On this date (Jan 5)…

On this date (Jan 5) in 1972, President Nixon gave the official go-ahead for the development of NASA’s space shuttle program.

Nixon and the Rocket Scientists (I mean the actual president and NASA, not the early 60s girl group) had been working on the shuttle idea for several years by this point. The idea was to create a reusable system that would lead to easier exploration, and the staffing of a space station. Lofty goals!

As you might imagine, the other goal that was particularly attractive to the politicians was a lower price tag. And while the shuttle program vastly overshot its original budget goal, it was significantly less expensive than the Apollo program, as an example.

From 1960 to 1973, the Apollo program costs $19.4 billion. That averages out to almost $2.2 billion for each of the nine lunar missions (based on a 1967 midpoint, that means about $14 billion each in today’s dollars).

In contrast, as of 2005 the shuttle program had cost $145 billion, or about $1.3 billion per flight (based on a 1995 midpoint, that’s about $1.9 billion per flight in today’s dollars).

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that the shuttle program was a success. The biggest failure from my perspective was that I didn’t get to go up in a space shuttle and get frozen by a freak space accident, only to be awakened 500 years later by Colonel Wilma Deering in her smokin’ hot tight blue jumpsuit.

Hmmm… I wonder if it’s too late to add that to my list of New Year’s resolutions??