Asa had suggested a completely reusable design based around liquid rocket engin The idea was to stop throwing away expensive hardware. Nixon would only give them half the money requested. Thus they did away with the completely reusable design and even worse with the liquid rocket engines. In a compromise to fit within a fixed $3.2 billion NASa budget, they chose a non-reusable main tank and worst of all, to make up the thrust they chose solid rocket motors. As an aside, Von braun had said that no human should ever ride on solid rockets. They were just too dangerous. One in twenty-five blew up due to defects. They could not be stopped once lighted and thus had the potential for a major loss of life. However, to reduce development costs, NASa chose to go with solid rockets. In another first, they chose to go with Morton Thiokol, from the home state of the nasa administrator morton thiokol was in Utah. which is where it manufactured the solid rocket segments. However a completed solid rocket would be too big to transport by road to a port to get it over to Cape Canaveral. Thus it had to be built in segments and integrated at Cape Canaveral. Thus the seeds were sown for the Challenger disaster of a decade or so away. As a continuation of the sixties mindset of higher, faster and farther, NASa chose to develop shuttle main engines which had the highest thrust to weight of any ever built. They would be wonders of technology. It was argued that each engine would be reusable for 100 flights and that the shuttle would fly 100 times a year In the operational phase the cost for launch was supposed to be only $10 million a flight Since its payload was 40000 lbs To LEO it would give cost of $250/b to lEO However even then some issues were seen. Since the STS could only go to LEO (250km) it would have to carry an upper stage for it to be useful for any other obit NASa thus sold itself to other organizations to get the support it needed. The Shuttle payload bay was sized for various military missions as well as the payload carrying capacity to LEO. It persuaded the Air Force to develop a solid propellant upper stage (US) to put 500 lbs into LEO. It persuaded McDonnell Douglas to build two upper stages in return for a monopoly position. These were the PAM-D and PAM-A upper stages. It also started a cryogenic upper stage based on Centaur technology. NASA was in the desperate position(as it saw it)of having to do a big project to keep itself going and it was selling itself to get approval for the big project. The cost projections which finally sold the administration were based on a large number of flights a year which was based on a market which did not yet exist-(even today 50 flights /yr worldwide). Thus there was a classic chicken and egg problem. In retrospect the fundamental problem was forcing a pioneering technical program to be justified in economic terms. In this sense there was a huge disconnect between NASA and the administration. Note that apollo never justified on economic terms The facts are that NASa has never managed more than eight STS flights a year the Sme needed to be replaced every flight and the cost estimates per launch range from $80 million to $500 million. There are three ways to estimate cost The first is to take the total amount spent so far on STS and divide by the number of flights. This gives about $500 million/yr. The second is to take the annual amount in the nasa budget and divide by the annual flight rate. This gives about $250 million/yr. The last is to ask how much saved when an STS flight is cancelled. This is about $80 million/yr. This last figure is telling since what are saved are only the consumables. Most of the cost is in the standingNASA had suggested a completely reusable design based around liquid rocket engines. The idea was to stop throwing away expensive hardware. Nixon would only give them half the money requested. Thus they did away with the completely reusable design and even worse with the liquid rocket engines. In a compromise to fit within a fixed $3.2 billion NASA budget, they chose a non-reusable main tank and worst of all, to make up the thrust they chose solid rocket motors. As an aside, Von Braun had said that no human should ever ride on solid rockets. They were just too dangerous. One in twenty-five blew up due to defects. They could not be stopped once lighted and thus had the potential for a major loss of life. However, to reduce development costs, NASA chose to go with solid rockets. In another first, they chose to go with Morton Thiokol, from the home state of the NASA administrator. Morton Thiokol was in Utah, which is where it manufactured the solid rocket segments. However a completed solid rocket would be too big to transport by road to a port to get it over to Cape Canaveral. Thus it had to be built in segments and integrated at Cape Canaveral. Thus the seeds were sown for the Challenger disaster of a decade or so away. As a continuation of the sixties mindset of higher, faster and farther, NASA chose to develop shuttle main engines which had the highest thrust to weight of any ever built. They would be wonders of technology. It was argued that each engine would be reusable for 100 flights and that the shuttle would fly 100 times a year. In the operational phase the cost for launch was supposed to be only $10 million a flight. Since its payload was 40000 lbs. To LEO it would give cost of $250/lb to LEO. However even then some issues were seen. Since the STS could only go to LEO (~250km) it would have to carry an upper stage for it to be useful for any other obit. NASA thus sold itself to other organizations to get the support it needed. The Shuttle payload bay was sized for various military missions as well as the payload carrying capacity to LEO. It persuaded the Air Force to develop a solid propellant upper stage (IUS) to put 500 lbs. into LEO. It persuaded McDonnell Douglas to build two upper stages in return for a monopoly position. These were the PAM-D and PAM-A upper stages. It also started a cryogenic upper stage based on Centaur technology. NASA was in the desperate position (as it saw it) of having to do a big project to keep itself going and it was selling itself to get approval for the big project. The cost projections which finally sold the administration were based on a large number of flights a year which was based on a market which did not yet exist- (even today ~50 flights /yr worldwide). Thus there was a classic chicken and egg problem. In retrospect the fundamental problem was forcing a pioneering technical program to be justified in economic terms. In this sense there was a huge disconnect between NASA and the administration. Note that Apollo was never justified on economic terms. The facts are that NASA has never managed more than eight STS flights a year, the SME needed to be replaced every flight and the cost estimates per launch range from $80 million to $500 million. There are three ways to estimate cost. The first is to take the total amount spent so far on STS and divide by the number of flights. This gives about $500 million/yr. The second is to take the annual amount in the NASA budget and divide by the annual flight rate. This gives about $250 million/yr. The last is to ask how much is saved when an STS flight is cancelled. This is about $80 million/yr. This last figure is telling since what are saved are only the consumables. Most of the cost is in the standing