re: Next week's manned spaceflight from Cape Kennedy will be historic...

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We wasted 40 years and 14 lives on the shuttle program when we could have been prepping for long term habitual living on the surface of the moon as well as prepping for a manned mission to Mars.

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von Braun's plan was to use the shuttle to build and maintain the ISS, which would be a docking station for colonization of the moon and exploration beyond that. The reason for doing it that way is that the primary fuel consumption point is the ascent from earth's surface. Missions that start from the ISS can go much further without having to use so much of the vehicle for escaping the earth's gravity.

The goals changed after von Braun was gone, though. Really, NASA kind of stagnated once the Nazis were gone.