Great article, thanks for sharing.
this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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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.
More deaths but more missions. Overall shuttle was safer.
Apollo 0.21 deaths per mission. Shuttle 0.10 deaths per mission.
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.