docm":1mscp35e said:
IMO the wheels came off when we started down the IRLV -> Space Shuttle path instead of pursuing NTR and spacecraft that did more than fly in circles. Not that a space taxi wouldn't have been useful, but the STS costs precluded anything else for decades.
I agree, but we are both speaking with hindsight. I remember at the time the idea was to build a Space Station to move us BLEO, and to build that station, the rational was that we would need a "work horse" that could go up and down the gravity well and move large chucks of a space station with it without throwing away big parts of a rocket.
Its sad really when I look back at things. Everybody in NASA was well intentioned, but unfortunately politics as they always do, got in the way. The shuttle kept getting changed and a final "made by committee" Frankenstein was built. The shuttle now, is not much like what was envisioned back in the late 50s. A sleek and much smaller re-usable space ship.