From NASA's view, the progression of space programs — shuttle first in 1981, followed by the space station in 1998 and finally Constellation — make sense in a universe constrained by finances and challenged by the unchangingly difficult physics of spaceflight. Full Story »
Posted by Kaizar Campwala
This article could have gone into more detail about the reasons some decisions were made (for example): why the decision was made to go with a vertical launch shuttle rather then one launched from a mother ship (as Scaled Composites has done), and why it was decided to build a station in low orbit rather devoting that effort to long term lunar exploration/exploitation.
