[Publius6961]

Unless there's some sort of INTENSE intervention...the shuttle program is augered in ..so to speak.

You need to get out more, dude.

I doubt totally that we are going to leave those folks stranded on the space station.

[prisoner6]

They aren't stranded...they have a Soyuz craft to get out in an emergency. Plus the Ruskies ...if we give 'em enough money...won't have any problems with shooting up a rescue mission before we can.

STS is grounded TFN....maybe forever.

prisoner6

[Timesink]

I doubt totally that we are going to leave those folks stranded on the space station.

Don't forget the Russians. Unmanned rockets and Soyuz escape pods. No shuttles are needed to get them back down here.

My guess is this will be like last time: Lots of chatter about shutting down the entire space program while NASA grounds all remaining shuttles pending the conclusions of the investigatory commission. And then, once they figure out what went wrong and fix it, we'll go right back to using the shuttles. We have nothing else, and no money to invest in better space flight technologies.

Too bad Feynman's not going to be around for this commission. Remember when he dunked the O-ring in a glass of water?