[Garth Tater]

"Sounds like a mere updating of the basic shuttle concept. Reusable glider. Meh. "

This is what the Space Shuttle should have been - a small, reusable craft to get men up to and back from low-earth orbit.

We already had plenty of heavy lifters for getting cargo up there. Safe, reliable and CHEAP. But no, we had to throw them out and start all over with a wonderfully expensive, brand new project that could spread the $$$ all over many, many Congressional districts.

Billions (maybe trillions?) of dollars wasted. Years wasted. Lives wasted. And now 40 years later we're finally getting around to doing what we should have done back then.

[Spktyr]

And it still has many of the problems the Shuttle had. Chief among which is the still horrifically vunlerable heat shield tiles and the long turnaround time.