Not only did he cancel the shuttle program, but also the Constellation program that was intended to replace the shuttle. That left us for the first time since 1959 without access to space. It also basically handed the ISS to the Russians, which we had mostly paid for. Not that I’m a huge fan of the ISS anyway, or the shuttle. But every time a Republican would mention building a base on the moon or Mars (Newt Gingrich), Democrats poo-pooed it like it was something crazy. This is the party of Kennedy who demanded we go to the moon.
He did it onpurpose to take us out of space. And to pay the russians hundreds of millions to get our nauts up and down from the iss.