Why shutting down space program

The new fiscal year will begin Oct. Some Republican members oppose an increase in the debt limit, required to avoid a government default, that would also be included in the CR. If Congress does not pass a CR by Oct. Nonessential government activities would stop and federal employees furloughed. This forever dispelled the notion that spaceflight was routine. The shuttle was revealed to be a high-risk, experimental vehicle — something most astronauts had known all along.

Still, the space agency took its lashings and made the changes required to get the shuttle flying again. Yet again, the entire crew — this time featuring the highly publicized first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon — was killed. Although the technical cause of the Columbia disaster was very different than what led to the loss of Challenger , the investigation again found deep cultural problems at NASA.

The crew of STS, seen here, had their flight aboard Space Shuttle Columbia delayed 18 times before launching in While reentering Earth's atmosphere, Columbia broke apart, killing the entire crew. All of these factors — high costs, slow turnaround, few customers, and a vehicle and agency that had major safety problems — combined to make the Bush administration realize it was time for the Space Shuttle Program to retire.

In , President Bush gave a speech that outlined the end of the shuttle era, without clearly identifying what would come next or how much it would cost. This decision left NASA in limbo, as they were suddenly dependent on the Russians for access to space. The remaining three space shuttles, Discovery , Endeavour , and Atlantis , are now museum pieces, as is the test orbiter Enterprise.

Having seen some of these vessels in person, I can attest that they still are breathtaking sights to behold. With SpaceX already launching humans into space, and with other commercial space ventures making rapid progress, the future of manned spaceflight under NASA seems unclear.

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Does NASA have plans for an even bigger reusable spacecraft? Improve this question. Hash Hash The absence of a clear mission after ISS assembly complete.

The unfortunately high cost of a launch. Ageing systems in the orbiters. The Columbia disaster. It is with infinite sadness that we watched the last flights of the STS, but the risks were really getting too high.

The Air Force wanted a one-orbit manned interceptor with a huge cross-track capability. There are very few business cases where bringing something large from orbit has more benefits than costs. Those initiating goals were for a cheap and reliable transportation system which could realize routine, frequent, schedulable access to and from Earth orbit.

It was thought that high reuasability, wings and wheels would be key to achieving this. Unfortunately, a host of technological, economic, and political realities got in the way.

Despite great achievements launching and servicing the Hubble telescope, among them , it was overwhelmed by cost and risk. Long story short, after their initial long-term contracts ran out, they had a monopoly and started using much shorter term contracts and raising the cost with each new contract.

SpaceX and others came along and now the costs have dropped dramatically. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Bush announced of his Vision for Space Exploration where he said emphasis mine : To meet this goal, we will return the Space Shuttle to flight as soon as possible, consistent with safety concerns and the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

Improve this answer. United Space Alliance, a joint venture run by Lockheed Martin that is the prime contractor for the space shuttle, announced that the bulk of its employees would lose their jobs by early August. The shutdown of the space program is yet another atrocious policy decision of the Bush administration that has been first rubber-stamped, then made even worse, by the Obama administration. NASA decided to phase out the space shuttle in , after the Columbia disaster in which seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle broke up during reentry, scattering debris across much of Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.

The initial decision on space policy by the Bush White House was to set the goal of a return to the Moon by , to be followed by a Mars mission that would use the Moon as a jumping-off point. To accomplish these missions, NASA was to develop and build a new rocket, to be called the Constellation, and a new capsule to be fired into space with it.

Obama cancelled the Constellation project soon after taking office, in one of his first actions to cut the federal budget deficit. Instead of the Moon and then Mars, the Obama administration proposed a manned mission to the asteroid belt by , followed by a Mars flight, but pushed out so far into the future that it amounted to the tacit abandonment of any serious effort at manned space flight. More significant than the change in target and schedule, however, was the decision to complete the dismantling of NASA as an agency actually operating manned missions.

The federal agency will continue to launch and run its enormously valuable robotic space probes, aimed at exploring the entire solar system. However, manned space flight is to be completely privatized, along with the unmanned launches into low earth orbit which are required to sustain operations at the international space station.

They complain that the US is abandoning its once formidable lead in space to Russia, China and even India, which all have devoted significant resources to manned space operations in recent years. China became the third country to put a man into space, and India is preparing to become the fourth in the coming decade.