MIKED,
AS someone who family is directly involved in the space program in Houston. I can assure you. The General Public, incl. congress... etc etc.. HAS NO IDEA the ramifications of not having a SHUTTLE PROGRAM in a year or two. Yes, the take A TON OF MONEY to operate, but think about the International consequences.
Everyone is about saving money right now, and when the SHUTTLE PROGRAM ENDS, then all of a sudden reality will kick in and say, HOLY CRAP, we have to rely on foreign countries for the next 5 years to support our equipment in space and we now have "lost the space race" again. Scuttlebug is that there may not even be enough funding to START an orion project. And when i say scuttlebug, i actually mean info avail to the public on NASA funding.
Mark my words, people will all say, oh it wont be a big deal, etc etc... but end of next year or later whenever the last shuttle is slated... IT will already be too late for people to care about saving the shuttle program.
WE NEED TO KEEP THE SHUTTLES GOING UNTIL WE CAN GET OUR OTHER PROGRAM UP AND RUNNING!!
And those that question my motives... I won't say my last name, but my family is directly involved with the shuttle program, and when I say directly involved I mean.. DIRECTLY involved. That's all I will say about my families involvement. I am more than willing to talk to people over PM about why the shuttle program is a HUGE DEAL and why we need to keep it until Orion is functional, but for now in a PUBLIC forum, I would rather not continue to express my feelings/concerns in case it gets back to someone at JSC/KSC.
In the mean time, the rest of us just get to sit back and watch an end of an era if we can't get more funding.
AS someone said above.... 1/4 of a penny... its actually pretty accurate!