[saganite]

We shall see but it’s a safe bet that the NASA replacement was never going to fly. As for the shuttle, it existed to serve the ISS and the ISS served to justify the shuttle. The perfect circle jerk and together they have stalled our space program for 30 years.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

That “circle jerk” proved that humans can construct, transport and assemble (and have them work as planned on cue) complex structures in space.

What did you do today?

[tanknetter]

We shall see but it’s a safe bet that the NASA replacement was never going to fly. As for the shuttle, it existed to serve the ISS and the ISS served to justify the shuttle. The perfect circle jerk and together they have stalled our space program for 30 years.

There was actually a successful test launch of the manned-vehicle stack (using the SRB derivative and a boilerplate capsule) prior to the program being put into a terminal holding pattern.

The biggest issue is that the future US space program was supposed to go in two different directions: LEO for getting to the ISS and doing micro-gravity science, and then out to the Moon, asteroids and Mars.

The Bush plan envisioned a common crew vehicle and shuttle-derived launch hardware that could fulfill both sets of missions. The current plan which transfers a lot of the responsibility to private ventures like SpaceX (which is about to launch an unmanned cargo vehicle to the ISS, and is working on a crewed vehicle for ISS work as well) neglects a lot of the deep-space (Moon and beyond) capability.

This isn't just foolish, it's downright dangerous. The fact is that this little rock we're all living on has eaten a good number of mass-extinction-producing asteroids/comments in the past, and will inevitably do so in the future (in fact, we're a bit overdue for one). The human race is now the ONLY species that this planet has produced that have the capability to save their a**es from that kind of thing. The technological capability IS there (and it doesn't involve popping off the world's ICBM arsenals at an incoming asteroid - which is sci-fi lunacy). It just needs to be developed and tested. Going out to asteroids and doing long-duration missions to Mars is the ONLY way we're going to have the capability ready to go when (NOT "if") we need it.

[wrencher]

True that the NASA replacement will never fly. NASA cannot produce such science today, it is an agency of EEO numbers and social goals (Muslim outreach now) and will never get back into space unless it pays somebody else to get them there. Years of Affirmative Action hiring and promotions have consequences. NASA employees drink coffee, read the paper, and try to impede the work of others.

The space shuttle was the result of work from 4 decades ago and far outlived it’s original design goals. The capable NASA employees are long gone and their experience is wasted. Don’t blame Obama, US people can go look in the mirror, it’s taken decades to slowly achieve this state.