The "car" was 21 years old when W. became President, 13 years old when Clinton took office. How old is too old? Should we have shut the program down because it was too expensive?
It has long been known that the technology exists to bring the costs down by a factor of 10 and increase safety by perhaps a factor of 100. http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/010412-sts1.htm But for various reasons, including politics, a replacement was never built.
Now the question is whether the current level of cost and safety is acceptable in an era when we can do much better. We shut down the shuttle production line a long time ago, and there would be no point in tooling it up again to build a Nixon-era craft. There is no element of "face" in retiring the shuttle any more than there was in replacing B-707s with 747s.
An accident of this kind, given statistical probabilities, was going to happen one day. Today's the day. And not only were the lives of astronauts lost, but our access to space, which is one of the cornerstones of our national strength, has been somewhat limited. It's too old and too expensive.