That’s the attitude of this reporter from the Orlando Sentinel, who reports that Columbia’s last flight was (gasp!) driven by politics rather than science.

Find any aspect of manned spaceflight that’s not driven by politics, then get back to me.

Of course, he quotes our usual suspect.

“One can certainly use this mission as a way of understanding how the shuttle and NASA have as much to do with politics as science,” said John Pike, director of the policy-analysis group GlobalSecurity.org. “Anyone who thinks this is mainly about science hasn’t spent much time looking at the space program.”

Well, he’s right, this time. He’s much more reliable when talking about the politics of the space program, rather than the technology.

Alex Roland weighs in as well.

Critics are urging that human lives and the $3 billion spaceships not be put at risk unless there are clear and compelling reasons for doing so. However, an investigative board chaired by retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman is not expected to address the issue in its final report expected next month.

“What is most disturbing about Admiral Gehman’s investigation is that it isn’t looking at questions like this — just what it takes to get the shuttle flying again as soon as possible,” said Alex Roland, a history professor at Duke University, former NASA historian and vocal critic of the agency. “Neither the shuttle program or the [international] space station are providing any payoff that justifies the risk of human life or the huge expense.”

While I agree that the Shuttle and station aren’t worth the money (though I continue to believe that the loss of human life is essentially irrelevant, as long as no one is forced to go at gunpoint), I don’t agree that it’s Admiral Gehman’s job to critique space policy.

He was given a mandate to determine the cause of the disaster, and provide recommendations to prevent future such occurrences. I suppose that an effective recommendation could be to simply shut down the manned spaceflight program, but that’s the trivial solution, and it’s one far above his pay grade, even for an admiral.

I would love to have a serious national debate on the purposes and means of our civil space policy (it really hasn’t happened since Sputnik), but it’s not Gehman’s job to resolve that for us. Perhaps, however, his report may serve as a catalyst for one.