Space Shuttle retirement?

Well, Burt Rutan may have a genius for building aircraft and suborbital spaceplanes, but that doesn't mean he knows anything about how NASA should do its job. When SpaceShipOne made its first successful flight, he announced that NASA must be realizing it's "screwed". NASA's mission has essentially nothing to do with what he's doing, and his statement shows that he fundamentally misunderstands NASA's mission.

Retiring the Space Shuttle is an unfortunate necessity. It's becoming obsolete, it's not particularly safe, and it's VERY expensive (roughly a billion dollars per launch, and turnaround time is very slow). I think overall NASA is on the right track, though parts of it seem somewhat off to me.

A capsule based on Apollo sounds like a good idea. It's sound, proved its potential with the Apollo program, and it's more fuel-efficient than a giant space bus. It's also supposed to be reused up to 10 times--that's not as many times as one might hope for, but it's a whole lot better than the single-use functionality of Apollo, Soyuz, or Shenzhou. I don't like the idea of leveraging the solid rocket boosters--I think using cryogenic liquid fuels (like the Shuttle currently does with the external tank) is a much better idea.

Also I think it's foolhardy (to be kind) to be dropping the Shuttle cold turkey in 2010 or whatever, years before the Orion is even supposed to be ready to fly. And we know that date will come and go years before Orion ever gets to the launch pad. It's just like cancelling Apollo years before the Shuttle was supposed to be ready.

Of course I'm no expert, so my thoughts on it aren't necessarily on target either. But that's what I make of the Orion program as it stands.

I agree with the retirement of the shuttle, after all, the design is over 30 years old and they're expensive to operate, as for the Orion CEV, it's an okay stopgap measure, but for the longer term I think more effort should be directed at devising a reliable SSTO craft - NASA was on the right track with the now canceled X-33, despite the design problems, better results may be achieved if and when commercial interests invest in the technology

The shuttles were a giant scam.

We bought them on the lie that they were going to be cheaper and safer and usher in a new Space Age full of cheap materials and medicines which could only be manufactured in zero gravity. All a giant lie.

The only real tragedy involved in the retirement of the shuttles is the time line.... WHO came up with the plan to have NO access to space for at least FOUR years? That is just plain nuts. Heads should roll.

i do not know much about nasa or the space shuttle program but from what i remember when i was at the kennedy space station they are using the new rockets so they can go to the moon and mars, as the shuttle is only able to operate in the earths atmosphere.

I don't like the Shuttle at all anymore sent i learn that the shuttle program was nothing more then a huge Money Pit and that NASA was dragging it's feet about a new replacement sent the 90's. A lot of the original designers are also disappointed with what has been going on with the US space program. Let me tell you a little story about how it should had been if it wasn't for all that Damn Government bull **** getting in the way. The X-20A Dyna-Soar (Dynamic Soarer) was a single-pilot manned reusable spaceplane, really the earliest American manned space project to result in development contracts. Cancellation in December 1963 came only eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a first manned flight in 1966.

It evolved from the German Saenger-Bredt Silverbird intercontinental skip-glide rocket bomber. Walter Dornberger, former head of Peenemuende, was at Bell Aircraft in the 1950's and developed the Sanger-Bredt concept through various iterations (Bomi and Robo). In typical Pentagon fashion the final development contract went instead to Boeing. Politics resulted in its primary purpose changing during its life (manned space bomber, high speed test vehicle, reconnaissance platform), with the launch vehicles at various times including Titan I, Titan II, and finally Titan IIIC. Cancellation in December 1963 came only eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a first manned flight in 1966.

The Dyna-Soar itself would have been developed into Dyna-Soar II, III, X-20X, and Dyna-MOWS (Manned Orbital Weapons System) versions which would have run the gamut of missions - orbital supply, satellite rendezvous and inspection, reconnaissance, research, and orbital bombing.

After its cancellation, the Air Force pursued further development of manned spaceplanes through the Prime, Asset, X-23, and X-24 programs, with suborbital launch of subscale lifting body designs. B-52 drop tests of the X-24A and X-24B lifting body designs continued into the mid-1970's. Reportedly there were also black programs leading to suborbital flight and re-entry of a full-size unmanned lifting body patterned after the NASA HL-10. In the end, the Air Force was pressured by the Nixon Administration to accept participation in the space shuttle program in lieu of separate development of their own designs. This was the original vision of Dyna-Soar, the penultimate manned space bomber project of the 1950's. Following evaluation of the Robo space bomber proposals in the summer of 1957, the decision was made to combine several parallel Air Force and NACA manned spaceplane projects into a single effort. These included the SR 126 Robo; the System 459L Brass Bell hypersonic reconnaissance vehicle; and the System 610A Hywards follow-on to the X-15. The secret form DD-613 was completed on 23 August 1957 for System 464L with the confidential description 'Hypersonic Glide Rocket Weapon System', the confidential nickname 'Dyna-Soar' (for Dynamic Soarer), and the unclassified title 'Hypersonic Strategic Weapon System'.

Dyna-Soar was seemingly doomed from birth over controversy over its mission and the lack of a strong sponsor. The Eisenhower administration wanted to limit it to suborbital missions (so as not to infringe on the new NASA agency's mission of manned orbital flight). Once Eisenhower was replaced by Kennedy, the catastrophic new Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, began to work his malignant magic. There was no weapons system immediately resulting from Dyna-Soar. Nor did he believe there was any need for the military to waste so much money on an aeronautical research vehicle. The back-and-forth was extremely tedious and can be traced through the chronology below. Suffice to say after reviews, audits, and special studies ad nauseum the project was killed by McNamara in December 1963.

It was replaced by the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), equipped with a Gemini capsule, also launched by a Titan 3 booster. McNamara killed a project in being, with drawing release nearly 100% complete, and the first spacecraft one month away from final assembly. Expenditures were under control and Boeing had already spent $ 253.5 million of its $ 530 million development budget. Captive-carry flights would have begun within the year. In its place was a vague concept not even studied in any detail yet. After six years of development, it would in turn be cancelled in 1969 after wasting $ 1.5 billion. It was a typical example of McNamara's criminally poor judgment.

If Dyna-Soar and the Space Launching System had been completed, the United States would have had by 1965 a modern modular launch vehicle launching a reusable manned spaceplane -- something it now hopes to accomplish with the Delta IV / OSP by 2010. The nation could have been spared the false premise of the shuttle program and had a space station ferry in being by the beginning of the 1970's. It might even have been flying well into the 21st Century, while the Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle were consigned to the trash heaps of history. Right now i don't see any way out with the economy as it is, As i see it Space is on HOLD. Maybe some day someone will bring it back.