Most advanced vehicle in the world-- new vehicles based on winged shuttles

"I think the United States by giving up the shuttle is making a serious mistake because technologically, it's the most advanced space vehicle in the world, and really there is no reason not to continue to fly it," former Johnson Space Center Director George Abbey said.
In Moscow, Abbey told us NASA should keep flying the shuttle indefinitely and in the meantime build a new space vehicle based on the technology it knows -- winged shuttles. He insists the new rockets that NASA has planned are a step backwards.
"Here we've got really the greatest vehicle in the world, and we are giving it up," Abbey said. "Don't start a whole new type of architecture that causes you to go back and start flying capsules, which gave up many years ago."
Abbey says without the shuttle, NASA has no way to get large cargos into space and that will make it more difficult to operate the space station. And he predicts more big layoffs in Houston and Florida when the shuttle program ends.
"For the United States to be in this situation is poor planning, and it doesn't really exhibit very good vision for the future," Abbey said.
Many space experts say the fault lies with members of congress who are more interested in saving jobs in their districts than funding a long-range, comprehensive plan for America's space future.
Monday on Eyewitness News at 6pm, we will take you inside the Russian space program in both Moscow and Kazakhstan, a place few American reporters have been since the fall of the Soviet Union.