Why did NASA retire Space Shuttle Program despite having three active shuttles?

It’s been a long time since the retirement of NASA Space Shuttle Program. With the end of this program, thousands of employees and labourers had lost their lives. NASA had even facilitated a social affair for the workers at its centres that managed and upheld the flyout of the shuttle. Here's the Space Shuttle's last flight.

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When did NASA Space Shuttle Program end?

NASA stopped the Space Shuttle Program almost nine years ago on July 21, 2011. This was when Atlantis rolled to a stop at the Kennedy Space Center, the independent agency’s home port.

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Why did NASA retire the Space Shuttle Program?

By the time the NASA Space Shuttle Program had concluded, the agency still had three shuttles remaining. Each shuttle had flown a total of 25, 33, and 39 times respectively. The shuttles were intended for 100 flights each through their lifetime which, however, couldn’t happen. The agency had been facing issues with parts obsolescence through the shuttle space program. Two of the shuttles had even experienced failure, however, the rate of failure was still equivalent to all other launch vehicles.

There is also a level of innate hazard when it comes to space travel; however, with every disappointment, there has been a considerable improvement in terms of reliability for subsequent flights. This was one of the factors that made people question the decision to end the project.

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The main concern was that the program was excessively costly. NASA has revealed that the average cost to launch a Space Shuttle costs nearly $450 million for a single mission. The shuttle also failed to meet its guarantee for minimal effort access to space by virtue of the system’s framework re-usability. NASA has also stated that it ended the NASA Space Shuttle program to utilise its assets towards sending astronauts past the low-Earth orbit, to the space rock, back to the moon and eventually to Mars.

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Apart from building another multi-reason crew vehicle (MPCV) that is intended to take teams outward into the solar system, the agency is also looking to solicit dispatch services from four commercially-designed shuttles which will be used to take space travellers to and from the International Space Station. Michael Coats, executive and transport administrator of Johnson Space Center, has stated that with the conclusion of the NASA Space Shuttle Program, they bring to a close a striking chapter in the country's history in space and usher in the following unprecedented moment in America's account of exploration.

All the previous astronaut launches were controlled by NASA. However, the upcoming NASA SpaceX launch will be controlled by the private company, SpaceX, a company owned by Elon Musk.

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