Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to We may be badly misreading the interest of the

Space Shuttle bluff
Adam — (archived)

Hi All

I think the apparent disinterest might've been that most Americans had no idea that NASA had no real plans beyond the Shuttle. They'd all seen the pretty pictures of what Shuttle would achieve for so much cheaper and didn't realise that NASA was becalmed by high-level indifference to exploration - the fact that Voyager II had to be sneakily sent on to Uranus and Neptune was due to a budget under pressure from an administration hell-bent on beating the USSR into the ground with an overly expensive arms-race bluff.

When the USSR went belly-up - at their own hand - then everyone took a sigh of relief and suddenly NASA could move on. Has anyone wondered if the Shuttle was kept going through the 1980s as a reminder to the USSR as to just what the USA could launch? Why did the Russkies object to the Shuttle's enormous cargo bay time and time again?

Obvious really.

Adam

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