Continue to fly shuttle!

I believe strongly that we should continue to fly the shuttle while we develop our next generation of spacecraft in an orderly fashion. Continuing shuttle operations will automatically minimize any gap, eliminate pressure on the first manned Orion/Ares mission date, allow time to update trade-off studies of Ares, shuttle-C, Jupiter 120, Delta IV and any other candidate, and allow NASA to retain its trained work force. Continuing to fly the space shuttle is the only practical way to shorten "the gap" and remove our vulnerability to future Russian political pressure. The only price we would pay is a delay in the non-time-critical deployment of the next-generation spacecraft.
Safety has always been a high priority with NASA, but back in the 1960s, it was kept in perspective with other objectives. Today, NASA is a reflection of America's risk-averse culture. Following the loss of Columbia in 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board pushed NASA further in that direction. Safety has now become a convenient whipping boy to sell termination of the shuttle to the public in order to divert the $3 billion annual operating costs to the Constellation program.

Our shuttle orbiters are less than 25 years old, while some of our most sophisticated military weapons systems have been in operation for more than 50 years. While each orbiter was designed for a service life of 100 missions, they average less than 30 missions flown. Shuttle orbiters are subjected to a critical rebuilding after each mission, and they undergo regularly scheduled overhauls and upgrades. The shuttle orbiters are the safest manned vehicles we have ever built and are safer today than the day we began flying them.
Cunningham

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