With the space shuttle Discovery in orbit, and working on space station construction, it’s a good time to reflect on my disappointment with the US space program.

The space shuttle has clearly been a failure. I guess it’s easy to look back in hindsight and criticize the decisions that were made, but really, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to marry cargo lifting with manned space flight? Foreign countries are kicking our behinds in the commercial cargo area because we lost so much time by trying to do it with a space shuttle.

The whole decision to do the shuttle thing was based on some very bad data. Dramatically optimistic assumptions about turnaround time/cost made it sound like a good decision. So the question is, how did the bad data come into existence?

While it is important to look back and see what went wrong, clearly we seem to have learned a few things already. The new Orion program will create a small crew vehicle that will be mounted atop an expendable rocket (above any foam/ice that might fall off the booster) and the smaller surface will make it much less prone to heat shield damage. We can learn some lessons from the Russians here. They can basically send a three person crew into space for about $25 Million US equivalent. I’m not sure we could do it that cheaply even if we bought the rockets from the Russians and launched them.

I guess my major problem with the last 25 years of US manned spaceflight is that we wasted a good chunk of my lifetime on the shuttle and instead we could have been advancing in so many other areas with that money that could have put the goal of space travel for the masses within my lifetime. As it is now, I don’t think it will happen while I’m young enough to take advantage of it. Dammit! Why isn’t the future here yet?!