There's something unquantifiable about the shuttle, though.
Downvote me for this, because it's offtopic, and silly, but seeing the shuttle perched up there with those huge tanks of fuel strapped to it's chest reminds me of my dog when I come home from work.
She just looks excited. The rockets don't. They don't have as much personality.
Every time I see the shuttle, it looks like it's happy, and it's excited to be going to space. The rockets just look like hammers.
I was on the checkout page to book a flight for the last launch, then ultimately decided not to. I'd been wanting to see a Shuttle launch since I was a kid, but I realized we're going to have a lot more launches. Sure they won't be shuttles, but I'll be able to look at that launch and say "That's the rocket that is taking people to Mars." Not "That's the rocket that is going to take a shipment of astronaut ice cream up to the IIS and bring back bags of space poop for disposal."
And when you look at the Ares V rocket. OMG, watching that take off is going to be sick!
If 'January 1986' is meant to refer to Challenger, keep in mind that Columbia was launched Jan 12 1986[1], and Challenger was launched Jan 28, 1986[2].
NASA's current planned Shuttle replacement is derived from the Shuttle and has the same basic configuration apart from the orbiter, plus it's bigger. So I'm pretty hopeful...
Hopefully NASA will replace it with something equally spectacular, or perhaps I'll just have to wait and enjoy a private launch (from on-board).