While the system was "developed" within the original cost and time estimates given to President Richard M. Nixon in 1971, the operational costs, flight rate, payload capacity, and reliability by the time of the February 2003 "Columbia" accident proved to be much worse than originally anticipated. A year before STS-1's April 1981 launch, "The Washington Monthly" accurately forecast many of the Shuttle's issues, including an overambitious launch schedule and the consequently higher-than-expected marginal cost per flight; the risks of depending on the Shuttle for all payloads, civilian and military; the lack of a survivable abort scenario if a Solid Rocket Booster were to fail; and the fragility of the Shuttle's thermal protection system.