA fuel depot or NASA spiral idea.Shuttle C is tomorrows inline, or its tomorrows hybrid large diameter ET tank with EELV CBC's
Spiral pay as you go (Senate language!)means, gee inline, side mount, fuel depot where a really really stupid idea, but see we have "this" as a fall back measure
Shuttle lesson learned#3, to the public, NEO can become boring, really boring, I mean boring.even side mount can deliver a really sexy cargo to cislunar space and cheap as we are, soon.commercial crew, to can contribute to this mission too.

The shuttle should be retired for various reasons. The shuttle MUST be retired for one reason - safety. We should not forget that each of the remaining 2-3 flights are high risk.

A big part of the shuttle legacy is how it changed our thinking about spaceflight in terms of safety. Think of the pre-Challenger days as we naively flew a senator, to be followed by a teacher, later perhaps a reporter. Our wishful thinking somehow convinced us that space travel had become routine and safe, when in fact the shuttle was (and is) basically an X plane. The Challenger disaster, especially because of the loss of teacher Christa McAuliffe, caused everyone to understand that space flight was still risky - that was good. But it also caused many people to ACCEPT that spaceflight is risky - that was not good. After Challenger we should have immediately begun designing a spacecraft based fundamentally on safety, and accept whatever capability we could get out if it, instead of the other way around.

Ares 1/Orion was being built based on that principle, but ooh it looks too much like Apollo, it isn't sexy and new, it doesn't look like what people want a spacecraft to look like. Someone came up with the catchphrase "Apollo on Steroids" thereby giving people a way to sound clever by repeating it.

Okay fine ditch Orion. But whatever is next, it absolutely must be as safe as is possible with current technology. Safety cannot just be a "given" like the Augustine report so casually put it. If we want the public to support new spacecraft they must be safe enough that we can bring along senators, and teachers, and reporters along for the ride, similar to what the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds do. If that means LEO for awhile so be it. And when we do go to the Moon, after the first few test missions we should be able to send senators, teachers, and reporters there also. Same for Mars.

I realize that some may feel that that there is a place for both low risk tourist spaceflight and high risk exploration spaceflight. I disagree. We have to find a way to make all spaceflight low risk. I realize that is not a popular opinion but that is the reality of today. Like it or not, as exciting as they were the gladiator days are over.

In the year when the Space Shuttle debuted you were not required to wear seat belts in ANY of the 50 states. Your car did not require a third brake light, and your SUV did not need to meet any rollover regulations. Your car most likely did not have even a front seat airbag much less side, knee, or curtain airbags. The list goes on and on. Times have changed. The space program needs to get with the times if we want public and regulatory support. That should be one of the lessons and legacies of the Space Shuttle.

My time in the Space Program was in the early 1960's. I had the distinct honor of working on both the Gemini and Apollo programs. My last job was test stand engineer on the J-2 engine development program at the Rocketdyne facility in the Santa Susanna Mountains near Los Angeles.

In my opinion, we had a catastrophic loss of vision after the Apollo program. The Space Shuttle had only one worthwhile result as far as I'm concerned: the Hubble. The ISS seems to be a dead end and thus a waste of billions.

The only obvious reason for us to be in space, and the only real justification for spending the billions that it takes to operate comfortably above our atmosphere is to ensure the survival of our species. Our political leaders have been too short-sighted to grasp this and after the death of Von Braun any chance of articulating this vision died as well.

To state it simply: we cannot survive if we limit ourselves to the surface of our mother planet. Our solar (and galactic, for that matter) neighborhood is much too dangerous for us to ignore. Hopefully we will get a wake-up call before it is too late.

Brian, thanks for sharing that sweet memory! Can we all imagine an alternate history wherein the Shuttle actually was as cheap to operate as was advertised; 24 flights year, etc. How different space history would have been!

It turns out that the shuttle was a little too good; never quite bad enough to impell the nation to build a new spacecraft. At least not until Columbia. I think John Logsdon hit it right on the head in his contribution to the CAIB report: the failure to build a new spacecraft to replace the shuttle is a failure of national leadership.

We should have built shuttle block II (or something) in the late 80's with the lessons we had learned. Then maybe a further evolution with shuttle block III in the 90's, etc. Each new vehicle being safer, more efficient, and more economical.

Instead, we had something that wasn't what we wanted but could just do the job we needed as a nation and therefore the Congress and the White House just never could make themselves do what the nation really needed and build a new spacecraft.

Good Article and thanks for asking... I was hired 2 years after high school in the summer of 1979 as one of the 6 month temporary tile workers.. Having just obtained my pilots license and intent on become an airline pilot, I figured 6 months of extra money was a good thing for my fklying career.. Six months turned in to a year then 5 years, as many of my frinds remember all the development problems we had with the thermal protection system, tile falling off during reentry, damaged tile from vibration, hydralic spills on the pad.. the thrill of working on the orbiters in the OPF, in the VAB and on the pad.. the sights of the orbiter being lifted in the transfer isle on the VAB moving from horizontal to vertical..still an amazing thing to witness in person..
I remember will the long back to back 12 hours shifts 7 days a week in the TPS backshops to support new tile processing called "densifcation" and the thousands of tile we had to remove and reinstall.. they we hard times, proud times, the best of times.. It is personal for me.. I never did become that airline pilot.. but I found the wife of my youth, raaised 2 wonderful sons and was always extremely proud to be a member of the most elite team of space professionals in the world..
I have only missed seeing one launch out of all of them! I still get goose bumps today!... I witnessed the horror of Challenger standing right in front of the fsamilies after just being on the ice inspection team the night before! The guilt and we all felt the questions we all asked ourselfves.. I was part of the president commssion to investigate the accident and learned a great many lessions from some of the brightest minds in aerospace.

As to the other questions.. I don't remeber all you asked us.. but I do remember well as a newly promoted logistics engineer buying spares to keep the fleet operational to 2020, Rockwell built these vehicles to last 100 flights each.. and there is no reason they would not make it.. we just lost our direction and nerve..

In these late hours of the program, we are just getting advanced enough to overcome almost ALL the original concerns of safety, new stronger tile have been developed, improved systems, glass cockpits like todays jet liiners, the vehicle is a marvel and workhorse, the learning curve that we all went through durning these 30 year will be lost with no one to transfer that know how too..

I also commend Mr. Wayne Hale and his comments above, we had a new improved vehicle on the drawing board, "Shuttle C" but as I said, the country lost its direction and Washington failed us with the lack of funding and long term vision, we could have been so much further along than we are now.. I can only pray that congress gets smart on this one.. this time.. and figures out that the USA must have its own reliable access to space well funded by the government for the long term, 10 to 30 years not 2 to 4 years at a time, where the political winds dictate and delute the purpose of our manned space programs of the future..

You asked for a personal account.. I hope the politicians read our comments here.. it is absolutley personal for ALL of us, we devoted the best parts of our lives to this romantic program "Doing the things other dream about", it has been a honor.. but in closing, we were always lead to believe that there would be a follow on vehicle, a better vehicle that we all would be apert of after shuttle, a place and time that we could share our experiences, patients, ways of doing things to the next generation of space workers.. this in itself is a real national loss bt itself and the American people would be outraged if they really knew our story like we lived it...

What is the Shuttle's legacy ?

I do not think we know yet what it will be.

We are seeing, real-time, right now a debate over just how we ought to use the knowledge and the hardware. We do not yet know the outcome of that debate.

I think if we are wise, we will say that there are a lot of useful elements of what Shuttle is to use for the future. If we are not wise then we will declare Shuttle to be over, the hardware to be ditched or destroyed, because we are now going to do something new and different, in which case we will have learned little and made little use of what we have.

You can just as easily ask, what is the legacy of Apollo? Excitement; advanced technology; humans walking on another world; moon rocks? The technical knowledge needed to develop a Space Shuttle? From a hardware standpoint we seemed too eager to throw away what we had in 1970 for a promise of something new and different. Aside from the big structures at KSC, hardware-wise, I don't think too much of the Apollo legacy survived. It is almost like we are trying to recapture it now with Orion.

So whether we are wise and use what we have today invested in Shuttle for our future is yet to be seen.

I remember visiting Grumman in 1970, with the Junior Engineering Technical Society, I was in high school; we were there mainly to see the LMs under construction, and seeing models of the different Shuttle configurations they were developing and bidding on, and getting a copy of the Grumman newspaper with my first picture of a Shuttle.

My first real knowledge of what the Shuttle configuration as it was going to really look and how it would really operate came directly from Wernher von Braun when he visited my university and gave a slideshow talk in 1975.

I remember talking to students between 1976 and 1980, and talking about the Shuttle flying in just another year or two. We never seemed to get any closer to that first flight date for several years.

In March of 1981, I was a planetarium director outside of Boston, and with two friends we decided to go to see the first Shuttle launch. We drove, non-stop, arriving to see Columbia across the intercoastal waterway brightly lit on the pad the night before.

Six months later I decided it was time to try and join the real space program so I headed for an interview at JSC. In January of 1982, I went to work for Rockwell in configuration management; my first day at work I was brought into room 602 for a PRCB. At the table were Deke Slayton, John Young, Warren North, Rod Rose, Reg Machell, Dick Kohrs, Larry Bell, Leonard Nicholson, Arnie Aldrich, Burt Jackson and one or two others, and arriving late, at the head of the table, Glynn Lunney. I turned around to my boss and said ‘do you know who these people are’? These were my heros. He responded “yes, that’s who you work for; your job is to keep them under control-give them anything they need”. I knew most from pictures in books. In those days we frequently started the PRCBs on Thursday and ran to midday Saturday. If we were good we could get a set of minutes out in draft in a week. Usually it was a month before we could coordinate all the actions and deliver the ‘package’ to the Program Manager. I remember that first PRCB; I think it was Lunney’s first as Program Manager. As he came into the room he stopped and looked around at the room full of onlookers and started pointing to them – “who are you people; why do you need to come to my meeting; is this the best thing you can be doing with your time”. A number left. He was concerned about costs and manpower from the start.

In 1983, I got a special assignment – first person in the new Shuttle commercialization office. This was spearheaded by Rockwell Downey. It would be a year before they would decide on who would man the office for NASA. I made several trips to Downey. My first views of real Shuttle were the pieces being manufactured on the floor. One day we take a ride out to Edwards to see STS-5 land. They’re pointing out to me, look for the T-38, barely visible, circling, about the time you hear the boom, that is where it will be. That will be the first glimpse.

I did some undercover work, supporting the STS Effectiveness Office, identifying industries and companies to pursue to see if they would be interested in developing payloads for flight. A math model of industries, companies, products, and prospective payload interests was my thesis work. A couple of the companies worked out with the first Joint Endeavor Agreements for payloads. I researched the integration processes and templates and requirements for Delta and Atlas and we got the user’s guide for Ariane, and we studied Russian Protons. We needed to get a grip on why the satellite customers were complaining that Shuttle processes took too long and were too complicated and they needed to deal with too many organizations.

In 1984, I was recruited to NASA, originally I was supposed to be a payload integration engineer for middecks, but NASA hadn’t hired anyone since Apollo, and so by the time they actually figured out how to get me in, that job was gone; they told me ‘change of plans; now you’ll be the subsystem manager for crew equipment’. I nearly lived over at ILC. There were so many flights through 1985, we had constant bench reviews, hardware tests, new hardware manufacture, stowage CCCDs, drawing revs, and cutting new cushions, Bill Thornton trying to break the treadmill, Bill Thornton ‘let’s do a test on the resistance; I need you to get me some fish scales….crew training in Building 9, the Whitmore toilet, its like a compactor; Bill Fisher-maybe we can use that new screwdriver your building me as an intravehicular maneuvering device-we’ll configure it with an RC propeller; interdeck debris filters; foot loop maps; new vendors for gray tape: “no you cannot discontinue that type-it flies on every mission”; how do you clean the inside of the Orbiter; we never thought about how to clean it; building a new middeck mock-up in the SMS, sitting in the MER. In December I had lunch with the Challenger crew in the CCT durng their last stowage and crew compartment walk-though; Christa pulled out her teaching tools and the model of the Wright Flyer I had given her for one demo; El Onizuka-“you look hungry, why don’t you have my apricots”; their last day in bldg 9.

A few days later I got called into the Division Chief’s office with Chris Perner and Fred McAllister. Columbia has returned from the first ‘major mod’ and the hatch tool doesn’t work; ‘what’s wrong with it’? You had better get yourself to the Cape and figure it out. Up on the tower, in the White Room, in the bunny suit, I am almost instinctively leaning over the gap into the hatch-oh my lord, there is nothing for 200 ft down; Jesus I am leaning on the tiles, I am touching the tiles-I am not supposed to do that. Inside the cockpit, on the flight deck and trying to measure with a small ruler/protractor. I really hadn’t thought how I was going to do this but lucky I have been carrying this protractor for 10 years in my front left pocket-I pull it out and promptly drop it. ‘Oh no, where did it go’. Fortunately there it is just behind one of the floor panels on the aft bulkhead. Rockwell screwed up, the handle is hot glued in the wrong place. Its off by a fraction of an inch, just enough. Get with the crew, explain the issue. Maybe we can fly with a waiver.

January 27. I’m delivering my thesis and math model, done with Space Industries in a presentation to Joe Allen, Max Faget and others at SII. We break to watch the crew to get into the Orbiter. There is a bolt that has sheared off. The electric screwdriver doesn’t work. We won’t be able to launch today. Just as well, it was a bad omen to try and launch on the anniversary of the fire.

January 28. We’re watching the TV in building 15 when it happens. About 3 minutes later its Gene Winkler calling from the MER. We need the specs on the emergency radio and the survival kit. ‘I’ll be right over’. The real questions were, ‘was it an emergency crash locator beacon and would it activate automatically’.

A day or so later, its about 6:30 PM and I am ready to head over to my class at UHCL. The phone rings. Its Joe Kerwin; ‘I need the crew worn lists’.

That was my first period of working Shuttle.
A few years later I got a call-how would you like to put that thesis to work with Spacehab. ‘The problem is this; Code C has bought up 6 Spacehab flights; now your job is to fill them with payloads. You have two years to the first flight, STS-57.’ 57 in flight, the first piece of Station hardware to fly, EFE (ECLSS Flight Experiment). Its not working. It doesn’t do anything; maybe the switch is bad. G. David and the crew will take off the front panel. No they won’t there’s a stripped screw; not sure that was the safest thing to do, we’d never planned to open it up. STS-60 TCDT in the M113 at the bunker; Charlie Bolden-“do you want to drive this thing, you’ve earned it.” STS-71, a couple hours before tanking-good thing I have all of these endorsements to escort people out to the pad. A guard comes over-who are you, what are you doing here; “these are our Russian colleagues and they would like to see where all of their hard work has been going”; oh, OK, you’re OK.” I have four Russians and my lead for stowage in tow. On the pad the only part of the Shuttle you can reach is the very end of the tail. “No Yelena-you can’t touch it.” “Oh, I need to, I want to caress it”. We have to drag her away. Later that night, on the way to their hotel, “can you drive us to Miami now”? “Huh”, I respond. “Yes it’s a very popular show in Moscow now, Miami Vice. We would like to see where it takes place.” “Maybe another day. If we go now we’ll miss the launch“ That was the first of ten docking flights. I was there for most, maybe all, getting the Habs and the crews ready, getting the middeck ready, getting the Russians and the US hardware heading for Mir ready; getting the documents and the certs signed, attending the joint Team 0 meetings; the time went by so quickly, and there were so many trips to Moscow and Kazakhstasn in between; its just a whir now, a bit like the H.G. Wells time machine.

Nice piece Frank.
And the 'true' legacy will be whatever the dominate or prevailing view is of the Shuttle Legacy, vs. a 'true' legacy.

And that collective agreement about it's legacy will shift over time as the lens from which the Shuttle experience and it's legacy will be viewed will also shift over time.

Ask this question in 10 years and I bet you will get a different 'true legacy answer'.

And, I will miss STS very much, having spent half my career flying stuff on it.

What a beast and beauty it was! (And still is for two more flights!)

No the shuttle should not be canceled. The problem I have had with the shuttle program is that it has been treated like a 5 year program for the last 25 years. In my opinion after Endeavour was built the design of the next orbiter should have been started with all of the lessons learned. New materials and manufacturing techniques employed. Just like every aircraft that flies today you can keep the same overall design but keep making upgrades to make them safer. One of my favorite airliners to fly is the 737. They started flying in the 60's but are still around and there are up to the 900 series which started to fly in the late 90's. We should have kept the basic system and kept improving. Liquid boosters (flyback?) would have been a great upgrade which would vastly improve safety and cost. Upgrade the RCC leading edges to the metal heat pipe. Keep pushing technology on the same basic airframe. I don't see how going to a capsule is safe. If there is any crew health emergency you are now dropping them into an ocean where they can sit for many hours. Or just land on one of the runways in Florida or California and a doctor can be there right away.

If you have ever seen an orbiter up close you would know that going to a capsule is a HUGE step backward. I also don't think Americans are risk adverse. Look at what recreation is popular today? Rock climbing, snowboarding, skydiving, scuba diving in caves, all sorts of high risk activities. Not to sound cold but you will know when your spacecraft is considered too risky when you can't find any astronauts willing to fly on it.

I completely agree with Wayne Hale's feelings (and John Logsdon), but I think Mr. Hale sort of avoids the responsibility when he calls it a failure of "national leadership".

NASA has been the nation's leader in human space flight in the past. NASA is the organization that should have been strategizing the next steps.

The big failed aerospaceplane concepts of the last two decades were too different from Shuttle and required completely new design and development efforts rather than building on the legacy of Shuttle. The failure rests principally with NASA. NASA's failure first to strategize, then a failure to build consensus, and then a failure to communicate. The nation never really voted. They were never given a plan to vote on.

It is not too different a situation today with exploration. Constellation was mainly one guy's opinion; if there was a strategy it was not clear. Mr. Griffin certainly never made the effort to communicate the mission or to build consensus.

The fact we have no plan for what the Shuttle follow-on is going to be, even today, is a continuation of this failure.

What will be Shuttle's legacy? I don't think we know yet. With the new HLV we might have an opportunity to still give Shuttle a legacy, but so far the jury is out.

Was retirement of the Shuttle following ISS completion appropriate? If not why not?

Of course it's appropriate. Once the first outposts were established in the wild west, people retired all of the stagecoaches and wagon trains that got them there, right?

I had forgotten Nixon had commissioned the STS in January 1972 - the year I was born. I remember drawing diagrams of the then-new shuttle when I was 7, painstakingly copying the photos from National Geographic. The shuttle was the first thing I learned, inside and out, in obsessive detail. It's what got me my first job in television, researching a space science show for Discovery. Two of the most exciting moments in my life were seeing the prototype 'Enterprise' flying over my neighborhood in Ottawa, in exactly the same fashion Keith describes in his post - and then, years later, being part of the gaggle of press as STS-95 leaped into the sky carrying John Glenn.

On a personal level, the shuttle represents excitement, adventure, technological triumph, and the spirit of exploration. For most of the public, however, I'd argue that the 30-year-old shuttle is an anachronism - if not obsolete, then certainly unexciting. If STS has evolved in the last 30 years, NASA has done a poor job of explaining it.

As others have mentioned, the fact that there's no replacement for the shuttle awaiting completion is a criminal abrogation of leadership. If the shuttle program went from concept to flight reality in 9 years, why can't 'Shuttle II' be firmly on the drawing boards? I suspect that if the Russians or Chinese were poised to make the next technological leap in space flight, then America's competitive spirit would see to it that 'Shuttle: The Next Generation' was a priority. As it stands, I guess it's hard to start running the next race when you appear to be standing by yourself at the starting line.

If we had learned our shuttle lessons post challenger, how would we have used a side mount to assemble the space station?

Could the ISS modules have been larger and required fewer assembly flights?

Could we have flown early flexible path missions?

Could we have flown modified ISS modules to Lagrange points?

Would we have used side mount for the above missions using LEOR or direct injection to Lagrange or cislunar space?

Can side mount in 2015 to 2025 bring new modules to ISS? ( searches pockets for extra change needed :) )

Can side mount loft a Bigelow module to Phobos? no crew just mice and rats maybe small primates for a closed life support experiment and radiation monitering

It is irresponsible to leave the ISS with only Russian capability to access the ISS. We may regret the early retirement of the shuttle.

Yes, the decision to retire shuttle was the right one. We had the opportunity to retire with some planning or wait until the third fatal accident ended the program abruptly.

The main thing we learned (or should have learned) from shuttle is that mass margins to orbit are way too small for an all purpose vehicle to meet with current technology. Multiple vehicles for different purposes should have been our path post shuttle.

All this should have been incorporated into an incremental improvement during the only true shot we had at replacing shuttle--X-38. Instead, Dan Goldin chose the absolute riskiest option of the three contractors and it was a disaster. Fundamentally we are in the mess we are in today because X-38 failed.

I meant X-33, of course, not the CRV. That was its very own little disaster...could have used it instead of redoing Orion.

One design process lesson: when requirements or funding change, revisit the design.

Specific design lessons:
- An unreliable launch system is inherently expensive.
- Anything that cannot be re-used cannot be adequately tested and therefore is unreliable. For example, large multi-segment solid rockets are not re-usable because (1) they must be dis-assembled after each firing and (2) the only sure way of testing the structure of their solid fuel and of their assembly is to fire them.
- A rocket motor that cannot be shut down is inherently unreliable. Example: large solid rockets.
- Parallel staging with all ascent engines firing at launch is a good thing.
- Liquid hydrogen is not worth the design compromises required to use it.

Was retirement of the Shuttle following ISS completion appropriate? If not why not?

Its really should be a simple cost/risk analysis. My numbers ar emeant only a very rough estimates:
Each Shuttle was about $5 billion. That is equivalent to about 25000 man-years. The ISS cost roughly $100 billion. That is equivalent to about 500000 man years.

As the current problem with the ISS cooling system pump shows, we are now risking a very significant investment. Certainly we want to minimize the risk to human life but I am not certain why you think the lives of a few are worth as much as the lives of all the man-years, (75 of which is roughly equal to a human life) that went into creating the ISS system.
Based on Shuttle performance, there was a little over a 1% risk to each crew member in each launch. If you look at the management causes of the accidents and that the accidents might have been avoided, the risk might have been assessed at less.

It is a pretty cold calculation but that is roughly how insurance works.

Shuttle was the insurance for the ISS that we no longer will have.

Do I think that it was appropriate to retire Shuttle before a replacement was available.

No.

We are now risking the entire future of the ISS and the world's human space flight program for some unknown period of time, a 500000 man year investment.

While the original decision may have been made in 2004, there were ongoing changes to the situation and it called for management to reassess. Management chose to do nothing.

I was 9 years old when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but do not remember watching it on TV. My earliest memory of America’s space program was Apollo-Soyuz.
After reading an article in World Book Encyclopedia about a space shuttle, I was enthralled with it. I took days off from work to watch and video tape the first space Shuttle launch and landing and recorded the next 13 shuttle missions on broadcast TV until it became so routine they didn’t cover the missions at all.
When the Challenger accident occurred I still did not have cable TV available to me in Queens, NY. I happened to be home that day because my garage door opener needed repair and I missed the real time launch on TV. I was shocked beyond belief when I got back in the house to see what happened.
For me, the Space Shuttle era was my space program. It’s unique capabilities and its airplane like pinpoint landings on a runway make it the worlds most advanced spacecraft even to this day.
During the shuttle era humans flew the Buck Rogers backpack, for the first time flying untethered to their spacecraft and later used it for capturing two defective satellites and returning them to Earth. Besides launching satellites, the space shuttle was used to launch and retrieve experiment packages, such as mini satellites and LDEF (Long Duration Exposure Facility). Astronauts were now comfortably performing complex repairs on stranded satellites and saved the Hubble Space Telescope from becoming a big piece of junk in Earth orbit.
After the Challenger accident many of its capabilities were restricted due to a more risk adverse President and Congress. The first shuttle launch was the riskiest test flight ever, with two humans piloting a new and totally untried human spacecraft that had never before flown as a stack. The SRB’s had never fired in a vertical position, nor had the orbiter, attached to the ET, which was the backbone of the entire shuttle stack.
I believe we gained knowledge and EVA experiences that no capsule design could have achieved. The orbiters and their RMS performed tasks beyond what we had ever done before in space. I believe we actually learned more about space operations with the shuttle than all previous American spacecraft combined.
I feel the space shuttle has been given a bum rap for the two tragedies that I have, many times expressed, were both AVOIDABLE had NASA/Contractor Management and Engineering fixed the well documented o-ring burn through issue and foam from the ET striking the orbiter. Sometimes common sense should overrule PhD engineering, and MBA management because all the evidence pointed to probable catastrophic events.
The shuttle record has about 130 successful missions over almost 30 years time. Compare that with Saturn/Apollo which flew 16 manned missions over 9 years (including Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz), where we had one fatal accident (the Apollo 1 fire) and an almost near fatal mission, Apollo 13; which was extremely lucky to make it back to Earth, partly because of the “failure is not an option” NASA mentality which no longer exists in NASA during the space shuttle’s years of flight. And both Apollo accidents had no previous warnings of a defective design or defective hardware, unlike the two shuttle tragedies.
In either case, even an escape system would not have saved the lives of the Challenger crew or Columbia’s crew. And even in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights, once the launch escape system is detached, the flight crew is in the same “unprotected” mode of flight as the space shuttle.
I think it is a mistake to retire the space shuttle at the peak of the space stations operations and while the Progress, Soyuz, ATV, HTV, and possible Dragon supply vessels can replace the small cargo launch capabilities of the shuttle, they have no means of launching and returning any large mass from/to Earth, or serve as a maintenance platform to service the station. And the space shuttles afforded many, many more astronauts the experience to live space, in a somewhat comfortable cabin, unlike earlier (and the future planned) capsules had (and will).
In this risk adverse culture, how can we send humans back to the Moon or on to Mars? Many lives were lost exploring and then exploiting the “new world” during the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. But today, we humans don’t have the guts to take the risks that the old NASA and astronauts like John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins did from Mercury to Apollo and the GUTS John Young and Robert Crippen had, to fly a spacecraft that was never flown unmanned before. There was NO actual flight data on how the shuttle launched, achieved orbit, maneuvered in orbit and survived a re-entry in to the Earth’s atmosphere unlike any American spacecraft before it.
The coming years will be a dim period for the US human space flight program. I agree 100% with the recent statement issued by John Glenn and the earlier op-ed newspaper article of Robert Crippen’s, stating the space shuttles should continue to fly as long as there is enough funding to do it safely. But, like the underfunded shuttle program, which led to many compromises in its design/safety has already crippled the Constellation program, i.e., much simplified Orion capsule to make up for the inadequate design of the Ares I; specifically thrust oscillations from the single solid rocket booster and NASA and contractor attempts to minimize it by adding substantial weight to the Ares I to mitigate the oscillations, thus requiring a much less desirable and unsuitable Orion capsule for Moon, Asteroid or Mars flights.
It’s my belief that history will show that the space shuttles contributed more knowledge and human operational experience in space than Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Orion, Dragon or whatever may come after it. And unlike many space enthusiasts I don’t see the rush to send humans back to the Moon, Asteroids or Mars. Let’s utilize the ISS to its maximum capabilities before moving outward beyond LEO. My top priority would be designing and building an Asteroid deflector system, because sooner rather than later, a large one might hit the Earth, and that will set humankind back centuries, if not kill us all.

I am in a somewhat unique position to answer this. I started my NASA career as a co-op student during ASTP and returned full time to NASA in 1979. I have therefor spent my entire career in shuttle engineering at KSC. So first to answer the questions briefly.

I do believe shuttle retirement is appropriate. This is mainly due to cost and safety. It simply costs too much to simply reach LEO. And while flying magnificently any major launch failure will likely result in the deaths of the crew and loss of the vehicle, there is simply no feasible escape system.

We learned how to fly a large winged vehicle to space. Because of its' unique capabilities we learned to live, work, and use human ingenuity in space. We built a space station.

While the new spacecraft will be much different the knowledge we gained in space operations will definitely provide valuable information on any future space flights.

I spent my entire career working in the shuttle program at KSC.

I was a space geek from about the age of 14. So logically going to FTU in Orlando I managed to enter the co-op program with NASA, my dream job. After graduation I spent one year working for the navy but then transferred to KSC in the summer of 1979 and moved into shuttle PVD engineering. I was there every day watching as the first vehicle was prepared and supporting the first rollout and launch. And I was at EAFB when it landed supporting that first landing and return to KSC. Of course I continued to support in various positions and went to VAFB for shuttle engineering until the accident ended the west coast launch operations. I happened to be back at KSC right outside the VAB watching the morning of the Challenger accident. After my return to KSC we launched many successful missions until the day of the Columbia accident. I was at the landing site supporting the landing when we realized what had happened. And now we are coming to the end of this magnificent program. I will actually retire at the end of the year before the program completely ends. But looking back and forward I think it is best to bring this to a close and to move on. While the shuttle was magnificent I also remember the Apollo missions and the sense of wonder and exploration. We need to head out again, not simply fly to LEO on a very costly and dangerous vehicle. There is not going to be the money available to do both so it is best to move on. It fulfilled its' mission and should be retired in glory without any more accidents.

The Space Shuttle is a technological marvel that will not be surpassed in our lifetimes, probably not even this century at the current rate (don't believe me? the SR-71 is still unsurpassed after 50 years). The Shuttle is not dangerous, it is NASA management that is dangerous, and we are not getting rid of them. Retreating from a winged reentry vehicle to a capsule will set back space exploration by a hundred years.

Alas, the Shuttle's biggest legacy will be the downfall of NASA and human space flight (through no fault of its own). Thirty years of operations has left us incapable of design and development. After wheels stop on the last Shuttle mission, human spaceflight for NASA will be over for decades, if not permanently. If commercial can't pick up the ball and run, the game will be over. NASA will try another architecture and mission profile, only to have that canceled in 5 to 10 years after we spend tens of billions of dollars and produce no real product. Maybe we'll get off a test flight for a billion dollars using mostly existing hardware, but it will not last. With the current leadership of Shuttle Ops personnel in charge of design and development at every level at MSFC, JSC and KSC, we will most surely fail. NASA can not be afforded enough time and money to overcome this crippling disease.

The only real cure is to fire EVERYONE and start over with new people. No one who has ever worked in the space program in any capacity for NASA or a contractor should be allowed to hire back in. A complete retooling is the only hope, but that won't happen either.

- Was retirement of the Shuttle following ISS completion appropriate? If not why not?

No since no reasonable replacement was even in work. Orion (at least when I was working on it in ’08) is far less capable, reliable, safe, and affordable. So instead of fixing the shuttle, or replacing it with something newer and better, were replacing it with something far worse and far more expensive.

- What technological lessons have we learned from 132 (135) Shuttle missions, the good and the bad?

Good:

.. the shuttle is stunningly capable. Even in its half completed form, it carried to orbit 2/3rds of all people, and half of all cargo tonnage, that ever got to orbit. Built and serviced space stations, bus sized telescopes, etc. It was a pretty crappy space truck – but it showed what a huge advantage any reusable space truck is.

..The shuttle set a new standard of safety in space operations – but only by a very slim margin over Soyuz.

.. It made space routine.

Bad;

.. it made space routine. Routine means boring. Griffin took this and developed the concept that NASA should reduce space access. Fly few – but more spectacular – space launches.

.. Congress didn’t allow NASA to fix shuttle, because it liked the labor hours to districts of the flawed shuttle. Even increased risks to astronaut’s lives was acceptable if it kept the costs up. Griffin took from that that future NASA launch systems should be much much more expensive per flight to get more congressional support.

.. NASA is not reliable as a commercial partner. It thinks nothing of pulling the rug out from under commercial activities when its advantageous.

- How will space operations of the next manned spacecraft incorporate the Shuttle experience?

Very little. Most of the operations staffs are being laid off, and the new ships are not capable of the complex missions Shuttle could. So really NASA dumping everything learned since the ‘60’s.

- How do you personally assess the era of the Shuttle? And

We opened the door to the idea of large scale, space projects – with highly reusable, reliable craft. Showed how commercial projects could be done. But we never implemented it, and slammed the door no it now. Sadly with the major declines in aerospace industry, we might not have the resources to do programs like this again..

- Give us some of your personal memories and experiences of the Shuttle in your life and career.

I was always a big space buff since I was a little kid, and my first job after collage was in the shuttle mission operations directorate. I was there rubbing elbows with astronauts for the first shuttle launch, and stayed through Challenger. Then I moved to the space station Freedom Program, and later NASA HQ support up until ’95.

Being in the space program was a dream of a lifetime. I started in the shuttle program thinking it could really open up space to large scale commercial, research, and exploration programs. Opening the final frontier. Then year after year seeing that not only did the agency and congress not want that, it was actively against it. Years of having my dream crushed before me. Now of course the window of opportunity is closed. The capacities closed down. Even space advocates vision constrained to little more then what was done in the early ‘60’s.

My thanks to all posters for some detailed and thoughtful comments. Love or hate the Shuttle, it is truly an end of an era in human spaceflight.