One hour to final shuttle liftoff, weather permitting

As someone who remembers the Challenger disaster, do I dare say ... so far so good?

 

Bush's whole "let's go back to the Moon by 2020 and Mars by 2030" publicity stunt was simply a variation on the 'starve the beast' gameplan: Set a wildly optimistic goal, underfund the program to make it utterly impossible to achieve, then sit back as public ridicule follows when it becomes apparent the goal won't be reached, and finally ride the wave of public ridicule as an excuse to defund the whole program (See also NCLB).

Go to Mars by 2030? He might as well have said we were gonna set foot on the planet Krypton.

 

We've spent $209 billion on the space shuttle program. Was it worth it? I don't know the answer.

 

Over a span of 35 years or so. That would pay for a couple months of Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Moving on from the shuttle program in natural. It's 30 years old.
To have no manned space flight capabilities and the thought of needing to hitch a ride with the Russians is unacceptable.

Some of the shuttle missions seemed, to me, like a waste of money and time. "Hey, let's spend a couple of billion to circle the earth for a couple of weeks and see if mice and roaches will breed in space!" What the heck are we supposed to do if a satellite needs repair or maintenance? "Excuse me, comrade, the spy satellite we use to keep tabs on you and the Chinese is on the blink. Can you run us up there to fix it? Thanks."