] NASA plans to scrap its space shuttle fleet to pay
] for the agency's new plan to return to the moon and
] develop human space exploration systems, senior
] administration officials said.
] The agency intends to return to the moon early
] next decade in preparation for sending crews to explore
] Mars and nearby asteroids, the officials said. Such
] endeavors would require a new generation of spacecraft,
] but in the interim, American astronauts would use
] Europe's Ariane rockets and Russia's Soyuz capsules.

I have mixed feelings about this. Seeing the ISS turned into abandonware in the same way that Apollo and Apollo Applications was gets a little bit under my skin. Plans to replace the shuttle are fine, but "the current timetable leaves a period of several years when NASA would lack manned space capability"? I guess they figure we'll placate the international partners in the Station program by buying hardware off of them for our own use.