wrote:
I'm having a hard time believing that the era of the Space Shuttle is
coming to an end. The U.S. has had manned space flight for what, 49

Not quite, we've had it for approximately 30 years after a 6 year gap.

You may or may not recall that Apollo-Soyuz Test Project marked the end of
the Apollo program and US manned spaceflight until 1981.

One big difference between now and then is that we have several private
companies planning on providing their own sub-orbital and orbital craft.

years now? In fact, I really DON'T believe we're not going to have a
manned presence in space. What are the chances that there is a
secret, military program that still utilizes shuttles or shuttle-like
vehicles? Wasn't there a program that never got off the ground many
years ago, with a selected crew of astronauts who never flew?

You may be thinking of the MOL - Manned Orbiting Laboratory which was an Air
Force project based on Gemini vehicles.

Thought
I saw that on a TV show. Could something else be flying? Maybe
disguised as satellite launches? Or would it be too difficult to hide
a manned launch.

It would be very difficult to hide manned launches unless you really worked
at it. (Probably airlaunched with recovery somewhere over the Pacific.)


--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.