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thank you for the informations and the links about the Concorde

my interest is due to its altitude/speed performances that may be applied to some kind of missions involving suborbital vehicles (with a Concorde that works as mothership)

of course, if they can’t fly or has part of their technology classified, that can’t happen …or, maybe, they can… someday

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…Russian shuttles could be completed…

I doubt the Buran technology can be used now (since it’s too old) nor parts can be exchanged with the Shuttle

…not too sure about the Orion anyway…

probably the Orion’s timeline will be different than planned, but I’m sure it will born someday

…vehicle as versatile as the shuttle is also required…

yes, a new, safer and cheaper Shuttle may be useful, but NASA has no money to build (both) the Orion and a new Shuttle while privates lack of (both) funds and experience

Does anyone have figures or any infromation about the Soviet space shuttle? Was it cheaper to run, etc?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Buran

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/buran.htm

however, the Buran program died 15 years ago
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…$500M…thermal protection system alone requires 20,000+ manhours to inspect and repair…shuttle needs to be retired…

you’re right, the Shuttle costs over $500M per flight, its thermal shield is the worst possible for maintenance and the whole ships must be retired as soon as possible since they are too old and too dangerous to fly… but… ONE Shuttle flight can send in orbit up to EIGHT astronauts and up to 24 mT of cargo… to do the same thing we need to launch TWO (3-4 astronauts each) crew-Orions and EIGHT (3 mT each) cargo-Orions with a total “price” around $8 billion…

…NASA would never have stopped the Apollo program, and would have had its budgets increased…

stop the Apollo program (clearly) was a big mistake (since capsules are the simplest vehicles for moon exploration) but I don’t agree with the peoples who claim that also the Shuttle was a bigger mistake
in ’70s the Shuttle was expected to have reasonable (R&D and flights) costs and a very high flight rate (up to 60 flights per year of the full fleet)
also, its design was not so bad (like thousands critics say to-day) since it was (and STILL is) able to do things a capsule can’t never DREAMS to do!
unfortunately, its R&D, hardware and maintenance costs increased very much and its flight rate never was so high like planned
so, to-day the Shuttles are too expensive and too dangerous to fly (due to their age)

…National pride…

you’re right… national pride and politics may be the main problem of the Ariane5 choice
however, if ESA will buy/use the Orion (or build its ACTS) can use the Ariane5 as launcher