I know the shuttle program is set to be retired this year. I am wondering how many flights the space shuttles have left. Do we know which shuttle will be the last to fly? Also, I heard the other night that President Obama has killed funding for the rockets that will replace the shuttle which pretty much kill a return to the moon. Is the shuttle program going to be extended because of this?
birchardvilleobservatory
I guess we'll have to see what happens. Congress does have the right to appropriate money for things, but the President has to spend it, so to speak. The President can't spend what Congress does not appropriate, so we'll have to see -- an extra 10 or 20 billion dollars doesn't seem like much these days.
Whether the shuttle's life is extended, whether the Ares rocket designs are abandoned, we'll have to see. It doesn't make a lot of sense to kill the program to start over again, unless the new rocket systems are going to be built in Chicago or something like that, instead of wherever the Ares was being built.
Nomadd
There's a chance they'll launch STS-135 in addition to the five scheduled remaining flights since it will be ready to go as the rescue mission for STS-133 anyhow. If they went for it and something went wrong with it after launch they'd just hang out at the station until the Russian could send a Soyuz to bring them home.
cyswxman
There are 5 more missions remaining, with the next one scheduled to blast off February 7th. Here are the details of these upcoming missions: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/index.html