Шаттл: история создания, цели, задачи

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Even more importantly, NASA also decided that the orbiter's landing jet engines would be removed on some flights to save weight. This would allow the USAF to launch its future 18,144-kilogram satellites into polar orbit; a crucial military requirement if the Department of Defense ever was to commit itself to the shuttle. During at meeting in Williamsburg, Va., in January 1971, NASA also agreed to provide a 1700km reentry crossrange capability and the maximum payload into a 28.5 deg. 185km low Earth orbit was increased to 29,484kg with full fly-back potential... These USAF-mandated changes increased the development cost by 10%. The total life-cycle cost (development plus ten years of flight operations) had increased slightly, from $9,120 million to $9,243 million. North American Rockwell's initial life cycle cost estimate at the beginning of Phase B in July 1970 was $10,120 million but NASA and the contractors were working hard to reduce this figure. One plan was to first develop the shuttle orbiter, then the booster in order to reduce the peak funding requirements. Another idea was to have as much commonality between the orbiter & booster systems such as spares and special equipment for testing.

 

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Pound wise, penny foolish... The fully reusable Phase-B shuttle would have been very expensive to develop but it did promise to save billions during the operational phase. The chart shows the planned life cycle cost over 445 missions (in 1970 dollars) as of April 1971 versus the actual cost of the partially reusable space shuttle configuration that was grudgingly approved eight months later by President Nixon's Office of Management and Budget. After numerous cost-cutting exercises during the development program, the operational phase in 1981- turned out to be far more expensive than anticipated. The explosion of Shuttle Challenger in January 1986 further increased the cost.