New Mars Forums

The plans for the Saturn V were not destroyed, that's an urban legend. They're savely stored at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (on microfilm! ). Although I agree that shutting down the Saturn assembly lines was a very bad idea, whoever was responsible (it were no just the politicians but NASA managers as well since they wanted to use the Saturn launchpads for the Shuttle), I don't like it how the Shuttle is criticized by so many people. It's a technological marvel and an engineering masterpiece. People always say NASA should have chosen a fully reusable design but they forget that the money simply wasn't there and designing a fully reusable launch vehicle in the 70s with the same payload capacity as the current Shuttle might well have proven impossible. Even building an expendable design was one hell of a task. Going from Apollo CSMs to the Space Shuttle was a giant leap.
And there are reasons why NASA went for SRBs instead of liquids: They give you more bang for the buck, meaning they are much more simple and lighter.
Also I think using an external tank was a brilliant idea. It enomously simplified the design and literally cut the engineering work to be done in half (the Shuttle would never have made its first flight in 1981 had NASA chosen a fully reusable design). And ETs can be converted into space stations! Unfortunately NASA has never seriously studied this concept since it was proposed in the early 80s.
To sum up: While the current Shuttle is nowhere near an economically viable, reliable, save launch vehicle it is still a great machine and has unique advantages.

Thanks. Look at bill number 5 :"To promote the development of the United States space tourism industry" This guy is on our side.

I checked: Both the Mars Society and the Planetary Society support the bill (of course ).