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From an article in the British Independent, hat tip to Arts and Letters Daily:DHURNA Anglo-Indian Extorting payment from someone by sitting at their front door and staying there without food, threatening violence, until you get paid. SOKAIYA Japanese A man...

NASA administrator says space shuttle was a mistake

Any good "hard" science fiction fan was capable of making this analysis. Among others, rocketeer Homer Hickham, author and main character of October Sky retired from NASA and wrote a novel titled Back to the Moon in which NASA is given a pretty good black eye for having become moribund with bureaucracy and political correctness.

Latest in this feeling that NASA had lost its direction comes from no less than the NASA chief administrator himself:

The space shuttle and International Space Station ? nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades ? were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

Griffin said NASA lost its way in the 1970s, when the agency ended the Apollo moon missions in favor of developing the shuttle and space station, which can only orbit Earth. ?It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path,? Griffin said. ?We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can.?

Reading between the lines, it appears to the Chief that NASA needed more von Braun and less Rube Goldberg in its design philosophy:

Asked Tuesday whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin said, ?My opinion is that it was. ? It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible.? Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said, ?Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in.?

Sounds like we finally have a NASA chief worthy of the name after too many bureaucrats, program managers and barely-disguised political hatchetmen, and not nearly enough engineers in the lead. Hopefully now the Congresscritters will give Griffen the support needed to get us back on the road towards the stars. It's absolutely essential if our civilization is to continue to exist and improve itself.

Statement from Senator Thune:Senator John Thune Comments on the Nomination of Harriet Miers Today, Senator John Thune (R-SD) made the following statement regarding President Bush?s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court: ?The nomination and confirmation process of Judge...

Rush Limbaugh discloses more media lies: Dan Rather was interviewed last night at the National Press Club in Washington by former CBS News employee-reporter Marvin Kalb. ? KALB: Every now and then it even looks as if the new...

Victory Fund:Tuesday, October 25, 2005 5th Annual Gay and Lesbian Leadership Awards Annual Oate-Shrum Event Thursday, October 25, 2005 VIP Reception 5:30 Awards Ceremony 6-7pm 101 Constitution, NW Washington, DC HONOREES United States Senator Tom Daschle Mayor Richard M. Daley...

Yesterday the Argus Leader did a report on sex education in Sioux Falls. Excerpt:A group of parents are concerned about how sex education is being taught in Sioux Falls middle schools.Based on copies of new teacher manuals they have seen,...

How does the old saying go about wherever the beautiful women are, so too is the revolution? If that's the case, we're winning. The exact wording of the phrase escapes me, and after visiting the link I think you'll see...

Last Friday, I mentioned that I was 99% sure the sister of one of my high school classmates wrote the season two finale for Battlestar Galactica. Thanks to the the mighty, magical powers of the Internet, Anne stopped by and...

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