The five space shuttles transported 355 astronauts.
There have been 134 missions.
Shuttles have travelled a total of half a billion miles in space.
The ground crew and astronauts have been routinely heroic.
Nothing I have read about the replacements sound anything like as versatile as the space shuttle.
I wonder what the new craft might look like?
How far we will we expect the next generation of brave explorers to go?
We use vast sums of money to fund our ability to look outwards, do we suffer from insatiable curiosity or planet envy?
Could it be that we have we lost hope in our ability to protect and share the Earth?
Where is X-33? I can't help thinking the Orion rocket looks - splash-back-to-the-future - limited.
