The Shuttle really taught some lessons to the space industry. We progressed in how to keep people alive in space but we also learned that making a multipurpose

The Shuttle really taught some lessons to the space industry. We progressed in how to keep people alive in space but we also learned that making a multipurpose vehicle just isn't the best idea. All it takes is for one of the roles to be deprecated because of reasons and suddenly your expensive multi-tool starts to not be so attractive in terms of cost. Any time someone comes up with some complex plan to save money, it probably isn't going to save any money and will most likely end up costing you more than if you just continued on doing what you did before. Expendable vehicles aren't exactly cheap but they get the job done pretty reliably and without the risk of people dying.