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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.
Skylab massed 77,088kg; the ISS at present masses 277,598kg, and if ever completed it will mass 419,600kg.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It did virtually nothing of merit in its entire lifespan.
That is entirely untrue. It functioned quite well as, shall we say, an "SUV" (Space Utility Vehicle). It carried satellites and other payloads into space, it carried astronauts to perform repair work on, perhaps most notably, the Hubble and the ISS. It hosted a variety of scientific experiments.
To say that the shuttle accomplished nothing is absurd. The problem with the shuttle is that it was too expensive for what it did. The reusable nature didn't reduce costs in the way it was hoped when it was designed.
The shuttle accomplished a great deal. The problem is that most of those things could have been accomplished for less money.