Originally Posted by Ricardodaforce:
“It's quite staggering that the USA have been so inept and shuttle succession planning isn't it. The future reliance on Russian Soyuz craft just shows you how badly they have planned it all.”
$3 Billion a year... that's all they need to make this work. It's peanuts for the US. Retire a couple of those silly aircraft carriers, sell a couple of the stealth bombers to friendly Mid East partners and bingo, the money's in the bank for the first couple of years at least.
Soyuz is what, 42 years old now?! The shuttle is 30 years old! If these were cars they'd be in museums. It seriously beggers belief. The sooner Mr Rutan gets SS2 working and can move onto SS3 and prove that private enterprise can do this better and cheaper than national governement agencies, the better.