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Depends on what failed.

If one of Shuttle's antique 20+ year old computers is fried, replacing it will be pretty hard. Its unlikly that such computers are still built anymore.

Then you must be in the know of when a shuttle will be retired then from the multiple choices listed below.

1 2010 because exploration doctorate said so
2 when station is finished or we say we are
3 never because station will never be finished
4 was retired but need shuttle because of unseen event

Well I am sure the one that you might not realize is that even though the president said so that congress can over ride this and direct its continued use or change when it is retire just as well though the Bill process of signature by the president.

http://dev.space.com/spacenews/spacepol … .html]NASA Bill Hangs Condition on Shuttle Retirement

The senior U.S. senators from Florida and Texas are pushing back against NASA’s plan to retire the U.S. space shuttle fleet by the end of the decade regardless of whether a replacement vehicle is ready to enter service by then.

And these are the same senators that want a Hubble rescue mission..

Personally I feel that shuttle will still be need but in a much lower capacity once the 2010 or Iss completion time frame has occurred but it will still be in need for we have not figured out a way to get the large cargo bay sized items need for replacement or repair to the station by any other means. Not to mention that the CEV has no such goals is a dead give away. Only a Shuttle C could forfull this at this point and thats not even being built at this time.

HAH!

last flight: cupola. And initially it was said this item was needed as a sort of control tower for certain robot-arm/space module coordination stuff when assembling.

trailing last of 23 missions, who wants to bet it won't fly at all?