@Gene Cash
"I'll miss Atlantis, but the Shuttles are Model-Ts and we need to get a real space program. "
If only it *was* like a model-T.
Owner maintainable.
Driveable by nearly everyone (although by modern standards it's a pig to control)
Available to anyone with enough cash
It was more like the typical European car of the time. An extremely expensive status symbol supported by specialist staff hired *only* to support it and purchased by the extremely wealthy of the time.
People talk about space launch needing the equivalent of the 707. We have yet to see the space equivalent of the DC3. And while the North Alabama Space Administration does the thinking for US space policy, we never will.