John Doe wrote in :

There have been manyu discussions, trial balloons etc about the future
of the shuttle.

The following facts are available from public sources:

STS-121 (ISS ULF-1.1) and STS-115 (ISS 12A) are on schedule for launch in
May and July 2006, respectively. The ET debris tiger teams are making good
progress.

NASA has developed an 18+1 (18 ISS + 1 HST) manifest for the remainder of
the program. It has been approved by the White House and is being reviewed
by the ISS partners. It will not be formally published until the partners
are happy. The partners would like to move their elements earlier in the
ISS assembly sequence. NASA is studying options that could accommodate
this.

Congress has just approved an FY06 NASA budget that fully funds the space
shuttle program. FY07 is likewise in good shape. There is a budget issue
with FY08-10, amounting to a $5 billion shortfall. This is due to
acceleration of CEV from 2014 to 2012, and because anticipated savings from
the end of the shuttle program are not materializing. NASA is studying
whether the cost could be absorbed internally or possibly requesting more
funds for FY08-10. If those options are not possible, NASA has submitted a
plan to OMB that calls for eight shuttle flights. However, Griffin has made
it clear that this is a last resort, and on the surface is not very
economical - it reduces the remaining shuttle budget from $20 billion to
$15 billion yet reduces the number of flights from 19 to 8.

Beyond those publically known facts there is not a lot of use in
speculation.

--
JRF

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