Zach: good afternoon, But in addition to Nasa not having it's budgets cut, I feel they should be doing more to help lower cost of doing space business in general. Whether this be by shuttle or by other Rockets, By haggling for lower prices per ship as they order for their needs for launches from these manufacturers such as the Lockheed's and Boeing's of this nation.

Have you had a chance to read the other pages and do you have any thoughts. I think that I am on the right track for getting us back into space with the least cost and the quickest in the long run of things. By proposing that lockheed and Boeing produce their own respective capsule or plane for their given launch vehicles. Also in they are interchangeable to the others rocket inaddition that would be a plus.

Good afternoon Harold and Prozac. It's good to see so many new faces here. I'd like to welcome any and everyone with an idea or question.
On the space shuttle: I know you feel strongly about it Harold, but I can't get behind it. We would be so much better off never launching it again. We could buy Russia's Soyuz rockets and save billions, but red-tape and monopolies are preventing that.
Personally, I'm glad to see that Russia is blowing NASA off. Reports indicate that they are going ahead with plans to keep ISS crews onboard for a year instead of six months. Not only does this help their space program make money, it also puts NASA in its place. Russia let MIR deorbit for this multi-billion dollar money pit we call the ISS. Russia is the only country capable of exchanging crew for the ISS so they should be able to do whatever they want.
As for NASA making an effort to lower costs: don't bet on it. The big aerospace companies are going to do everything in their power to keep their 'profit-plus' contracts with NASA, and that means spitting out the same crappy rockets they have been making for decades.
If it isn't broken, then don't fix it. Well NASA isn't broke yet, so they aren't going to fix anything.

You are probably right about not using the shuttle ever again but can we wait the next 5 plus years before we have our ship to go back an forth to the ISS. Eventually the Russian are going to become P O ed at us and will not let us have a free seat since we are not finishing the construction of the ISS with the Heavy Lift capability that the shuttle has.

Thats is why NASA needs to do these two things.
1 cev/ capsule or plane by both lockheed and boing for their own rockets for use as transportation to the ISS.
2 shuttle c derivative heavy lift configuration for completion of the ISS
If these were done in less than a year then I do not believe there would be any further fallout from the shuttle not flying. Funding would be restored by congress most likely and we could then get on with the SEI vision.
Oh, I would take one of the shuttles when they are retire if I could. It would be fun to learn from it.

Hmmm, maybe NASA will sell the shuttle after its retirement to another country or hopefully the private sector. Im sure some profit-minded person out there could figure out a way to make a profit. Maybe the cargo bay could be turned into 1st class seating for tourists. Figure 100 seats at 1 million a pop, thats a billion dollars, or almost what it costs to fly the thing.
You'd think it could be altered to carry extra fuel in what is now the cargo bay and take off horizontally.

The tourist class section would need to be self contained for the ability to jetision if need be for other recovery measures should something go wrong. At 1 million, I just might be able to save it; if I start eating grass instead of real food oh and live in my car at where I work. I just might be able to pinch enough pennies.