40 Years on. Man on the moon. Truth or a Hoax ??

[platinumXR]

As far as I can tell NASA do have another vehicle in the works, I saw something the other day and some NASA or science boffin said there was a new one due to start service in 2013 or 2015 or something?

The Space Shuttle was just that: a shuttle or a delivery van; used to deliver satellites into orbit, deliver people and equipment to MIR/ISS and so on. It was not intended to be a moon mission vehicle or whatever.

I think Road_Warrior mentioned that it would be too costly to do both at the same time? I think that is pretty on the money...one small step at a time...there's no real rush now as they (the US) had won "The Race" and proclaimed superiority anyway.

yanknbank - I'm not sure they dropped the ball really as they were just progressing from one 'project' to the next...a case of "Ok, moon is done; got all the info and rocks we need for whoever to study till the cows come home...what's next?" I think they want to build the International Space Station to 'launch' future missions to the moon or Mars or Vulcan or wherever and that takes time to build and is better to start from there than launch from the earth every time...that cost's heaps and wastes resources...just my understanding.