The end of the space shuttle marks a retreat in America's ambitions

[Middle-aged Europe]

Facts about the Shuttle:


- The Space Shuttle killed more people than any other spacecraft combined.

- The Columbia disaster back in 2003 was the final nail in the coffin for the program.

- The remaining Space Shuttles weren't decommissioned in 2003 because they were still needed to complete construction of the ISS. So a decision was made to continue operation of the Shuttle under even stricter security guidelines.

- In a way, the ISS gave the Shuttle program another eight years of life. But construction of the ISS is now completed, so the Shuttles are put out of service.


The bottomline is, capsules cost fewer lifes and fewer dollars. The Shuttles were kind of cool, but also the wrong path. Development of re-usable capsule systems are the future.

[Middle-aged Europe]

We could have saved enough money by allowing private companies to do the mundane space hauling and let NASA focus on science and exploration (which, after all, is their raison d'etre).

NASA's raison d'etre was to beat the Russians to the Moon "by the end of the decade". Which was achieved in 1969. From thereon, they were constantly looking for another purposes to justify their existence. Sometimes with success, and sometimes not.