re: Failure of Soyuz launch could leave ISS empty

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Nasa designed the shuttles for a operation life of 10 years, they were able to extended their life span by 20 years, operating the shuttle program for a total of 30 years, that was not the product of poor planning.

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But why did they have to extend the program if not for a lack of leadership and goals that would have led to the development of another vehicle in that timeframe.

The problem with the shuttle was that it was too costly and sucked the money out of NASA for other developments.

The space shuttle when proposed was this dream of reusing a launch vehicle time and time quickly and make launches more mainstream. But as with some ideas you lack the resources and technology for what it really takes to do something.

NASA in the 80 and 90s was like a boss that knew there are problems with equipment but instead of moving on and buying something new kept dumping money to fix problem after problem with the old equipment.

Also, government contracts don’t help when you have the lowest bidder with the best government connections providing the goods.