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

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Manned space flight has been a piece of high tech pork for about four decades now.  Unfortunately, the Imperial Space Station will still continue to be a boondoggle paid for by the taxpayers.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Lief, how much science could have been funded more cheaply had we not wasted so much money on manned space flight after Apollo.  Up to and including Apollo manned space flight made sense as there was no way to know how advanced and lightweight remotely controlled systems would become.

The USAF MOL program was canceled without being flown and the Soviet Almaz program was also canceled because it not only became cheaper to use unmanned satellites to do their reconnaissance roles, but they could do it better because they didn't have to deal with human cargo.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

And never when it comes to the manned space program.  The idiotic manned asteroid probe that is the latest big idea for NASA being a case in point.  Could we do it?  Sure.  Could we do it more cheaply with an unmanned mission? Certainly.  Would it be worth doing, even as a unmanned mission? Probably not.  If we're going to spend that much money on space, let's do something really worthwhile, albeit with some significant risk. A permanent Martian colony is a worthwhile goal.  And I mean colony, not visit.  The people who go to Mars should be going there to settle, never to return to Terra.