The Ares rocket system being developed to loft the shuttle's replacement into orbit has also come under fire.

BBC: Obama names US space agency chief

Even the shuttle will live on, in some sense, since the Space Launch System the unromantic name of the beefy rocket needed to loft astronauts and cargoes into high orbits or farther into the solar system will be built partly from recycled shuttle parts in an effort to save money and use familiar technology.

ECONOMIST: The space shuttle