It seems to me that if NASA was really listening well to the hardware, they'd get the real message--shut the thing down and put the money toward something useful to actually advancing us in space.

How about they DESIGN the hardware, and the LISTEN to the engineers? and IGNORE the politicians?

I think I just solved ALL! the problems in science concerning beuraucratic interferrence.

MAN! I'm a genius!!!!

Of course, it's politicians who control the purse strings of a government program (as well as those who can get political mileage from their stand on the matter, wether pro or con, even if they don't have a say in NASA budgets), and the question of what design and engineering philosophy is in question here...

I think the point is, a system as operatonally fragile as STS has been, is simply not something we want to stay with. We know enough today to create something closer to 'Get in, push the button and go.' (at least as close as a large airliner is, or DC-X was) than we've got.

I'm sorry, Politicians, are the FIRST to blame,cuz they are so incompetant they can't live in the real world, I think the same thing of CEO's and presidents who are AWARDed their jobs becaus of politics, but that is besides the point, also to blame are individuals willing to compramize (spelling) their science.

We SHOULD be not just "better" but SUPREME in all sciences, it is the politics that is working to destroy it. HELL! Rutan only built the gossamer albatross out of frustration!!! cuz rutan WANTED to build a space vehicle the whole time.

You don't get anywhere by pissing of your fans, and the US is doing that, at least in science.

I love you rand, not in that kind of way, but I love reading this blog. Right now? I have to go away, cuz I JUST got my copy of JC Superstar.

I saw it at the Chicago theater staring Carl Anderson and Teddy Nealy, AND with Dennis DeYoung as Pilate.

Suck that!

if you can do better, you are old.

Be back tomorrow.

Politics is the one area where people need to be orders of magnitude less tolerant. People blame the politicians (where the power of the masses is concentrated because of voting) but it's really the people for being tolerant of bad politicians. People blame the media, but again it's the people that tolerate and support the media. You can blame education, but again, it's tolerance of bad education.

Hey, I'm pissed. Join me?

I'm too burned out; I've been exasperated so long I have no outrage left for these things.

If the politicians really must launch another Shuttle then it's good of Mike Griffin to spend time making sure it won't kill another crew. They launch whenever they launch, I kiss my tax dollars goodbye and I write NASA off like Ido the DMV, end of story.

"Dennis DeYoung as Pilate"

Did he sing "Lady"?

Anyone notice the Styx songs that sucked were the ones that had DeYong as the primary credit for writing. Oh, how he held back Tommy Shaw adn James Young.

Hey, I'm pissed. Join me?

I was just going to welcome you to the club. ;-)

If the politicians really must launch another Shuttle then it's good of Mike Griffin to spend time making sure it won't kill another crew.

Good for the astronauts, certainly, but it would be better on balance for the country and taxpayers if they promptly lost another one and shut the shuttle program down. The cost of even a single launch of a shuttle is much more than the value of seven human lives, as is the cost of the RTF effort so far.

Breakin' up seems to be hard to do for NASA (and the federal space policy establishment), after its long love affair with the Shuttle.