The orbiters are fully capable of continued safe operations

Political obstruction towards any form of extension was seen via the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), who sided with Mr Griffin during his insistence it was too “risky” – from a Loss Of Vehicle/Crew (LOV/C) standpoint – to extend the Shuttle Program.

ASAP’s remarks drew a rare reaction via Mr DeCastro’s NASA counterpart, John Shannon, who classed ASAP’s comments as “disturbing”. However, ASAP’s stance has never changed – despite a run of amazingly “clean” missions – as seen comments made less than a month ago, when another call to continue flying the Shuttle was strongly dismissed by the advisory body. (An upcoming article will be produced on the ASAP meeting, which was also wary of the commercial companies).

With such staunch opposition, the opportunity for the orbiters to fly again – even via a commercial role – always had a major roadblock from the proposals reaching a level where a serious consideration could be made.

“I could go into lots of details on how to make a “commercial” shuttle program succeed but bottom line there are many ways to make it work and if there were non-NASA customers, the program costs could have been shared,” added Mr DeCastro. “That said, the politics of such a decision blocked it from ever being seriously considered.

“The issue is almost entirely about cost and politics. The Orbiters are fully capable of continued safe operation. It is unfortunate that some have used the argument of “safety” to shorten the life of the Shuttle program. Those of us who have been closely involved in the process know it was a budget decision and a lack of political will to maintain our Nation’s leadership position in Human Space Flight.

“The safety records of the Soyuz compared to the safety records for the shuttle are about even. The most recent Shuttle missions have been among the best ever flown. The Team’s understanding of the Shuttle is better now than at any time in the past.

“The reason to shut down the Shuttle Program is that the Nation doesn’t want to spend any more money on Shuttle. President Bush cancelled the Shuttle Program to fund the Constellation Program. President Obama cancelled the Constellation Program to fund commercial companies.

“It would have been prudent to reinstate the Shuttle Program as part of the cancellation of the Constellation Program to eliminate our gap in America’s ability to access space with human transport.”