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by dotancohen
3432 days ago
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The shuttle was also great for anything that required an EVA, and could handle multiple EVAs on a single mission. It could also stay in orbit with a large crew for extended periods. Those old boats had capabilities that I don't think we'll see for another two generations of manned spacecraft. |
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Gemini, Vokshod, Apollo and Soyuz all demonstrated that ability as well. Apollo especially with multiple lunar EVAs per mission.
The Shuttle's biggest advantage over all those was being roomier, making EVA preparations less of a hassle, but all space craft currently in development are addressing that shortcoming.
> It could also stay in orbit with a large crew for extended periods.
Meh. Yes, it could… but should it? In that role, the Shuttle was still inferior to a real space station, while being as expensive. If it wasn't for political reasons (Shuttle was approved, but it was hard to fund anything else), NASA likely would have preferred using a space station for it (and largely did, once it could access Mir/ISS).
ISS isn't going away for a while yet, the industry is working on smaller private space stations that could be rented out for this purposes, and NASA is contemplating building smaller stations in deep space when/if necessary. We didn't actually lose any capability.