Two, technically three, slanders against me for no reason I can see. What gives? There are many in the scientific community who believe manned space flight should be halted.
NASA has been trying to relive the excitement of the 1960s, when every HS kid knew astronauts names, for the last 30 years. It isn't working. They did golf on the moon, popcorn on the shuttle, the first black in space, the first female in space, the first Israeli, the first Senator, the first teacher in space--all of it got the attention of only those connected to those in orbit.
I suspect not one American in ten can tell you the names of any of the astronauts killed in the last disaster.
It is important to get the younger generation interested in space. Throwing one person--at horrendous cost--up after the next into orbit to do pointless experiments is not the way to do it.
That's right. It isn't working. Need a new program, something to catch the attention of the young people and get them going like wildfire on their math and science homework. Man in space is a part of it, but obviously no longer a goal in itself.
An excellent article on what we should do is in the April Wired. Basically he argues that we should go up and push the ISS into a holding orbit (it is an investment we may want to use) then mothball the shuttle fleet while we develop a mission, not to space but to someplace. Go to the Moon and set up a permanent habitat with telescopes. Go to Mars. Go to the asteroids (this is the one I like) and prove that there is profit to be made (my idea, not his). But go someplace.
The article is at:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/start.html?pg=2
The key would be a 10 year program at the current funding of 6 or so billion per year. And NASA would have to be allowed to carry over any money not spent in the current years budget. I guarantee you we'd have a vehicle and a mission, if not a success, within that 10 years.
Of course I've also been an advocate of putting up a fixed contract, say $10 billion, for successful delivery of a usable space station to the first company to deliver it, on orbit. I bet we'd have that up and working too.