Instead of planning the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, America should be preparing the shuttles for their next step in space: evolving, not shutting them down and laying off thousands of people. You know the very people whose experience we will need in the years ahead. Except if you lay them off now, they won’t be around in the next decade. Today’s Shuttle operation is made up of five elements. Here’s how we can put them all to use in a whole new space program. America, extend and transform the Shuttle, don’t end ‘em.