Interesting
"It was clear to many astute observers that the ESAS program was a political one. It was designed to mollify Congress by keeping almost every worker in the dying Space Shuttle program in his present job, performing the same task in the same factory in the same politician's district".
It's sad that NASA is now no more than a pork barrel project for congress. To say the space program has lost it's focus and is driven by politics is a huge understatement. The only part of NASA that still functions is the unmanned side.