Following on from NASASpaceflight.com's report that NASA has decided to keep its orbiter Atlantis going till 2010 I emailed the agency to ask them about this. And the answer is...
(Accompanied by recovery vehicles, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is towed up the taxiway at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center following its 1249h local time landing on 22 June 2007 at Edwards Air Force Base in California, following its mission STS-117)
"In our press release last week, we mentioned that NASA managers will meet in the coming weeks to address the schedule of remaining shuttle flights beyond STS-123.
As part of that process, while no decisions have been made yet, we are looking at an option that adds two flights to Atlantis after STS-125, and allows us to more efficiently fly out the remaining manifest, using all three orbiters.
This might be the most efficient way to complete the program, but we haven't made the decision yet.
Also, we are still evaluating whether to add the Station-Shuttle Power Transfer System to Atlantis. Doing so would give us flexibility to schedule missions on any of the three orbiters.
Or, if we had a flight with five spacewalks scheduled for Discovery or Endeavour that we needed to move to Atlantis for some reason, having SSPTS on Atlantis would allow us to retain all five spacewalks, and not redesign the flight to have fewer spacewalks. We are still deciding if this is a big driver for us, or not.
So no, the decision has not been made."
There is a bill proposed by Senator WELDON of Florida to keep the shuttles flying beyond 2010. Another representative has recently suggested retiring the shuttles in 2010 and giving more money to accelerate the development of the CEV. Go read the legislation at www.actionforspace.com. Then take the initiative to send a letter, fax, or email to your representatives and political candidates by using the interface at actionforspace.com
I really think that the fate of Shuttle and the speed with which Orion crew exploration vehicle is developed is really going to be the outcome of the US presidential election. Whether it is president Obama, Clinton, MCain or anyone else they will have to come to a agreed budget, which will be easier if it is the current Democratic dominated Congress working with a new Democratic president.
I fear for the space program. A President Obama has made a point of saying that he would take NASA's entire budget and put it towards education. A President Clinton has been wishy washy on, Do we realy NEED to go back to the moon, we've been there. We need somebody somewhere to ask the question at the republican and democratic debates.."What are YOUR plans for NASA?" WE as a people have only furthered our tech progress through our drive to go there and do that. Cut NASA and you cut the drive that made us a great nation.