By Tom Jones"After the shuttle retires later this year, NASA will have no route to the ISS other than rented seats on Russian rockets, at $55 million per seat. The nation will have to wait until commercial companies, with no record of yet launching a single new human-rated rocket or spacecraft, learn the lessons NASA has accumulated during 50 years of spaceflight experience. There is no backup system in case of the commercial firms’ failure. Worst of all, NASA’s unmatched team of spaceflight experts will disperse after the shuttle retires—there will be no work for them. Will we ever see such a team, with its knowledge and spirit, challenging the space frontier again?
Without a schedule to leave Earth orbit behind, and funds to match, that talent pool will rapidly drain away. Neil Armstrong and other veteran astronauts and flight directors conclude that our nation will quickly become an also-ran in space, with no better capabilities on the frontier than Russia, China, or India."
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