1.4 THE SHUTTLE BECOMES "OPERATIONAL"

¶On the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1,11 Columbia carried John W. Young and Robert L. Crippen to orbit on April 12, 1981, and returned them safely two days later to Edwards Air Force Base in California (see Figure 1.4-1). After three years of policy debate and nine years of development, the Shuttle returned U.S. astronauts to space for the first time since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flew in July 1975. Postflight inspection showed that Columbia suffered slight damage from excess Solid Rocket Booster ignition pressure and lost 16 tiles, with 148 others sustaining some damage. Over the following 15 months, Columbia was launched three more times. At the end of its fourth mission, on July 4, 1982, Columbia landed at Edwards where President Ronald Reagan declared to a nation celebrating Independence Day that "beginning with the next flight, the Columbia and her sister ships will be fully operational, ready to provide economical and routine access to space for scientific exploration, commercial ventures, and for tasks related to the national security" [emphasis added].12

¶There were two reasons for declaring the Space Shuttle "operational" so early in its flight program. One was NASAʼs hope for quick Presidential approval of its next manned space flight program, a space station, which would not move forward while the Shuttle was still considered developmental. The second reason was that the nation was sud-Between 1982 and early 1986, the Shuttle demonstrated its

¶Figure 1.4-1. The April 12, 1981, launch of STS-1, just seconds past 7 a.m., carried astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen into an Earth orbital mission that lasted 54 hours.

¶denly facing a foreign challenger in launching commercial satellites. The European Space Agency decided in 1973 to develop Ariane, an expendable launch vehicle. Ariane first flew in December 1979 and by 1982 was actively competing with the Space Shuttle for commercial launch contracts. At this point, NASA still hoped that revenue from commercial launches would offset some or all of the Shuttleʼs operating costs. In an effort to attract commercial launch contracts, NASA heavily subsidized commercial launches by offering services for $42 million per launch, when actual costs were more than triple that figure.13 A 1983 NASA brochure titled We Deliver touted the Shuttle as "the most reliable, flexible, and cost-effective launch system in the world."14

¶Figure 1.4-2. The crew of STS-5 successfully deployed two commercial communications satellites during the first "operational"

¶capabilities for space operations, retrieving two communications satellites that had suffered upper-stage misfires after launch, repairing another communications satellite on-orbit, and flying science missions with the pressurized European-built Spacelab module in its payload bay. The Shuttle took into space not only U.S. astronauts, but also citizens of Germany, Mexico, Canada, Saudi Arabia, France, the Netherlands, two payload specialists from commercial enterprises, and two U.S. legislators, Senator Jake Garn and Representative Bill Nelson. In 1985, when four Orbiters were in operation, the vehicles flew nine missions, the most launched in a single calendar year. By the end of 1985, the Shuttle had launched 24 communications satellites (see Figure 1.4-2) and had a backlog of 44 orders for future commercial launches.

¶On the surface, the program seemed to be progressing well. But those close to it realized that there were numerous problems. The system was proving difficult to operate, with more maintenance required between flights than had been expected. Rather than needing the 10 working days projected in 1975 to process a returned Orbiter for its next flight, by the end of 1985 an average of 67 days elapsed before the Shuttle was ready for launch.15

¶Though assigned an operational role by NASA, during this period the Shuttle was in reality still in its early flight-test stage. As with any other first-generation technology, operators were learning more about its strengths and weaknesses from each flight, and making what changes they could, while still attempting to ramp up to the ambitious flight schedule NASA set forth years earlier. Already, the goal of launching 50 flights a year had given way to a goal of 24 flights per year by 1989. The per-mission cost was more than $140 million, a figure that when adjusted for inflation was seven times greater than what NASA projected over a decade earlier.16 More troubling, the pressure of maintaining the flight schedule created a management atmosphere that increasingly accepted less-than-specification performance of various components and systems, on the grounds that such deviations had not interfered with the success of previous flights.17