Why Wasn't ISS Built Sooner?

Since a major point of the shuttle was to construct a
space station why didn't construction start with like the
third or fourth shuttle launch in the 1980s? Why didn't
more people question the absence of any serious station
plan then? I recall seeing lots of newspaper articles
in the late 1970s depicting how the fancy new space
station might look and there was a lot of talk about
that sort of thing but it all faded away sometime BEFORE
the first shuttle launch replaced with an emphasis on
flying habit modules and labs in the shuttle cargo bay.
Or am I remembering wrong?

-McDaniel

(Hobbs aka McDaniel) wrote in
om:

Since a major point of the shuttle was to construct a
space station why didn't construction start with like the
third or fourth shuttle launch in the 1980s?

Because there was no station program approved.

Why didn't
more people question the absence of any serious station
plan then?

NASA had serious station plans accompanying the original space shuttle
proposals in 1969-72, but they were cancelled due to cost. NASA waited
until after shuttle development was complete (the end of flight test in
1982) before seriously bringing up the idea again. It took a couple of
years to convince the Reagan administration; he formally proposed the space
station program in 1984.

I recall seeing lots of newspaper articles
in the late 1970s depicting how the fancy new space
station might look and there was a lot of talk about
that sort of thing

All speculative.

but it all faded away sometime BEFORE
the first shuttle launch replaced with an emphasis on
flying habit modules and labs in the shuttle cargo bay.

Because that's all NASA could do, in the absence of a real station program.

Or am I remembering wrong?

You're remembering selectively. The parts you remember are correct, but
there's more to the story.


--
JRF

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IIRC (from what I read somewhere, I wasn't alive at the time), the
original plan was for the Shuttle to have been done in time to reboost
Skylab from its rapidly decaying orbit, but delays and physics
eventually doomed the idea.

IMHO, having both Shuttle AND Skylab right away could have saved us
nearly a decade of BS. The station could be a veritable 'Cosmograd' by now.

-Jonathan

--
Jonathan Drake, '04
Physics and Astronomy
Dickinson College

In article ,
Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:
Since a major point of the shuttle was to construct a
space station why didn't construction start with like the
third or fourth shuttle launch in the 1980s?

Because NASA could not get funding to develop the station at the same
time as shuttle development. They were forced to build the shuttle first
and *then* think about the station, which is exactly what they did.

The long delay between starting to think about the station (early 80s)
and starting to build hardware is a complicated story of bureaucratic
ineptness and unfavorable politics.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

On 16 Jan 2004 17:23:33 -0800, (Hobbs aka
McDaniel) wrote:

Since a major point of the shuttle was to construct a
space station why didn't construction start with like the
third or fourth shuttle launch in the 1980s?

Neither the President (three of them) or Congress would fund a Space
Station until 1984.

Why didn't
more people question the absence of any serious station
plan then?

There was a cart/horse or chicken/egg problem to overcome. NASA
originally wanted to launch a Space Station on Saturn V rockets, and
use a much-smaller Shuttle to deliver crew and supplies to the Space
Station. That concept died when Saturn production was officially
killed circa 1971. In the absense of Saturn V to launch a Space
Station, NASA had to stretch the Space Shuttle to launch a modular
Space Station. But the politicians would not agree to fund the Space
Station until the Shuttle was actually flying. The Shuttle flew in
1981, Reagan's first year in office. By 1983, he was seriously
considering building a Space Station, and he officially gave the
go-ahead for Space Station Freedom in his January, 1984 State of the
Union Address. Then came Challenger and the drastically reduced
Shuttle flight rate, which made the initial Space Station designs
impractical, forincg one redesign after another until Space Station
Freedom was cancelled by Clinton in 1993. Some of Freedom was revived
as International Space Station in 1994.

I recall seeing lots of newspaper articles
in the late 1970s depicting how the fancy new space
station might look

There has been no shortage of Space Station stories in the popular
media since the first one showed up in Collier's in 1953.

and there was a lot of talk about
that sort of thing but it all faded away sometime BEFORE
the first shuttle launch replaced with an emphasis on
flying habit modules and labs in the shuttle cargo bay.
Or am I remembering wrong?

You're ignoring political reality, which was "we'll only fund one
major program at a time".

Brian

Brian Thorn writes:

Station, NASA had to stretch the Space Shuttle to launch a modular
Space Station.

I thought that the Shuttle was sized to satisfy the DoD.

"Gary W. Swearingen" wrote in message
...

Station, NASA had to stretch the Space Shuttle to launch a modular
Space Station.

I thought that the Shuttle was sized to satisfy the DoD.

both, actually. Starting to see the basic design problems with teh shuttle?
g

--
Terrell Miller


"It's one thing to burn down the **** house and another thing entirely to
install plumbing"
-PJ O'Rourke