You're making the same mistake that NASA has made: equating the Shuttle program with the Space Program. The Shuttle should be ditched because it is standing in the way of progress in space.
Everyone would be eating sushi and speaking Japanese, if this smarmy little coward had been in charge after Pearl Harbor.
We didn't stick with biplanes and conventional explosives after Pearl Harbor, we developed jets and nuclear weapons. We didn't rebuild the Arizona, we built the Missouri. That's the real spirit.
So what are the chances of W taking a Kennedy-like stand on this, proposing a new mission and direction for NASA?
That may or may not be true, depending upon numerous factors, research objectives and military applications far too numerous to be debated with a sentence or two. My point was more one of timing. People who let fly with "cut and run", even as the body parts are crashing to earth, are doing nothing more than taking advantage of the publicity surrounding a disastrous situation to spew their political venom upon uninformed people.
We didn't stick with biplanes and conventional explosives after Pearl Harbor, we developed jets and nuclear weapons.
Are you kidding? After Pearl Harbor, we fought back quickly and vigorously with what we had. Conventional explosives were loaded on old airframes and creatively launched off an old aircraft carrier in Dolittles' shock attack on the Japanese homeland. The old aircraft carrier USS Yorktown was severely destroyed at the Battle of Coral Sea, but it was creatively "patched" and put back to back to sea in time for the Battle of Midway, which turned the tide of the Pacific war.
The jets, nuclear bombs and high tech weapons were part of a long range plan for future wars. The "old" stuff was upgraded and mass produced to win WWII. The Nuclear bombs dropped on Japan were merely the final blow in a war already won that saved American lives by quickening the end.
We didn't rebuild the Arizona, we built the Missouri.
I am not certain, but I believe the Big Mo was already built or on the drawing boards before Pearl Harbor. At any rate, it was later mothballed and put back in action for the Vietnam War, and again for Operation Desert Storm - 50 years after Pearl Harbor. Likewise, the "aging" B-52 was built in the 1950's as a high altitude SAC nuclear bomber. As technology advanced, it was refitted for low altitude air defense penetration and as an AGM missile carrier and launch platform. Long after SAC was disbanded, the "ageless" B-52 became a high altitude carpet bomber and cruise missile launcher in Desert Storm and Afghanistan. It will probably be in action again very soon. When it goes into action, it will be accompanied by the KC135 strato Tanker, a 1950's Cold War air refueling cousin of the B-52. And, don't forget "Puff the Magic Dragon" was a 1920's cargo plane that was converted into the much feared attack gunship during the Vietnam War 50 years later, about the time Apollo Astronauts flew to the moom.
Like the space shuttles, the old aircraft and battleships were refitted and upgraded, to accomplish a needed mission. Even now, the Big Mo waits quietly in "mothballs." If the mission objectives dictate, the space shuttles will be no different. If the mission objectives change, then like the Big Mo, the space shuttles will retire. But, they will retire, because the mission objectives and technology change - not because a opportunist "cut and run" media liberal stampedes the weak and uninformed.
That's the real spirit.
The real spirit is, and always has been, exemplified by "Yankee Ingenuity" that improvises or changes depending on technological necessity and financial reality.