It’s been more than 40 years since the first successful space shuttle launch. However, as we saw with the recent NASA launch, we still have launch failures. Why is it so tough to achieve reliability in space shuttle launches? Does this apply to all space technology?
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There are some quality responses here; but a point the other posts dont emphasise is the very narrow specialist nature of the technology.
While there is some overlap with military applications – which have tens of trillions of dollars thrown into them over the last five decades.
Arguably up until recently, **manned space flight is not actually a well funded mainstream industry.** It has a (proportionally) tiny budget, for what is effectively a continued series of research experiments (the launches included).
If major world economies *chose* to throw more time, money, and effort at the technology – you would rapidly see a significant reduction in cost, and an increase in reliability (all the listed problems notwithstanding).
This is what we are finally starting to see with the privatisation of space flight.
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