US Budget savings and cuts.
 

Shuttle retired? Thats a the average cost to launch a Space Shuttle about $450 million per mission (per NASA reported cost to launch) saved.

BUT:

So the shuttle is done. Now think about it. Would they retire the program unless they had another system in place? I don't think so. So what has our tax dollars been building?

My brother-in-law works for Space X.

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - Press

These guys actually fly out of an airport less than 5 miles from my house:

Armadillo Aerospace - Home



They were founded by John Carmack, aka the former head honcho of Id software (Quake, Doom, etc).

The guy that founded Space X was also the guy that started Paypal.

Ka-ching.