An internal email obtained by the Orland Sentinel suggests NASA is gearing up to extend the Shuttle beyond its current retirement date of 2010.

The email is a plea for suggestions as to how flights could be run out to 2015, sent by John Coggeshall of the manifest and schedules department of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Suggestions include taking one of the shuttles out of service, presumably to cannibalise for spare parts to keep the others going.

“[T]his should actually be fun,” write Coggeshall (email txt file). “Well as fun as anything gets if you’re a manifest dweeb.”

As the Sentinel and others point out there are a number of reasons NASA might look to this now, despite its boss Michael Griffin previously insisting it would be a bad idea to push the Shuttle past 2010.

First up, presidential candidate John McCain has asked that the rolling shut down of the Shuttle programme be halted, as least temporarily. Also, relations with Russia have become frosty since the Georgian conflict. This could create problems for American access to the ISS, which will rely on the Russians between the time the Shuttle shuts down and the new Constellation project is go.

NASA spokesman John Yembrick told The Associated Press: “The e-mail did go out. The e-mail is premature. The parameters of the study have not yet been defined.”

Florida Today quotes him saying, “We’re doing it for internal prudent planning for transition teams. It’s like a ‘what if’ analysis.”

Image: Atlantis launch in 1989 / NASA