The system that roars skyward today represents the triumph of unlikely combinations. Liquid-fueled and solid-fueled rockets flying together? Draconian budget compromises leading to billion-dollar cost overruns? U.S. astronauts seated next to Russian cosmonauts, as well as Italians, Mexicans, Japanese and half a world of others? None of it seemed very likely when this whole thing was dreamed up in the 1970s. And it certainly hasn’t always worked as planned. But despite everything, the Rube Goldberg contraption set to lift off today has maintained America as the leading spacefaring nation for 30 years. SPACE SHUTTLE 1981-2011: AN ANALYSIS IT WAS ANYTHING BUT ROUTINE William Nef f | The Plain Dealer The original idea behind the Space Shuttle was to keep America in the forefront of space exploration, even as NASA budgets dwindled after the Apollo moon program, by making space travel cheap and routine. Well, it never proved anything like cheap; and the 14 astronauts killed on Shuttles teach us that spaceflight is never going to be routine. But the spaceship we see lift off for the final time today has maintained America as the leading spacefaring nation for 30 years. The system EXTERNAL FUEL TANK … and what The biggest single component of the Shuttle system is also the piece that’s not reused. Once the we’re retiring … Shuttle’s engines have exhausted we’ll use now the external tank’s 526,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid The original claims were that the hydrogen, the tank is jettisoned. It Shuttle would fly into space about breaks up in the atmosphere and every two weeks, at around $100 the pieces end SOYUZ (RUSSIA) million (in today’s dollars) per up in the ocean. mission. Today we find that costs have averaged about $1.5 billion The last piece of the per mission, with months needed Space Race of the 1960s, Soyuz to refurbish each orbiter between Foam Liquid this small spacecraft was TMA missions. But the ability to haul insulation oxygen originally designed to 50,000-pound payloads into orbit coating tank beat out the Apollo — and bring them back again if Separation program and carry Soviet necessary — is a huge asset that motor cosmonauts to the Moon. will be tough to replace. Other technical problems derailed that effort, but the Soyuz has been a TILES workhorse in the decades since, ferrying Few pieces of the Space Shuttle cosmonauts, astronauts, Intertank system represented a bigger leap of space tourists and other imagination, or caused more … connects the two tanks passengers to Earth orbit. headaches during their development, and supports It only carries three than this idea of a reusable heat the solid- people, and no cargo shield. It couldn’t be all one piece, rocket booster (though there is a since any vehicle the size of the connections cargo-carrying version). Progress Shuttle was bound to flex and bend And you’d better get used cargo during flight. to it, because this is carrier The solution was to cover the manned spaceflight for orbiters with some 24,000 high-tech, the next few years. heat-reflecting silica-glass tiles. But ironically, these tiles — meant to protect the orbiters from the terrible heat and stresses of re-entry — themselves proved Propellant brittle and prone to It’s got the falling off. Liquid look and feel hydrogen of the rubber tank eraser on the DRAGON (U.S./PRIVATE) end of your CREW pencil. NASA has signed a For this mission, Atlantis will contract with the carry a crew of only four. Past California-based SpaceX missions have carried as many company to resupply the as seven astronauts. International Space The mind-bogglingly diverse list Station using this capsule of Shuttle crew and passengers and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 over the years includes U.S. booster. Dragon has Senators, schoolteachers, already had its maiden scientists, engineers, civilian flight, making it the first contractors and a Saudi prince. spacecraft sent into orbit and safely recovered by a That prince, Sultan Salman private company. Abdelazize Al-Saud, was the youngest person to fly on the Shuttle at age 28. The first Bracket The oldest was Ohio’s holding Field joint flights own Senator John orbiter Sections of will Glenn, the former the booster, carry astronaut who filled with cargo only. returned to space at propellant, are There are plans to fly a age 77. assembled at “man-rated” version that the Kennedy the company says could Space Center. carry up to seven passengers. CARGO ORION (U.S./NASA) This mission will carry a module full of food Yes, the Obama and supplies for the Administration killed it, International Space All vehicles but Congress — in the Station as well as some are shown to scale NASA 2010 Authorization spare parts. Act — seems to have Previous missions have brought it back to life. delivered much higher-profile cargo including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Galileo probe to Jupiter, Nozzle innumerable These commercial and gimbal military satellites (swing back and every major and forth) No longer a piece of the to help keep Moon ship, International the shuttle Orion — if that Space Station. on course continues to be at liftoff. its name — will be designed to carry astronauts beyond Earth orbit, to asteroids or to Mars. SSMEE (Spacece ShuttShuttlelee Main Engine)Engine) REUSABLE ENGINES SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS Before the Space Shuttle … This idea was as revolutionary, and as difficult to TheseT were not a new idea when the Shuttle was first … the United States had flown 42 men into space. develop, as the reusable heat-shield tiles: the reusablee designed.d But using them on a manned spacecraft was. rocket engine. It had never been tried. Yes,Ye they’re cheaper than liquid-fueled rockets — but The Space Shuttle program has flown 356 people … A shuttle engine needs to run full-blast for more than onceo ignited, there’s no way to shut them down if eight minutes on every flight. It has to gimbal — turn somethingso goes wrong. back and forth for steering — and it has to have a TheT boosters designed for the Shuttle program are the throttle. It must be cooled by its own liquid-hydrogen ffuel,uell, or itsits hellish operatingoperating largestla solid-fueled rockets ever flown. Stresses on the temperature will cause it to melt and explode within secondsseconds (as manymany of the firstfirst jointsjo between segments resulted in the 1985 prototypes did). It needs to survive the rigors of re-entry.try And thethenn it needs to be ChallengerC explosion; today’s Shuttles use an able to do it all over again next mission. extensively redesigned version. … 48 of whom were women. SOURCES: NASA; The Smithsonian Institution; “Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years” by Dorling-Kindersley Publishing (2002) .