NASA Shuttle Fell Short of Weekly Flight Vision After 1986 Challenger Disaster

5 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · May 31

Challenger’s January 1986 loss ended NASA’s push to make the Space Shuttle a routine, high-frequency ride to low Earth orbit, derailing plans to open spaceflight to civilians.
Weekly or even monthly missions had been part of the shuttle’s original promise as a fully reusable system, meant to replace Apollo-style one-off capsules with something closer to an orbital ferry.
Nine flights in 1985 marked the program’s busiest year, but that was still far below the envisioned tempo; through most of the 1990s, shuttle operations ran at only five or six flights annually.
That shortfall left commercial tie-ins and public-facing ambitions behind, including brand promotions in orbit and the shelved idea of sending Sesame Street’s Big Bird into space.

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