Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle by Matthew H. Hersch. MIT Press, 2023, 329 pp.
From the moment the orbiter Enterprise was unveiled in California in 1976 until the final flight of the orbiter Atlantis in 2011, the space shuttle has captivated people worldwide. During that time, the shuttle was presented as the pinnacle of American spaceflight technology. Audiences marveled at videos of shuttle launches and images of astronauts performing spacewalks in the payload bay. Yet, there was a dark side to the shuttle. In fact, as Matthew Hersch indicates in Dark Star, the space shuttle was not the marvel it was perceived to be, doomed to fail before it ever flew.
Hersch—a Harvard University associate professor specializing in Cold War aerospace technology and former Guggenheim fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum—has previously written about the history of American astronauts and their role in human spaceflight in the 1960s and 1970s. With Dark Star, Hersch examines the little-known history of one of America’s most beloved spacecraft.
Hersch challenges the common perception that a passion for scientific research and exploration are what drove the development and implementation of the space shuttle. It is this misperception that the book focuses on, which he sums up in his introductory statement, “The shuttle was simply built the wrong way, at the wrong time, and for the wrong reasons” (12).
Hersch begins by tracing the development of the space shuttle as it relates to aircraft designs from World War II and the early Space Race. While discussing the German Silbervogel, the Bell X-1, and the US Air Force’s Dyna-Soar, Hersch demonstrates that while many military planners wanted a winged, reusable spacecraft, the potential cost in both dollars and lives made such a craft irrelevant. As Hersch writes, “The spaceflight achievements of the 1960s were a constant reminder of the superiority of ballistic missiles and capsules, as well as unpiloted vehicles of all kinds” (47). While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had used various capsule designs in a relatively short time to achieve monumental success, including lunar flight, rather than building upon this success, engineers and planners pushed for a winged craft for the next phase of human spaceflight.
Hersch examines how the quest to build a spaceplane was driven more by engineers’ dreams and the ego of astronauts rather than practicality in terms of design and budget: “No spaceplane had ever worked, and the only drawback to capsules was that they were so simple they bored the engineers building them” (50). Professional boredom aside, “the per-mission cost of a reusable capsule atop an expendable Saturn launch vehicle would be less than that of a fully reusable shuttle” (68). Yet, such desires combined with the closing of the Apollo hardware production lines ultimately pushed NASA to move forward with the plan to design the space shuttle.
Hersch’s focus then shifts to the topics of politics and national security. Several factors decided the space shuttle’s design and its ultimate failures. President Richard Nixon’s aspiration to continue in office and gain political support from various constituencies along with the Air Force’s needs for a launch vehicle led to design changes that “all but doomed it to operational disaster” (79). When NASA and the Air Force finally did settle on a design, the shuttle “quickly became both technically risky and too expensive to operate” (102).
Readers are given a glimpse into these systemic issues, which would lead to the darkest moment of the space shuttle program: the January 1986 Challenger incident, where the space shuttle exploded shortly after launch, killing all seven astronauts. Problems with the thermal protection system, the main engines, the solid rocket boosters, and the external tank all foreshadowed future system failures and loss of life. Still, through the successes of the shuttle program, NASA created “a false public expectation of the reliability of an inherently unreliable transportation system” (123). Yes, there was danger involved, but spaceflight had always been a dangerous endeavor which offered great rewards, as with the moon landings. Thus, NASA was willing to gamble the possibility of failure against the probability of more mission success.
In examining the Challenger and Columbia incidents—the latter occurring in February 2003, when the shuttle exploded upon reentry, killing all seven astronauts on board—Hersch highlights the engineering and management failures that ultimately contributed to the loss of two vehicles and their crews. Even with such failures, however, NASA did not quickly move beyond the shuttle to other launch vehicles. Instead, the public was told the shuttle was needed for heavy-lift missions, such as scientific satellites and International Space Station modules. Yet Hersch demonstrates these missions could have been completed using unmanned rockets. Nevertheless, without ready alternative manned vehicles, NASA continued to advocate for a vehicle that “had unnecessary human stowaways whose physiological needs complicated launches and used up valuable mass and volume allowances” (169).
Hersch also discusses possible alternatives to the shuttle, including the failed Soviet version, Buran. Multiple proposed winged spacecraft would fail to endure the scrutiny imposed by design, safety, or budgetary limitations. As a result, NASA would be forced to take what appeared to the public to be a step backward. With the announcement of NASA’s Orion capsule and Space Launch System, “after 45 years of development with the space shuttle, NASA had returned to where it had begun” (199).
In the epilogue, Hersch examines the final work of the space shuttle in assembling the International Space Station while also questioning the continuance of the program post-Columbia. Eventually, the remaining orbiters were decommissioned and sent to museums where they will be preserved to inspire future generations. Yet, even if they do inspire some, “they do so principally as relics of a more optimistic, though not necessarily wiser time” (216).
Overall, the story of Dark Star is one that needs to be told. The development of SpaceX’s Dragon and NASA’s Orion have raised questions about the renewed use of crew capsules and the retirement of the space shuttle orbiters. Understanding the complicated history of the space shuttle, with its monumental successes and failures, helps readers appreciate current trends in spacecraft design that seek to mitigate the risk of spaceflight for future generations of astronauts.
Chaplain, Captain Nathan W. Tubbs, USAF