Yeah, God forbid we take any risks or be ambitious with our space program.
Jeez, what's with this guy
It sidetracked the space program which didn't really have anything serious for the next step after the Apollo program. It saddled it with an expensive, hard to maintain launch vehicle, with unrealistic expectations of what it could do to help pay for itself, and didn't know what to do next.
The ISS is is horrible compromise project..too small to do what the original concept was, and very expensive.
The 70s and 80s were bad for the Manned Space Program...and that lack of vision, and the lack of someone to push for it hurt a lot.
It's reached a point that a lot of us die-hard space junkies have wondered if the agency isn't too filled with lack of vision and a certain defeatism, to go to the next level...
Jeez, what's with this guy
This guy is one smart engineer, with half a dozen PhDs in disciplines that would make you head hurt just reading the titles of the textbooks.
Unlike instant experts like yourself, Dr. Griffin knows that it is smart engineering to not design on the edge of technological maturity. Commercial jetliners fly with amazing safety records and make money doing so because they don't use unobtainium and push the performance envelope.
In case you forgot, President Bush once was a pilot and businessman, and is quite familiar with the downside of technical and business failure - and has learned from it.
I personally would have liked to see us continue with manned moon exploration and a permanent station, with the space station in a higher orbit able to support the moon base. By this time – 36 years after our first moon landing – we would have been well on our way to safely taking on Mars.