Shuttle Retirement In 2010 Under Review

An anonymous reader alerts us to an Orlando Sentinel report based on a leaked NASA email, indicating that NASA is looking at options to extend the Shuttle program. The fighting between Russia and Georgia has put a strain on plans to rely on Russian boosters until the Shuttle's replacement flies in 2015. Yet extending the Shuttle's life is no sure thing. According to a former NASA program manager, "We started shutting down the shuttle four years ago. That horse has left the barn." And NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has told Congress that if the Shuttle fleet were to fly two missions a year until 2015, "the risk would be about one in 12 that we would lose another crew. That's a high risk... [one] I would not choose to accept on behalf of our astronauts." And then there's the matter of finding the $4 billion a year it would take to keep the fleet operational. The Sentinel mentions that John McCain has called for additional Shuttle flights, but doesn't mention that Barack Obama has made the same point, as the BBC reports.

Comments

If the best we can do in "manned space flight"

[multiplexo]

is the shuttle then the space program deserves to die and I'd be happy to take it out behind the barn and put a bullet through its head. The shuttle has accomplished absolutely nothing of value that couldn't have been done by unmanned boosters. ISS is a fucking joke, it's smaller than Skylab, a space station that we launched in an afternoon over 30 years ago. Let's face it, the manned space program is a bad joke that should have been shut down years ago. NASA should have gone to Congress and said "if you want us to have a significant and real manned space program then this is what it will cost" and if Congress didn't approve the money then NASA should have said, "OK, forget it, we'll do unmanned stuff.". Instead of doing that NASA has spent the last 35 years running a manned space program that has accomplished nothing except to thoroughly explore low earth orbit, kill astronauts in avoidable accidents because of the incompetence of NASA management, provide pork for various congressional districts and pad the bottom lines of bloated, stupid, corrupt and inefficient aerospace contractors such as Lockheed and Boeing. Fuck NASA's manned space program. Scuttle the shuttle and for good measure de-orbit ISS and let the US Navy use it for target practice when it re-enters.