NASA plans to retire the Space Shuttle program upon completion of the ISS in 2010. The new Orion spacecraft is scheduled to be completed by 2014. This means that during those four years US astronaut's will have to hitch a ride back and forth. Hope they have a copy of "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". This is kind of sad. You suppose if the US had not poured so much money into this war our space program would be up to speed?

I would like to see more private and less public dollars going towards the space program.

The Space Shuttle program in my view has been a huge failure. It never came close to meeting its original goals of a huge number of flights per year, quick turn-around, having profitable(!) space cargo business, etc. It would never have been approved in the first place had those ridiculous, unrealistic goals not been used to sell it. Of course, the fact that we lost 40% of the shuttles built (2 out of 5) is a pretty terrible reliability record.

The technical achievement of being able to land like a glider on a runway under its own power is impressive - it still astounds me that they can be that precise in their landings. But the Shuttle is just too expensive and has had too many problems.

Andrew

On the contrary, I think the shuttle program has been quite a success. While it was a learning experience along the way, it did show us what works and what doesn't. It certainly made the privateers work much easier.

I think the "loss rate" of shuttles is acceptable because you really should be giving weigh to number of flights. The "loss rate" of Apollo spacecraft is arguably higher. We won't even mention some Russian space vehicles.

But I do think it is time to move on from the shuttle.

The Space Shuttle, yes with two major catastrophes included, has been IMHO a resounding success. The fact that Space Shuttle program will have been in place and functional for 30 years (given time off for the Challenger and Columbia accidents) is phenomenal. Yes we lost 2 of 5 vehicles, but at the same time if you look at the intense stresses and retrofitting that they have to go through EVERY time they go up and come back down ... everything involved, it's amazing that they lasted as long as they did to me. If you want to see a vastly unreliable space program with faulty models, look at the Soviet Union/Russia and their space program. Now **THAT** is a failure in comparison.

**ANYONE** who goes into space exploration for profit is crazy, because it simply can't be done. How does one make a profit, anyways? Corporate sponsorship? Heck, the Space Shuttle would look like a NASCAR with all those stickers. I can hear the astronauts now ... "Yeah, the Unocal 76/Tims Potato Chip Space Shuttle handled like a dream on takeoff, but she was getting a little loose over Alabama on re-entry, and all of a sudden she got REAL tight in the corners over New Mexico."

"Heck, the Space Shuttle would look like a NASCAR with all those stickers."

And here is proof!

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30263

I'm a spacenut, to be sure. But I don't believe the Space Shuttle has been a success. The original goal of the space shuttle- to be a safe, low cost/high use "space truck" was never realized.

The original space shuttle design betrayed the goal of a "safe" space vehicle. Very few abort situations are survivable. No real crew escape system. Fragile, expensive glass-based heat shield instead of the low-tech but proven ablative heat shield. Unable to be launched/landed in an unmanned configuration.

High use:Remember the original NASA assumptions that space shuttles would be able to have a turnaround time of only 2 weeks per mission? Never happened. Typical turnaround time between shuttle missions is at least two months.

Purpose: NASA's purpose for the space shuttle has shifted many times. Its original purpose- Low cost space truck- was changed to a high cost vehicle to place military or private satellites in space. As a matter of fact, to justify the high construction costs, NASA forced all military satellite placements to be completed via the space shuttle.

After the cold war, NASA changed the space shuttle's purpose to launching corporate satellites and doing science experiments. All of the science experiments have been of questionable value, such as how to make perfume in a weightless environment, or monitoring sea urchin eggs to see if they can be fertilized in space. Nearly all of these experiments are highly automated, with little or no effort from the astronauts. All of these experiments could be done from an unmanned vehicle. Which begs the question: Why risk manned spaceflight for experiments that don't need human interaction?

The unfortunate legacy of the space shuttle is that it is an evolutionary dead end in terms of space flight. The only missions the space shuttle can fly are low orbit orbital missions. It leads to no research or development for further advanced spacecraft.

It seems to me that the space shuttle is now being flown just as a make-work project. And the ISS is being constructed also as just a make-work project. There's no real scientific purpose or value for either.

NASA is keeping the space shuttle flying now just to finish construction of the ISS. And the ISS exists mainly as a place for the space shuttle to park while it's in orbit. In the meantime, NASA gets its appropriations, its jobs, its bureaucracy.

Imagine if Magellan, instead of seeking new knowledge of global navigation and exploration while attempting to sail around the world, simply sailed back and forth between France and England every two months.

If they asked me to fly on the space shuttle tomorrow, I'd be there. Yesterday. But in terms of any real, visionary, scientifically valid reason for the space shuttle's continued service, I don't see it.

It's time to retire the shuttle and reach for the moon or Mars. Anything less is a waste of our tax dollars, not to mention the tremendous imagination and wanderlust of mankind.

Well, the shuttle IS being retired and development is underway for a moon vehicle to be in operation after 2010.

Exactly. That's why the space shuttle should be mothballed immediately, and the ISS put in mothballs. The hundreds if millions, if not billions of dollars to support these horse and buggy technologies could be better put to use toward the moon vehicle and future missions.

I think we should just go big. Forget the moon. Go straight for Mars.

When we did the moon, tech was barely capable, but that was enough.

We are in a similar position for Mars today. There have been a number of one way ideas floated. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. Train up some people with nothing to lose and let them make their mark.

That's probably too morbid to fly though.

On a practical level, maybe the Moon makes better sense. Would be nice to set up some solar powered communications gear there. Could do the Google thing and let Brin & Page have their data center. Why not?

Agreed on the shuttle and ISS. Too many dollars and not enough understanding returned.

"Capricorn One", rent it and watch it.