NASA's goal of sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 is seen as a necessary stepping-stone to a more ambitious mission, such as sending astronauts to Mars. Better to leave it to private industry to drive that cost down and instead focus on missions and technologies that promise to move humans beyond low-Earth orbit and into the solar system, supporters say. Each shuttle flight cost about $1.5 billion. Similarly, many within the space community have criticized the Obama administration for shuttering the space program and leaving the design and production of a next-generation rocket to a nascent private industry.īut the Obama administration counters that the space shuttle program was consuming enormous resources for the relatively mundane task of ferrying astronauts to the space station. Only 9 percent of respondents said the government has a clear plan for the astronaut program. Moreover, Americans are not at all convinced that the Obama administration knows where human spaceflight should go from here. Some 78 percent of respondents said it was very or somewhat important for the US to maintain its leadership role in space. But since the private space industry is not yet able to send Americans into space – and won't be for several years – the US will, in the meantime, have to pay Russia $63 million a seat to hitch a ride.Ī Monitor/TIPP poll shows clearly that Americans are not pleased by the idea of relying on Russia – or anyone else – to reach space. With the landing of Atlantis bringing a formal end to the 30-year space shuttle program Thursday, NASA now turns over space station runs to private rocketmakers and instead focuses on more distant goals, such as sending astronauts to an asteroid, then Mars. However, the upcoming NASA SpaceX launch will be controlled by the private company, SpaceX, a company owned by Elon Musk.Americans opinions about the future of US human spaceflight program appear to be as ambivalent and conflicting as the opinions that now vex the space community itself. Michael Coats, executive and transport administrator of Johnson Space Center, has stated that with the conclusion of the NASA Space Shuttle Program, they bring to a close a striking chapter in the country's history in space and usher in the following unprecedented moment in America's account of exploration.Īll the previous astronaut launches were controlled by NASA. NASA has also stated that it ended the NASA Space Shuttle program to utilise its assets towards sending astronauts past the low-Earth orbit, to the space rock, back to the moon and eventually to Mars.Īlso Read | NASA Astronomers Observe Black Hole Hurling Hot Mass Into Space At Jet SpeedĪpart from building another multi-reason crew vehicle (MPCV) that is intended to take teams outward into the solar system, the agency is also looking to solicit dispatch services from four commercially-designed shuttles which will be used to take space travellers to and from the International Space Station. The shuttle also failed to meet its guarantee for minimal effort access to space by virtue of the system’s framework re-usability. NASA has revealed that the average cost to launch a Space Shuttle costs nearly $450 million for a single mission. The main concern was that the program was excessively costly. This was one of the factors that made people question the decision to end the project.Īlso Read | Former NASA Engineer Builds Obstacle Course For Squirrels To Keep Bird Seeds Safe Watch There is also a level of innate hazard when it comes to space travel however, with every disappointment, there has been a considerable improvement in terms of reliability for subsequent flights. Two of the shuttles had even experienced failure, however, the rate of failure was still equivalent to all other launch vehicles. The agency had been facing issues with parts obsolescence through the shuttle space program. The shuttles were intended for 100 flights each through their lifetime which, however, couldn’t happen. Each shuttle had flown a total of 25, 33, and 39 times respectively. This was when Atlantis rolled to a stop at the Kennedy Space Center, the independent agency’s home port.Īlso Read | NASA Predicts '50 Percent Chance' Of Favourable Weather For Postponed Crew Dragon Launch Why did NASA retire the Space Shuttle Program?īy the time the NASA Space Shuttle Program had concluded, the agency still had three shuttles remaining. NASA stopped the Space Shuttle Program almost nine years ago on July 21, 2011. Image credits: Reel Truth Science Documentaries When did NASA Space Shuttle Program end?

Nasa space shuttle 2011