In article , Mark wrote:
stmx3 wrote in message news:
...
Never said they *will* build a replacement.

So you're saying that the reason that NASA aren't replacing Columbia
is that they're perfectly happy with only three shuttles, and not
because they don't have a hope in hell of getting the money to do so?

You know, I'm not so sure they do want one. Well, okay, of course they
*want* one... but barring a slight scheduling blip over the nexe couple
of years where Columbia was manifested - and everything's gone out the
window due to the standdown anyway - they pretty much had a
three-shuttle program in the cards *before* STS-107. The plan was for
Columbia to do one station flight soon, then a Hubble mission in '05,
and then sit in a hangar until ~2009; indeed, there's now debate if
these latter two missions will fly in any form.

In 1986, NASA had a full - some would say overfull - schedule, relying
on a four-orbiter fleet; today, they don't - they have a
moderately-paced schedule for a three-orbiter fleet and a very sparse
schedule for a fourth. Whilst there'll be factors which would benefit
from a fourth orbiter being present - if, say, Atlantis had an accident
in flow, you could use the "spare orbiter" to prevent too great a
slippage - these aren't major enough to warrant having a sixth orbiter
built, and I deel this is why we haven't seen NASA making loud hints
about replacing Columbia now (versus increasing OSP work).

So, anyway, that's my reading; they're not pushing to get an OV-106,
becuase they don't need one. They wouldn't get one, but I don't think
that's the only reason ;-)

--
-Andrew Gray