Do you miss the Space Shuttle Program

[Commander MK]

Do you? I do

[Jason Patterson]

Not even a little. It was expensive, scope limiting, and expensive. Good riddance.

ETA: By scope limiting, I mean that during the entirety of the Shuttle program, the US was satisfied with never sending people much more than 100 miles up because we had people in space pretty much constantly, scraping the top of the atmosphere.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Jason Patterson

[Wait- Was That Important?]

I think it was a very cool and inspiring program.

HOWEVER, I also believe that it was cancelled for very sound reasons. It never should've become the main method of going to space today for the USA, but wound up becoming so, and now look where we are.

I dislike the SLS program. I think the Constellation program was very well thought out and too far along to have been canceled as it was, and now its successor is a misguided and far more expensive program.

[deadshot462]

By the time I really got into it, it was in the last few missions. I agree that USA should have had a Soyuz-style capsule strictly for sending people to space. No need to use up a risky shuttle mission just to send astronauts to the ISS.

[ddavis425]

I don't really miss them, the shuttles were very expensive, dangerous (more than they should have been), and outdated. But they looked awesome.

[CtrlAltEL1TE]

Nope. Overpriced piece of crap which was never able to even fill its intended purpous (be cheaper to launch payloads than a conventional rocket)

[Nimaci]

It was an overly expensive engineering marvel, but at least it didn't throw away RS-25's like the Ares V would have.

I'm looking forward to a competitive, tender driven commercial market... And I can't wait to see the old guard pull up their socks.

[whatisthisidonteven]

They definitely looked good, but they had failed their goals, they were way too expensive.

[EnDSchultz]

I was tearing my hair out trying to figure how to answer this, but finally went with "no". I don't miss the Shuttle Program because, as stated, it was needlessly expensive, met none of its goals, and confined a huge chunk of NASA's investment to LEO.

But do I miss the Space Shuttle? Hell yes I do. It was a cultural icon, and we'll probably never see such a stunning and memorable launch vehicle again.

[Eric S]

I miss the shuttles, but more because we don't have a replacement for them at this time (and given the way the federal budget goes, that may become NASA's steady state) than what they'd been doing recently.

That will probably fade when the Falcon 9 starts boosting manned dragons. Frankly, the idea of commercial space missions thrills me more than anything NASA has done in LEO lately, which isn't surprising seeing as the reason they gave for cancelling the shuttle was that they wanted to focus on missions outside Earth's immediate influence and let the commercial entities take over the day to day LEO stuff.

[Kerbface]

I chose no, because, while it was a pretty cool looking ship, if it's a waste of money, it's only limiting.

[Fredonia]

Really expensive, really complicated, really dangerous, really cool looking.

I'm honestly more irked about the fact that we stopped the shuttle program without having any immediately available way of sending astronauts to space without shelling out(I think) 20 million per head to ride Soyuz. Not that I don't like the cooperation, but I'm guessing we could save around 5 to 10 million per head to launch our own guys if we actually had the system in place.

I'm not sure if it was poor planning, but it was definitely poor funding that caused it.

To get back on topic, I'll miss seeing something that cool looking launch, but in reality, I won't miss the program one bit looking at it from expenses and safety. Sure, it was the space vehicle of my generation, but really, we could have had something a ton better by now... an American Soyuz if you would...

[CalculusWarrior]

I agree with EnDSchultz: I love the space shuttles themselves, but the Program simply restricted humans to low Earth orbit, which likely contributed to the lack of funding NASA is feeling. Instead of exploring other worlds and discovering new resources, we stayed close to our home planet and did some science experiments.

I'm excited for the Orion capsule and SLS myself; I've even made a replica in KSP!

[Flymetothemun]

I Miss it. Even with all the stats and inefficiencies I still miss it. I Miss the epic launch. I miss how it looked strapped to a 747. I Miss how looked docked to the ISS. But most of all, I'm proud to say that when I grow old and become senile, I'll be able to tell my grandkids: "Back when I was your age, the GOVERNMENT bolted a POORLY-FLYING AIRPLANE to a ROCKET, and it ONLY GOT TO LEO! And BOY WAS I HAPPY WITH IT!"

[Camelotking524]

I don't really miss it. The 9 year old little kid inside me, wishes he got to land it.

[Tommygun]

I voted no, if they had built it like a slightly larger Boeing X-37 it would have been fine, but the Air Force wanted a big space truck for hauling up large cargo.

We were then stuck with a large vehicle that would always be expensive to launch due to its size.

[ThatBum]

Yeah, it's inefficient and expensive, but the program was long running and it's now an indelible cultural icon. At least they did it right with the public image.

[legodragonxp]

I do miss the shuttle program, but when I was a kid watching Enterprise fly off the back of a 747 and hearing about the great Skylab scare, it was 'the' technical cool thing out there. The Cold War was screaming on, Iran had US citizens hostage, the economy was in bad shape, but we had developed a Space Shuttle that was supposed to be able to fly once a week, recover broken satellites, build space stations, and just be 100% pure awesome. That is what I miss about the space shuttle, the great hope that it would make space travel a common daily event and pave the way for ships and stations ala 2001. It never made it, so that dream is what I miss.

It is funny now that I am reading through a 1988 JANES space directory book on how many issues the early shuttle flights had (and Skylab and Apollo before it). Missing tiles, debris falling off the EFT (long before Columbia would be victim of it it was well documented), hell even the toilet was a major sore spot for all involved.

Anyhow, yes, I miss what it was supposed to be, and not what it became.

-Lego

[iDan122]

Definitely, it was a great way to sending people and stuff intro space. I'd like to see another way of sending a Hubble space telescope and repairing it(or even retrieving it). So yeah, f*ck Obama

[SuperFastJellyfish]

The space shuttle is an important icon from my childhood. I voted yes for that reason alone. From my adult viewpoint, it was necessary to decommission the program to divert the funds to better/more efficient missions(due to IMO subpar funding). NASA made the right choice for the situation they are in. I understand the American public doesn't care much about exploration anymore due to the luxuries that we take for granted, but in order to keep exploration going it was a good idea to give(forced to give) the reigns over to the private sector. The goals of the private sector are more about profit than furthering mankind's knowledge, but the technologies that will be created from the profitmongerers will advance us faster than NASA ever could.

Rule of Acquisition #202:

The justification for profit is profit.

[EndOfTheEarth]

No. Watching SpaceX try their hand at it is so much more exciting, and I am very much looking forward to SLS, once the Gov't gets around to funding it.

[UNSC]

I thought it "could" get higher than LEO but was rarely used like that.

[Shuttle]

Yes.

One of the things I don't understand is why all the astronauts nowadays travel to space by Russkiye Kosmicheskiye Korabli aka russian space vessels. Americans had Apollo capsule in 60s, they now have tons of launch vehicles... Is it so hard to develop Soyuz-style capsule or remake Apollo pod to put on top of one of the existing rockets?

[Eric S]

So yeah, f*ck Obama

Not realistic to blame him for it. Bush announced the retirement of the shuttle program in 2004, with a planned retirement in 2010 when the US portion of the ISS construction was completed, but was delayed because that work wasn't completed on time. Not to mention the fact that I don't think we can really blame Bush either, as even if he did make the final call on it, he was probably just approving other people's recommendations. I don't think even NASA expected the shuttle fleet to fly this long.

I thought it "could" get higher than LEO but was rarely used like that.

The Hubble missions were just about the extent of the shuttles range, as I understand it, at about 2-3 times the altitude of the ISS.

[astropapi1]

They looked awesome, but they were extremely expensive and dangerous. SpaceX is doing an amazing job now, and I hope they continue to do so.