Yes, that is what I meant.
There is no doubt that, sooner or later, we're going to figure out the cause of the Columbia disaster, correct the situation, and move forward with the space program in one way or another.
That's fine, that's what we should do.
But space travel will still have a fairly large amount of hazardous risk associated with it.
If resuming the space program means resuming the "piss as art" sideshow (or similar irrelevant activities) then I'd just as soon drop the entire space program. It just isn't worth asking our astronauts to take that risky venture into outer space, then degrade their endeavors with such superfluous nonsense.
Amen to that, Willie. NASA needs much bigger ideas; otherwise, what's the point? I suppose the motivation for this "experiment" was some sort of politically correct "cultural diversity" bushwah. What does this have to do with science?