No, despite the title of this article, which is actually a pretty devastating critique of the Orbital Space Plane and NASA’s manned spaceflight plans in general.

It gets a few things wrong (e.g., Columbia actually was capable of docking to ISS, albeit with less payload than the rest of the fleet), and I’m pretty leery about simply going back to Apollo capsules. I also disagree that the benefits of wings are “dubious,” though it may be that they don’t justify their costs.

And where have we heard this before?

The basic limitation on the operational lifetime of Shuttle, OSP, or any reusable spacecraft is not the loss rate of crews, it is the loss rate of spacecraft.

Astronauts, after all, are easily replaceable. The number of overqualified applicants vastly exceeds the demand. But the OSP vehicles will be expensive, hand-built national treasures that simply can’t be thrown away.

Just imagine what would have happened if the Shuttle fleet had actually flown the advertised 50 times a year — at a loss rate of 1 in 60 flights, we would have run out of Orbiters long ago. The same logic applies to OSP, only more so because Delta 4 and Atlas 5 are cheap, non-man-rated commercial boosters whose reliability goal is only 98%.

Unfortunately, like most such pieces, it assumes that the current manned space program goals (continuing to support ISS at some minimal level) are appropriate, and that NASA has simply come up with the wrong technical solution. The reality, of course, is that we need to completely rethink the purpose of even having a government-funded manned space program, and until we’ve done that, trying to come up with solutions is pointless.

His title is wrong. It’s not the end of manned spaceflight–it’s the beginning, as private investment is now starting to flow into the field. But it may be the end (and not necessarily inappropriately) of NASA’s operational program to provide it.