[ARCADIA]

On one level, the best thing that can happen is to lose another shuttle, and then place the remaining one in the Smithsonian. We should have weaned ourselves off of these 1970s relics a decade ago. What is it going to take to get the message across that it is time to go back to the blackboard and come up with something fresh?

[JeffersonRepublic.com]

"We should have weaned ourselves off of these 1970s relics a decade ago."

The shuttle is beautiful, but it kills people and it's very costly. If the government can't do any better then the shuttle, then they don't belong in space.

Let's fund private enterprise, and see what happens.

Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com

[NJ_gent]

"On one level, the best thing that can happen is to lose another shuttle"

How much money are the lives of the astronauts on that shuttle worth? How much cost savings would make their deaths 'the best thing' to happen?

"We should have weaned ourselves off of these 1970s relics a decade ago."

Agreed. Now, where does the money for the design and construction of the replacement vehicles come from? NASA gets about $12 Billion a year for all its operations. For some perspective, the DoD gets that much in a little over a week.

"What is it going to take to get the message across that it is time to go back to the blackboard and come up with something fresh?"

Something more than a shoe-string budget, apparently.