Talk:Space Shuttle design process
This material from breaking up the main Space Shuttle program article.
This material is heavily POV and judgemental. I'm working to revise it.
Some problems
The article repeats many "traditional wisdom" items about the shuttle, but in many cases these are wrong, or inconsistent with authoritative statements.
Examples:
Wikipedia: "a high launch rate was needed to make the system economically feasible...roughly one or two a week"
This conflicts with Thompson's statement: "Hell, anyone reasonably knew you weren't going to fly 50 times a year...We never thought you'd ever get above 10 or 12 flights a year."
References:
Wikipedia: "Decisions to cut short-term development costs have resulted in a continued high-cost maintenance schedule."
The biggest reduction in development cost was eliminating the reusable flyback booster. It's very unlikely that increased maintenance, and in fact Thompson says pressing ahead with the flyback booster (even if funding was available) would have probably doomed the entire program. If this means reusable liquid fuel strap-on booster, that would increase, not decrease maintenance. It's unclear what short-term development costs were eliminated that resulted in high cost maintenance, or what the basis of that statement is. Joema 01:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)