As a retiring executive from a skunk works entity remarked, “If you can dream it, we have already done it”!
I would not be surprised if the reason the space shuttle was scrapped is that we do have the means of space transport that will be kept top secret for years to come.
Either that, or the Communist secret agent man wanted to destroy our space program.
LOL, right.
That's why NASA depends on the Russian Soyuz to shuttle astronauts back and forth, because Amerixan lives need to be risked in Soviet rockets to keep a "secret".