The American space capability has been exceptional over the past 50 years. For the last 30 years we have utilized the amazing shuttle. It has had its problems, most of them send flags up prior to loss of crew events and could have been corrected prior to LOC. The shuttle's capabilities are unique and none of the new designs, SLS, spaceX , etc don't come close to shuttle's capabilities and will not be operational for several years. The USA needs the capabilities of the shuttle NOW. Hubble & ISS are and will suffer without this capability. ISS may be deorbited by 2020. Hubble will need maintenance soon. This fact is obvious to everybody .
We have orbiters going to museums, lot of people seem to enjoy this, many showing their respect for the shuttle. But out of this large number, I would expect to see more with a passion like Cernan, the late Neil Armstrong, Kraft, Krantz, Crippen, and so on to retain this unique capability until we get a replacement. I would expect a capable journalist to ask the question, why are we scrapping this capability with no replacement.
Strangely , I don't see many bring up this issue. Don't see many former NASA /Contractor employees ranting & raving about this which seems strange. You see lots of ranting about free birth control, plus many similar topics.
I can only conclude that people just don't appreciate the significance of space capability. A former major aerospace manager told me it will take fear to stimulate the USA to maintain the required capability. Most do not believe it, China is making significant progress while we have many unrelated things on our minds.
Control of Space is critical to the USA , as Eugene Cernan & Harrison Schmitt have addressed.
The other day on twitter , I ask an Astronaut, why we got rid of our capability & what he thought about our loss. His answer was--- NASA is decommissioning the shuttle.
Very informative! Haha
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