03. After the Shuttle is retired, what kind of spaceship or what sort of vehicle or thing would take us up there? What will the new vehicle be like? What kind of engine and technology will it have? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

NASA is planning to retire just the orbiter part of the current Space Shuttle system, and continue to use other parts for its new vehicles. One of the solid rocket boosters of the Shuttle system, for example, may become the main part of a new system. NASA may create a new capsule, a larger modern version of the Apollo capsule, and send it to orbit on top of one solid rocket booster. NASA also wants to try something new—a commercially-owned space transportation service. It will choose a company to do this new service in 2006, and the winning company likely will use a new rocket that it has created. The new rocket may be launched from the ground like the Space Shuttle or launched from a carrier aircraft like Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne.

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Answer provided by David Gump & Gary Hudson

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer

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