At least, they've admitted that "yeah, it might be time to start seriously looking at some new designs". It's like when the car quits for the umpteenth time, and has to be towed, and turns out to need a new fuel pump/starter/head gasket, and finally Paw gets sick of it and admits, "Yeah, maybe it's time to start looking at a new car..."

So NASA's shopping around. Whoopee! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] Now all we have to do is hope that the money's there, once they get a nice four-door sedan picked out...

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/0...sor/index.html
The SLI website.
http://www.slinews.com/

Any tech people out there who know more about it, wanna take a guess at what they might go with? Personally, I have no clue but I'm awful curious.

Considering that the shuttle design is coming up on being thirty years old, it's about time.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

And here I was hoping that NASA would finally go with the convertable...

I guess they didn't want the wind blowing through the astronauts' hair during re-entry. Sheesh... where's their sense of adventure? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

__________________
If E = MC², why do I have less energy the more mass my body acquires?
That is all.

--Azpod... Formerly known as James Justin

Usually the choice made by governments (or government agencies) is the one that actually returns some of the money spent into the pockets of the individuals who made the choice.

Even a small part of those billions can give a couple people a pretty comfortable home, retirement fund, school for their children, lots of vacations, and abundant money for generations to come.

Since some of the money has "other purposes", they need to cut on the vehicle costs, so what will be chosen will have to ensure to get the most mileage out of the money, which is in fact to come back to a couple people.

Maybe something like Space Shuttle II, which is exactly identical to the first one but costs a hell of a lot more. Hey, can you really blame them? Life is expensive nowadays!

It is time to ditch the space shuttle though. Not for what it is (seems damn safe, and it sure does get the job done, slowly and steadily, and I can recall only one major incident, and it wasn't even a shuttle problem per se), but for public attention. Everyone is so bored of it. It's so... ordinary. I think what everyone would like the most is something truly daring but that doesn't end in disaster (**shudders**, X-33). A second mistake like that and I guess they could take some serious heat for dilapidating massive funds carelessly.

Their "safer" I don't think will happen though. Difficult to get much more safer than the space shuttle, unless their idea of going to orbit is standing perfectly still with a roof over their heads and a pillow under their butts.

All in all they can only work on the efficiency, time between flights, maintenance personnel needed (the bane of the actual shuttle **shudders**) and size, though my guess is it will be smaller, which is sort of a step back I think.

Think... Some number crunching

3 Billion dollars given to the Israelis to buy in top notch hardware and kick seven shades of excrement out of their neighbours with.

4.8 Million spent on a Shuttle that will benefit all of humanity through it's research.

Just me that thinks this is a chronic waste of YOUR taxes?

er.. um that's $4.8 BILLION, not million....

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

What exactly was the problem with the X-33? Why was it cancelled?

Fuel tank problem... they tried to use a tank that was unable to withstand the stresses of flight... and it spirlaed into a giant money pit from there... [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img]

__________________
If E = MC², why do I have less energy the more mass my body acquires?
That is all.

--Azpod... Formerly known as James Justin

Sorry, form of "typo" I like to call a "braino"; when you type faster than you can think, or think faster than you can type.

The same principle applies: I'm not American, but salute the vast achievents your country has made through Space flight. The princile still apllies, how can you justify suppling a government with 3 Billion dollars of Military aid against an enemy of a militia, and fail to justify replacing the aged space shuttle?