The damage caused by ending the Space Shuttle Program prematurely -- before an alternative man-rated U.S. conveyance system was available – continues to build up. Not only do we not have an American-led way to get humans into space, we are now ending – or cutting short – our capacity to deliver national security assets into deep orbit. We are knowingly allowing a gap to emerge between launch capacity we have now – which depends on the RD-180 Russian-made rocket engine – and an uncertain future time, when we may have our own rocket engine to power heavy-lift rockets. Simply...