Nasa Details Shuttle's Retirement

schliz writes "Nasa has announced that it intends to officially retire the aging space shuttle fleet by 2010, four years before it has a replacement craft ready. The space shuttle fleet will make ten more flights, mainly to add modules to the International Space Station and carry out repairs and upgrades to the Hubble orbital telescope. The retirement will leave the US without orbital capacity for at least four years, until the Ares booster programme is complete. European and Russian launchers will service the space station in the meantime."

Comments

Outsourcing Space Transport

[EmagGeek]

I am sure we'll end up outsourcing this, too.. so... someone will develop a satellite by outsourcing the work to India, the manufacturing to China, and launch it into space on a Russian space vehicle.

My question is, what the hell does anyone need the US for anymore? The US doesn't actually DO anything except act as a giant bureaucracy.

Re:They did

[Shakrai]

I believe at this point Lenin is supposed to break out of his glass case and zombie "MUST CRUSH CAPITALISM"

Hey, say what you will about the Cold War but we didn't worry about airplanes flying into our buildings back in those days.

Start with a little bit of saber-rattling here and there. Throw in a few proxy wars and quagmires in Southeast and Southwest Asia. Have an arms race or two followed by the occasional throw-down during the Winter Olympics Hockey games.

Those were the days..... Maybe Putin (err, I mean Medvedev of course...) will get us back to them? Please, pretty please? If not, can we settle our disputes with the Middle East with a good game of hockey? USA! USA! USA! USA!