OM in the News: NASA’s Last Space Shuttle Launch

When the final Space Shuttle launch took place on July 8th, an era of tragedy and triumph that dominated space travel for a generation drew to a close.  I worked at NASA headquarters in the late 1970’s during the planning for the 1981 inaugural launch of Columbia, and always followed the program closely–to this day I can watch every launch from my backyard in Central Florida!  In 1982, Prof. Paul Meising (SUNY-Albany) and I published  four OM-related cases about the Shuttle, which appeared in earlier editions of the Heizer-Render OM text.  They dealt with Shuttle  reliability (Ch.17), astronaut assignment (Ch.15), forecasting demand (Ch.4), and ordering external tanks (Ch.12).

Looking back on the Shuttle program 30 years and 135 missions later, several facts stand out. First, with a 98% reliability rate (Rs=.98), one would  expect a major  problem every 50 launches. And indeed, with the explosions of Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, NASA was almost statistically due for a 3rd disaster. The Wall Street Journal (July 9-10, 2011) quotes Duke space historian Roger Launius as follows: “It was a magnificent failure. It was the most technologically sophisticated launch vehicle ever, but it never made human spaceflight safe, reliable, or economical”.

Launius was correct.  Our 1979 forecasts at NASA for 500 flights within the 1st decade–basically a launch a week starting in 1986–were off by 90%. Our pricing structure assumed that private companies, foreign governments, and the Defense Dept. would cover all the bills as  full-paying customers. We budgeted each launch at $15 million, when in reality the average cost rose to $1.5 billion–100 times the promised price.  Now, as the Russians are charging us $20-30 million per seat to ride to the Space Station, a piece of American history draws to a close.

Discussion questions:

1. Was the Shuttle program a success overall?

2. Why did the program never reach its budget and schedule targets?