> The heroic era spanned only eleven years (1961–72) compared to the shuttle’s thirty, with a much longer list of firsts, and this fact contains an important lesson about the history of American spaceflight as well. We did a lot in a very short span of time, and then we did a lot less for a lot longer. Soon, of course, we’ll be doing nothing at all.<p>Really? Nothing at all? And list of projects developing new hardware both for manned flights and for launching payloads isn't long enough?<p>> This is the paradox of growing up in the shuttle era: the vehicle is more complex and advanced, its reusability makes it much more cost-effective, and its versatility makes possible missions the Saturn V never could have accomplished, such as repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope and construction of the International Space Station.<p>Really? Saturn-V couldn't carry a mission to repair Hubble Space Telescope similar to Soyuz mission to repair Salyut-7? International Space Station couldn't be build using Atlas and Delta, Proton and Ariane alone - especially after Mir was built by Protons? You're kidding, right?