Just a few random thoughts before crashing.

I haven’t had time to read much about the fleet grounding thing, but I’ve often said that when government occasionally does the right thing, it’s almost always for the wrong reason. If we end up retiring the Shuttle now, it won’t be because it costs too much for what it does, and soaks up a lot of money that could (at least in theory, though probably not in practice, given the way our space policy seems to work) be used for something more productive in terms of moving humanity into space. It will be because we got better cameras so that we could finally see the rain of debris that’s been falling from every ET every time we fly, and we’re nervous about killing astronauts (even though taking such risks is, at least in theory, part of their job description). Ignorance was bliss, at least if you make a healthy living off operating Space Shuttles.

I frankly think that it’s a dumb reason, but if it happens, I also think it’s a good outcome, so I won’t complain too much. But here’s the problem. There’s an old saying about some businesses being “too big to fail” (e.g., Lockheed, various banks in the eighties, perhaps GM)–that is, the political consequences of letting them go out of business are viewed as sufficiently dire that the government will continue to prop them up, a la Weekend at Bernies, even when the carcass begins to stink. Shuttle, I’m afraid, is like that.

What I suspect is going on is that the declaration of fleet grounding is to piously show NASA’s contrition over Columbia, and to demonstrate that they have a new “safety culture.” What it really means is that they’ll do some kind of kabuki dance to come up with another “solution” to the foam-falling-off problem, and then launch again. And when it falls off again, they’ll say, “time to ground the fleet again, back to the drawing board.” And then they’ll do another test flight. It could plod along in this manner for years, if JSC and Huntsville are lucky, and the rest of us (those who pay taxes and care about a serious space program, anyway)…less so.

Anyway, off to bed, and (oh, joy) another airplane ride at the crack of dawn.