>We need to lower launch cost.

Clearly you're missing the point of Simberg's article. Instead of mouthing platitudes, ask yourself why do we need to lower costs?; & to what benefit? To allow people to go on jolly jaunts to LEO? Whatever the cost, you're going to have a lot more reliable system than any currently on the cards to have a market to do this. To go beyond LEO (ie, the Moon, low delta v NEOs or Mars)? The cost of the mission profile makes the cost of launch more or less irrelevant. For pure science purposes? There are quite a few options already that can launch good science robot for less than a Delta2.

This is Simberg's point. We keep mouthing the same cliches about what we should be doing without ever questioning the relationship between what we want to do & how we're going about doing it. The minute you had an ISS, the rationale for the shuttle (a platform designed for missions of longer duration than a traditional capsule) vanished; yet the shuttle was tied so closely into the construction of ISS that they were virtually the same project. Can we rethink our strategy to develop a pragmatic, cost effective development of our space options in the light of this failure. Given the fact-defying vows that this, that or the other will go over the corpses of these astronauts, the cynical answer is: no....