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Stewie_Griffin
Guest
<p>When the Space Shuttle is discontinued in 2010 the United States will have no means of reaching the ISS besides catching a ride in a Soyuz. NASA has said that they require 2.5 Billion for every year they extend that deadline.</p><p>I was thinking that instead of fully discontinuing the shuttle they could keep two shuttles and two SRBs fully operational. With a few modifications to the Shuttles and the SRBs they could be made so that the shuttle attached to the top of the SRB and when it would be launched the SRB would act as a first stage and a fuel tank in the Shuttles payload bay would feed the shuttles engines to and would act as a second stage.</p><p>I would imagine that this would lower operational costs and while we couldn't bring much payload to the ISS we could bring 7 crew members which is better than not being able to do anything. </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>