First off, while you're correct about the price per pound to LEO with some of the early shuttle designs, it was not Max Faget on the shuttle, at least at first - it was H.H. Koelle, to whom von Braun assigned the task in 1964.

Second, you're right that after the political engineering got done, the shuttle is as you describe -the worst of EELV and RLV worlds. The story of how that came about is quite interesting... but if pressure fed liquid boosters had of been used for the shuttle, instead of solids, as von Braun desired, then it would have been much better - the liquid boosters could have been used as stand alone launchers at an extremely low cost. (That decision was one major reason why von Braun left NASA.)

The reason that no one cared by that time is because Mariner IV had shown that Mars was not Earth-like. That's why the general public and the leadership had both lost their interest...

Let's move to today. Everyone here seems to forget the X-33 effort, as for the most part they are hung up on the DC-X. Undoubtedly that fixation is behind a lot of the bs that get spewed here. Get over it.

X-33 got killed, instead of money being provided to develop the technology, and that leaves us where we are today. The CEV looks good, compared with winged craft, with the exception of the Klipr, that is providing Klipr's folding wings work.

I know that this never sinks in, but no one is doing flags and footprints on the Moon. Repeating that bull umpteen times won't make it true. The reason for returning to the Moon is to build the best possible impact warning system. Get over it.

There is little public support for spending large amounts of money right now on manned Mars flight. Get over it.

I've seen "Mars Enthusiasts" hysterically ravings that the US manned space program is going to fail for so long now that I don't care, except that the noise tends to mask real problems - such as debris caused by the new ET insulation.

Either get over it, or keep it up - maybe others will catch on.

ep