While I hated to see it retired as much as anyone else at the time, there's no doubt about it: the Shuttle over promised and under delivered. That aside, with all of the considerations that went into designing it, NASA did the best it could within the allowed parameters.
The Space Shuttle program was one of the most expensive space projects in history. Taxpayer funded bureaucracies have a bad record for this kind of thing. I guess the fact that they are not spending their own money is the problem. Private industry always performs better when handed jobs like spaceflight development or running telecom industries etc. They understand that money isn't free and they often have shareholders to keep happy.
While I hated to see it retired as much as anyone else at the time, there's no doubt about it: the Shuttle over promised and under delivered. That aside, with all of the considerations that went into designing it, NASA did the best it could within the allowed parameters.
The Space Shuttle program was one of the most expensive space projects in history. Taxpayer funded bureaucracies have a bad record for this kind of thing. I guess the fact that they are not spending their own money is the problem. Private industry always performs better when handed jobs like spaceflight development or running telecom industries etc. They understand that money isn't free and they often have shareholders to keep happy.
“I guess the fact that they are not spending their own money is the problem.” You nailed that one 100%