Panel moves to end NASA’s reliance on Russia to reach space station

[PosterChild]

10. The shuttles had...

...a very poor safety record. As Mike Griffith, the former NASA administrator, pointed out, the geometry of the launch vehicle put the shuttle under and along side the huge external fuel tank and in it's debris field. That was problematic.

In addition, the shuttle is a low-earth-orbit (LEO) vehicle, a region of "space" that is basically fully explored and over-populated. It isn't ever going to go, say, to the moon, let along Mars. Despite the success of the Hubble mission, which relied on the shuttle, unmanned launch and operations are far more cost effective and safe for LEO than the shuttle proved to be.

Government supervised commercial contracting of launch and operations for LEO and GEO are pretty reasonable and pretty standard. Manned LEO, like the International Space Station, I don't know - but it isn't obviously wrong. Manned exploration outside of high earth orbit isn't going to happen outside of a full-up government space exploration program.

Regaining and sustaining a manned capability for LEO / ISS would make sense as a stepping stone for exploration outside of high earth orbit. For instance, an asteroid capture mission and eventually Mars. But the shuttle doesn't fit into that progression very well.