The Space Shuttle program is to be ended in 2010, after 29 years of service and two disasters. NASA will be downsized by about 8600 jobs by that time, as the follow-on Constellation program, with its Orion Crew Vehicle, Ares Launch Vehicles and Altair Lunar Lander, is not expected to be operational until about 2015.

There will be no more Shuttle-style Reusable Launch Vehicles, as the heavy lifting required to build the International Space Station will have been completed. Resupply of the ISS, and crew exchange, will be via Soyuz TMA spacecraft, and eventually also by private space companies such as SpaceX.

…And for what it’s worth, the GadgetManiac view on all this can be summarized as… ‘Sell the ISS, Forget the Moon and Go directly to Mars ‘.

Shuttle Retirement May Bring Loss of 8,600 Jobs, NASA Says - NY Times, April 2 2008

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