Of course it has been the criticism. Automation is the holy grail of engineers and scientists and it is a damn good thing too BUT, there is also a visceral need for Human involvement. Does the computerized lathe operator feel the same at the end of the day that the machinist of yore felt? My problem with NASA is the earth orbit fixation. I want to see us actually EXPLORING space not sending multi-billion dollar delivery trucks into orbit.
Sure. I am however considering that our system of government has not, for whatever reason, achieved the level of success it set out the achieve with the shuttle. It is significantly more expensive and significantly more dangerous than originally billed. Also, we no longer have the luxury of being able to say shame on NASA and the USG for fooling us once in this case.
At what point would the American public be convinced that a different direction is necessary, at least for the short term? If most people say we continue to need manned flight because of emotional "human destiny" reasons, and NASA continues its current trend, we can expect another tragedy in another 50 flights or so. That will make three.
Or we could act to reduce losses in a preventative manner and start to squirrel up for something more to your liking (eg moon base, L5, or manned mars expedition) in a delayed gratification manner.
I'm not against manned space travel personally. I rather like the idea, in fact. I just prefer to be realistic, and put robots where it makes the most sense for some of the drudge work. We replaced manned bomber crews with missiles in the early 1950s. We could have done the same with respect to earth orbital platforms in the 1980s. Then we might have had money left over to start on a moon base (manned or unmanned) by now.
Right now few people actually get very excited about earth orbit stuff. Even on the last Columbia flight, it seems as if it was only a few Freepers and assorted nerds who actually bothered to watch the re-entry. Where is the glamor in that?
(I watched exactly one shuttle flight re-entry myself, the first. I suppose I figured that all the others would look just like the first, so I skipped them.)
I think the barriers here are not technical but sociological (and fiscal, if we believe the space program should pay its own way). Collectively, we seem unable to plan rationally beyond the next fiscal year, not to mention decade. NASA and the USG went for the shuttle to keep voter interest high. When it waned anyway, shuttle safety got the short end of the fiscal stick, with predictable results. In hindsight, it may have been in my opinion a collective failure. Our civilization, given our republican mode of government, can only accelerate progress in space so fast, beyond which we end up defeating ourselves one way or another. We may want to go to Mars within 2 decades or so, and we may want a *truly* reliable space shuttle now, but we don't want to have to put up with 75-student classrooms, or a 50% increase in commuter delay, or 10% increase in federal taxes, to pay for it in a fiscally responsible manner. So we put NASA and the astronauts in what is essentially a losing proposition. We press onwards and only unconsciously recognize that we are gambling with peoples' lives with our choices and compromises. (And sometimes, we lose.)