NASA sticks to 2010 shuttle retirement

NASA is apparently sticking to its plans to retire the venerable space shuttle fleet in 2010 - despite political pressure to keep it flying, pending development of homegrown replacements to supply the International Space Station. The US House of Representatives and Senate recently agreed a further $2.5bn to keep the space …

[Simon]

Am I the only one...

...a little shocked that it will take the programme $87m to not fly shuttles in 2012. Sounds like a bargain.

Black helicopter? Because it's cheaper.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Simon

"...a little shocked that it will take the programme $87m to not fly shuttles in 2012. Sounds like a bargain."

They'll be decommissioning the hardware and removing anything dangerous or likely to deteriorate before shipping the airframes to three lucky museums.

[Mike]

Re: Am I the only one...

You probably are in that case, if you think that the space shuttle program is just some bloke lighting the blue touch paper and a few astros then you're forgretting the huge industry behind the space program dedicated to space shuttles, decom is a major part, but you can't just turn an industry off, "OK, time to go home, nothing to see here".

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

Something is about to happen.

Something wonderful....

[Fred]

@ Dr Patrick J R Harkin

Agreed.... somethings gonna happen...