A commission investigating the disintegration of Columbia on its return flight recommended that the Space Shuttle program be ended and replaced with a new system. The Bush administration came up with the Constellation program and formally ordered the termination of the Shuttle program by this year. The idea, besides the safety issues, was that the money that had been going to the shuttle program could then be freed up to help build a replacement system that would take humans back to the moon and eventually Mars. However, the program was underfunded even so and thus the Obama administration has decided to go with a private sector solution. Several competing companies have been given seed money to help them pay for the development of manned human rated spacecraft. SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Blue Origin and Boeing are all in the process of building replacement spacecraft. SpaceX is ahead in the game, with their now proven Dragon spaceship that has successfully been launched on their Falcon 9 and recovered from orbit. By 2014–ahead of the original schedule for Bush’s now cancelled Constellation program–SpaceX and perhaps the other corporations will be flying their Shuttle replacements. So, rather than a single vehicle going to space ferrying humans from the United States, there are likely to be several. And they will do it for a fraction of what the Space Shuttle cost.<\/p>\n
The final Shuttle flight is scheduled to lift off at 8:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time, though weather is expected to force a delay. Nevertheless, the last Shuttle will, very soon, depart on its final flight, after 30 years of service. It has been glorious, but what is to come will be even more wonderful.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\")
Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A commission investigating the disintegration of Columbia on its return flight recommended that the Space Shuttle program be ended and replaced with a new system. The Bush administration came up with the Constellation program and formally ordered the termination of … Continue reading