Space Shuttle: Ooops!

One of the joys of reading Slashdot is that when someone does something of a blindingly stupid technical nature somewhere in the world, the odds are fairly good that sooner or later - assuming the foul-up is particularly spectacular - that word will seep out from beneath whatever rock the knowledge of said foul-up has been festering beneath to see the light of day on Slashdot, the perpetrator ridiculed extensively, and occasionally, insights offered. And then, of course, the mandatory ritual beatings of the dead horse.

Sort of a combined schadenfreude festival and educational discourse, all in one tasty serving.

Today I ran across the third article on the Space Shuttle gap. You know that little detail, where Congress and sundry co-conspirators bollixed things up?

Shuttle program end date is 2010. Earliest U.S. replacement, it seems, is 2014. Only alternative in the meantime is the Soyuz fleet run by our good buddies, the Russians, in our newly polished-up, renovated, and freshly upgraded iteration of the Cold War. Wheee!

This leaves our only access for a four year period to the International Space Station pretty much at the mercy of a nation who's expressions of undying love, loyalty, and affection towards the United States have been rather limited of late. Ooops.

Now comes to light a scathing memo from the NASA administrator...pointing out, ever so gently via the careful use of a sledgehammer, the sheer dunderheadedness of putting the sole means of getting to a 100 billion dollar asset in the hands of another nation without some sort of viable Plan B.

A lovely bit of snark, indeed. And rather on target, as well...

Read the article, read the e-mail, make up your own mind.