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A Cold War mystery: Why did Jimmy Carter save the space shuttle? (arstechnica.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Great article, thanks for sharing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Definitely.

The Shuttle wasn't "just a contrivance to keep NASA alive", it was a vehicle for the Air Force, and especially the NSA, to launch their next set of Keyhole satellites. Notably, what most people know as the Hubble chassis.

My view of the Shuttle is it was a giant boondoggle that squandered funds that could've been used for much more effective programs. It wasn't really reusable, and it killed far more astronauts than Apollo.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

More deaths but more missions. Overall shuttle was safer.

Apollo 0.21 deaths per mission. Shuttle 0.10 deaths per mission.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Is that a fair comparison? The Apollo deaths happened very early in the program, while we were still figuring out how to spaceflight. In contrast, the Columbia disaster occurred when the Shuttle was a well-established vehicle.

Hypothetically, if Apollo kept flying as many missions as Shuttle, I wonder if it might have been safer.

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