RickLewis wrote:
I read that the Space Shuttle was due to be retired next year, ie 2010, but that they (NASA? The US Govt?) are debating delaying its retirement for a year or two. NASA are developing a replacement spacecraft called Orion, but this won't be ready until about 2015, which does indeed suggest a bit of a gap.
I suppose one question is what craft will resupply the International Space Station during that period. Presumably the Russians will take care of that?
Good luck with this forum. But with respect, I think the above suggests you are totally missing the most important current development in space travel.
In January this year, NASA signed contracts to resupply the ISS during the gap you mention. The contracts were not with the Russians but with two PRIVATE U.S. space companies. (SpaceX and Orbital) This will be the first time that NASA has contracted private companies not just to build this or that spacecraft component, but to carry out entire space missions using privately-developed launch systems. So rather than this being some sort of depressing nadir in space capability as Patrick Collins suggests, I really think it is the moment when private space companies really come of age. It's great!
In the end, government space agencies, funded by untold billions of taxpayers' dollars, will only take space exploration so far. To go beyond that we need the private sector and the incentive of commercial competition, and we are finally seeing that coming to fruition now!