Because it's obsolete and a huge waste of taxpayer money, that's why.

It's nothing more than another form of welfare.

We have unmanned rockets that can send billion dolllar junk up there at a drastically lower cost.

Look at what "Mother Russia" does with the Ukraine and Poland every Oct/November with natural gas.

They wait until it starts to get cold, then double or triple the price. These two countries have no other source for gas so are over the barrel.

What do you think the Ruskies will do with the pricing for moving things to space for us once the Shuttle is mothballed? They have a very long record of screwing people once they are the only source.

Name them. Please. Tang and velcro don't count.

NASA's budget costs me about $1233 a year. you wanna keep it going? Fine, then you pay my share. Send me a check for $1233 and I'll use it to pay the taxes I have to pay to keep NASA going and I'll keep my mouth shut about it.

HUH? We have all kinds of rockets that can send satellites and junk up there. ALL KINDS! MORE THAN WE'LL EVER USE! In addition to the ones we already have, they's spending huge chunks of money on Ares I.

Don't know where you got the idea thast the space shuttle was the only means we have of putting junk into space.

If you are talking about a taxi service for people to go to and from the space station, blow it off too! Waste of money. There is no reason to spend money sending people up there.

You can bet I do question those things as well, but let's stay focused...

I never said that everything in the history of NASA was a complete waste. What I said was that I question the ROI. How much we spend vs. how much we get in return. Just as with any big government program, there are usually cheaper ways to accomplish the same thing. Chinese satellites and Spaceship1 are examples of folks doing things for a small fraction of what we pay NASA to do. All of the things you mention above, to my knowledge could have been done with satellite/rocketship technology. Why do we need the shuttle again?


Endless benefits? Really? Well you kind of prove my point there. Of course there is no such thing as endless, unless you want to talk about the ways the government wants to spend our money.

Tang was not invented by NASA. It was around before NASA was formed. They made it famous.

Just walk into any hospital and look around. Most of the imaging techology came from NASA. do you have a digital camera. Yep NASA. Do you have a battery powerd drill, yep NASA.

NASAsolutions: Benefits of the Space Program

Fair enough. I read through every example in the "at Home" section of that web page. All of the examples cite the Apollo program or shortly thereafter.

As Janet Jackson would say, "what have you done for me lately?" SmileWavy

Again, can anybody tell me why we need a space shuttle?

Because THE SPACE SHUTTLE IS FREAKING AWESOME!!!!

And you can't fly into space in a Prius.

ROI on Columbus ?

didnot they throw the admiral of the ocean sea in jail
for failing to produce instant ROI

you lot are even more short sighted/thinking
shuttle is but a small step on a long journey
with payoffs unimaginable by your small minds

Thank you Sir!

THIS is why we need some type of manned ship when transporting important cargo to and from the space station:

" Russian Mission Control says an unmanned space capsule bring supplies to the International Space Station has failed in a docking attempt.
The Progress space capsule is carrying food, water, food and other supplies for the orbiting laboratory.
Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin was not immediately available for comment, but his secretary confirmed Russian media reports Friday that the docking had failed.
It was not immediately clear when another docking might be attempted.
The Russian Progress capsules have been a reliable supply system for the space station and their importance will increase with the end of the U.S. space shuttle program. "

The rocket overshot the station from an error.

"dumb" rockets work reasonably well for dropping satellites in orbit, but they are no replacement for manned ships delivering people and goods. If "dumb" ships worked well enough, we'd have a bunch of unmanned ships, trains, trucks and cars all over the place.

We should focus on the oceans and stay out of space...unless we were to put all monkeys into space than thats ok.

Who cares about the oceans, space is far more interesting and noteworthy to me.

We already do!

Just think of all the Prius cars driving around these days? Most of them might as well be unmanned! In fact some of their drivers very well be on this thread!:)

Joe A