[QUOTE=bruce.desertrat;
It's ironic ours flew when the Buran didn't, but we're still (until recently) still dependent on a 1960s design Soyuz for access to ISS.[/QUOTE]

only because the USA space program was allowed to stagnate.
The old sky lab should have never been allowed to reenter the atmosphere, it should have been boosted to a high lunar orbit for future use.
Half of the shuttles could have been retired docked or tethered to the ISS or parked in a slightly higher orbit where orbital decay would require less fuel or corrections to keep them up there. Someday they are going to figure out that a lot of the obsolete stuff up there will be more valuable by already being there than boosting other materials to space