In article , Magnus Olsson wrote:
In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
NASA is going to have
to move quickly on a shuttle replacement, and without spending a whole lot
of money on it either. Be interesting to see whether they can do it.

What gives me a bad feeling about the whole plan is NASA's abysmal
track record in this regard: if there's one thing they've proved
themselves utterly unable to do, it's to develop a shuttle
replacement. Deciding to retire the shuttle fleet without a viable
replacement seems a very risky decision.

OTOH, one could make a case that NASA have never really tried to make a
Shuttle replacement. There's been technology demonstrators, or
specific-use vehicle plans, and *plenty* of viewgraphs, but has there
ever been a politically-supported project to sit down and build The Next
One by *this* date, with *this* funding - not to design, or to study,
but to have sitting in the VAB before 2009, because there won't be a
shuttle; it's going, and whilst it may slip to 2012, it is likely to go;
whoevers elected in 2008 will have some task ahead of them to announce
it's getting another ten years, after all.

From that POV, they actually have to build one now; everything else was
abstractly ****ing money up trees for something that might be thought
about by (now+5 years).

--
-Andrew Gray