Well, flog it all to the Japanese I say.

Brian

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Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
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"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
rjn wrote:
Wayne Hale:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=28974
"We started shutting down the shuttle four years ago.
That horse has left the barn."

Read the entire article. Hale lays out all the facts but then guides the
reader to a different conclusion than warranted by the facts. Sure, if you
wait until the last shuttle flight to start procuring new ETs you will
have a shuttle-to-shuttle gap. But if a decision were made today (9/2008)
to continue the program, the parts for the next batch of tanks would be
ready in 18 months (3/2010) and the first flights with the new tanks could
be made in 2011. It would not take much of a stretch of the existing
manifest to close the potential shuttle-to-shuttle gap. The normal
flight-to-flight delays might even close the gap without resorting to a
conscious stretch.

It is not a matter of whether it is physically possible to continue the
program, but (as always) a matter of money and priorities. Hale argues
that the money and people would be better spent on the moon rocket than
the shuttle. That is certainly a valid point, and those are the priorities
of the current administration. But those priorities were based on a
certain set of geopolitical assumptions that have now been called into
serious question. If the next administration decides that assured US
access to space is more important than returning to the moon, they may
come to a different conclusion.

That conclusion may not include the shuttle; they may well decide that
COTS-D or a "Block I" Orion/EELV (or both) would make more sense than a
shuttle extension. Not only would a shuttle extension be expensive, it
would not provide emergency crew return capability from ISS while the
other two solutions could.