So says the Space Frontier Foundation, two days before the next scheduled launch:

The Space Shuttle program consumes approximately five billion dollars a year whether or not it flies a single mission. Most of these funds go to support the so-called “standing army” of NASA and aerospace employees dependent on the Shuttle for their jobs. If all goes according to plan, twenty billion dollars will be spent between now and the last Shuttle flight. Meanwhile, NASA’s much-ballyhooed Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) project meant to create a new and varied humans-to-space transportation industry using the space station as a customer is spending only $500 million to spark the development of new low-cost systems with none at all allocated to purchase rides.

“We are spending the same amount of money every six weeks to not fly Space Shuttles as we are investing in the entire NewSpace industry. We are mortgaging our future while starving these incredibly talented and promising new companies and ideas, all to sustain a system that has completely failed,” Tumlinson said. “It is time to get the U.S. government out of the