They lasted a lot longer than they were originally were designed for.
The inflated dollar of today does not buy you what it did back when they were designed and first launched.
Their purpose was to do what they did.
Put the Hubble up and take the components for the ISS up.
The Russians were designing and building and launching the personnel and supply capsules which was the original intent a long time ago.
Everything is taking place as was decided and that includes the need for those vehicles.
Even the Chinese getting in to the space race was decided a long time ago.
We trained a Chinese guy(
Qian Xuesen) to be a
very good rock scientist and then sent him back to China in 1955 after accusing him of being a spy.
He is the reason the Chinese have a space program today!
It was all planned to allow all nations and nationalities to develop together.
If we all did not work together in some sense we would have had another world war a long time ago.
The space shuttles were ridiculously expensive to maintain and launch.
It was the equivalent of hiring a long haul semi truck to transport one small Styrofoam cup from L.A to New York.
The shuttles were launched many times with NO payload in the cargo bay!
There is nothing left to prove with them.
edit on 26-6-2011 by IamJustanAmerican because: (no reason given)