If you ever wonder why the NASA budget is screwed up

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson has decided that she's going to set NASA right and keep the Space Shuttles flying, even though they are dangerous and NASA has set a deadline to stop flying them. Now, here's the problem: NASA has already committed to this course of action. People have been laid off, factories and plants and production lines that make Shuttle parts have stopped running, and this course of action has been set upon. Going back and restarting and rehiring and all of that will cost a LOOT (er, LOT) of money. Now, I am dubious about a private company being able to take men into space; experiments with private space efforts have ended up a) costing the companies involved a lot more money than they originally estimated; b) driven up the cost of the product higher than anyone imagined, or could afford; and c) ended up having the U.S. government take over to fix things, which cost more money. Case in point: LANDSAT.

But you've got to make decisions and go forward. Hutchinson is going backward. NASA needs every dollar it can get right now.


Space Shuttle extension