William,

Nice read, but one question:

 

Why can’t a government sponsored program work?  

As you yourself said, it seemed to with Apollo.

Bryan

 

 

For the last two decades or so, the shuttle has existed mostly as a way to deliver things to the ISS, and the ISS has existed mostly as a place for the shuttle to fly to.  While the Hubble repairs were a great accomplishment, it probably would have been cheaper to just build an entirely new telescope and send it up on some sort of unmanned rocket whenever the original one wore out.

This is not to say that I think manned spaceflight is a bad idea - but the reality is that there is really nothing to do in Earth orbit, and that is the only place the manned space program has been able to go for decades.  Manned spaceflight needs to be focused on setting up a permanent settlement on Mars, the only worthwhile goal for manned spaceflight in the foreseeable future.  And for the cost and casualties of the shuttle program over its lifetime, with the knowledge and technology base that existed right after Apollo, that probably could have been accomplished.  (Much of the Apollo know-how has been lost due to simple retirement and/or death of so many people that worked on it, and in the much more risk-averse environment of today compared to the 60's, this knowledge probably cannot be recovered, at least not by a government-sponsored program).

I think a lot of the disappointment over the retirement of the shuttle has to do with a sense of the US losing its place of leadership, or even going backwards in capability.  To some degree that is a concern, but to an even greater degree, the shuttle has become a case of throwing good money after bad.  We can't go forward and bring the shuttle with us.