I don't know how much the Russkies will charge us. Here's the scoop on the shuttle program shut down. Actually, it was W that closed the shuttle program, BUT, he made it contingent on the completion of the space station. There was also another teensie-weensie reason for W to begin the retirement of the shuttle program.
That teensie-weensie reason was his initiation of the Constellation Program, which was for the development of a new spacecraft to ferry up to 7 astronauts to the space station (by 2013), the moon (by 2019) and long term goal to Mars (~2040).
W envisioned a permanent base on the moon where the large spacecraft would be assembled and launched under lunar gravity (1/6 of Earth; no atmospheric resistance) to Mars. Since water ice has been discovered on Mars in large quantities, we could grow things. I was working on the service module which was being designed for a lunar mission.
In February, 2010, the muslim canceled the entire Constellation Program. This was for the Orion capsule and all the launch vehicles. The young people on Orion that were new hires that stupidly and foolishly voted for this monster were in total bewilderment and received an abrupt wake-up call.
There was such an outcry from the congressional members of aerospace states that the muslim was forced to allow funding for the Orion capsule, but only to be used for a 'lifeboat' at the space station to rescue astronauts and cosmonauts in an emergency evacuation.
Fortunately, there was still enough pressure to force the muslim to allow Orion to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, but no farther.
Then the muslim got the brilliant idea to land on an asteroid instead of the moon, and funding was increased to allow 'deep space' Orion development. That has since gone by the wayside.
We are currently testing the first Orion test unit.
People ask me why would we want to go to Mars? Every time I hear this question, my answer is always, "I would rather live under a bubble on Mars in freedom than on Earth under the muslim's tyranny.
One beautiful thing about the end of the shuttle program. W cancelled it but when it actually ended, It happened on the muslim's 'watch'! The muslim is going to get the blame!
Thanks, 2/3rds. I appreciate you giving us this history. We have known that the shuttle program was a limited program, as are all things. But Caligula has shut it down with no concrete plans for future space exploration in the works. Orion has been cut back, as you note (did I understand that correctly?), so much that it isn't on the cutting edge of exploration. There is no good reason for this at all. And to deliberately cut off a great government program, one of the few that are great, is beyond the pale. This debacle is hung around Caligula's neck and will remain there until the end of time.