STS perform equivalent to shuttle--will look like shuttle!!

If a new vehicle were designed today that would perform the same functions the shuttle did, it would look like the shuttle.   Two thirds of the orbiters life remains. ( re: The Case to Save the Shuttle).  Now, if it will look like the shuttle and you have the " damaged" vehicles in a museum plus you have the 30 year history, lessons learned by system, design requirements/drawings/specifications, process specifications, system/subsystem test data ( development/qualification, acceptance test data), mission operations operating procedures, facilities at ksc, msfc, jsc for subsystem/system testing and software for various systems, and 2/3 of life remains, why design a new vehicle?  Most of the personnel would have to be acquired again, but new design would require that too.  

Since a new design will look like shuttle, and a tremendous amount of cost can be avoided by using what we have, it seems obvious that this would be the proper approach.

A new design would entail recreating much of what we already have.   Most Ameericans donot appreciate the tremendous amount effort expended in the design, test, & operation of the various systems/subsystems, and in the correction of problems that have occurred over the last 30 years.  

The total design, of a new vehicle is unnecessary & extremely wasteful since we have a functioning, existing prototype (the shuttle) in the museum, a sucessful proven flight unit !

A quote from "Soyus lacks Shuttle's ability to repair ISS. How do we get large Solar cells and Thermal radiation units up there in existing vehicles to the station ??  

Several US astronauts, including the legendary Neil Armstrong, wrote to Nasa administrator Charles Bolden on 30 June warning of an "unacceptable flight risk" because the Soyuz lacks the airlocks, life support systems and robotic arm that allow the shuttle to act as a base for spacewalks to repair the ISS in the event that a systems failure or accident on board the station makes it uninhabitable.

Christopher Kraft, the former head of Nasa's Manned Spaceflight Centre, one of the authors of the letter, warned of a "catastrophic re-entry" of the 400-tonne station into the Earth's atmosphere and showers of debris if there was no capability to fix it in the event of a "terrible failure".

 

Reminds one of the 3 Satern-5 rockets of Apollo,now wasted, with only small operational costs to have used them then, provideding us with 3 missions of additiional Lunar substantial knowledge and insight.

 

 Future references of man, are based on his passed references, with Shuttle/ISS "spin-off" technologies flowing into the U. S. economy totally overlooked within our future consideration of this critical issue. No dollars for space ever left the planet.