Triumph to Chaos.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) witnessed both great triumph as well as immense downfall in the 1980s. With the formulation of the Space Transportation System (STS), more commonly referred to as the space shuttle, NASA fundamentally shifted its approach to space travel. The space shuttle was to supersede traditional expendable launch vehicles (ELVs), as it was to be the first in the line of reusable spaceships. Competition in the race for space had increased in recent years, as both Europe and the Soviet Union had found more-economical methods of exploration. With the shuttle in operation all appeared in order for NASA, an organization that had long been underfunded by the federal government and was searching for a new symbol to retain its prestige as the premier space exploration organization in the world. The 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion derailed this...