The Shuttle

The Telegraph

The Shuttle story should really be titled “Lost in Space”. About $210 billion went towards a programme born of fantasy. The story came to an end because the American government finally accepted what experts realised at the beginning: strip away the drama of manned space travel, and the Shuttle is an expensive and complicated way to provide what should be a cheap and simple service [..].

“Apollo was a matter of going to the moon and building whatever technology could get us there,” writes the space historian Walter McDougall. “The Shuttle was a matter of building a technology and going wherever it could take us.” But where did it take us? After 133 missions, thousand of orbits and millions of miles, our old friend the Shuttle has taken us back to where we began 30 years ago. Despite all the excitement, drama and tragedy, we’re no nearer an answer about what to do in space.