Reply #25: It stopped being "pioneering technology" in the early 80s

[laconicsax]

One of the things that went wrong in the Challenger disaster was that shuttle flights were already seen by NASA as routine.

As soon as it was realized that the shuttle couldn't even come close to delivering on its original goal of being a cheap way to go to space 5 times a month, a replacement program should have been started. Instead, we're left bumming rides into space with no plan. I don't know about you, but it makes me mad to think about how 40 years after putting astronauts on the moon, we can't even get astronauts into Low-Earth orbit without help.

If we'd started plans to replace the shuttle with something cheaper and more dependable 20 years ago, we wouldn't be in this mess.