[MerlinsByte]

I come of age in the 60s NASA was a strong can do agency, after the moon, the manned exploration of mars was only, perhaps only ten years away, 2005 was the date of the first robotic interstellar mission. Now in the waning season of 2005 we have a crappy space shuttle that has never lived up to expectations, hell it didn’t even live up to the most pessimistic of predictions. When a shuttle goes up (if it does go up) we hold our collective breaths and hope that it doesn’t become expensive toast when it comes down.

We are tethered to earth by a “international space station” in low earth orbit so “near” that we could drive to in a few hours by automobile. (that is if we could drive straight up). We have no heavy launch boosters, only a over complicated , low power, delta booster with a multitude of strap on boosters. Strap on(s) are good for only one thing and it ‘tain’t rockets.

We need leadership at NASA. We must now ask the Russians to hoist anything of real weight in orbit because we can’t! We should put the shuttle in a museum, or just shoot it and let it die. We need heavy launch capability. How difficult would it be to design a two stage , heavy launch booster, with the 1st stage a solid propellant disposable, and a liquid fueled single engine (kiss) second stage?

Where have all the (space) cowboys gone? I’m tired of sitting on my pathetic ass and looking through my telescope and wishing we were THERE. I've been doing that for 30 years and my ass is sore!

We should be developing nuclear engines now, we should be going to mars or Jupiter via manned missions, now. Our destiny is to be a space faring race. As is now we are going to vaporize our dumb asses in a war fought over nothing ,or drown in our own toxic waste before we learn to fly again. Its a sad state of affairs that we are in and the worse part is the apathy and ignorance of the average government goon and American citizen.