In listening to some fairly informed commentary on the Lehrer Newshour last night, I was reminded of the basic flaw with the shuttle: it doesn't do what it was supposed to do - reduce the cost of manned spaceflight.

Depending on the accounting method used, a single shuttle mission now costs on the order of $500 million.

I can't recall the lady's name (former NASA head of Mars exploration), but I thought she had an excellent suggestion. Her proposal is to refurbish the remaining shuttle fleet by taking the vehicles offline one-by-one for a complete overhaul and rebuild, while the remaining online shuttles would operate on a reduced schedule (one flight a year).

Such a program, similiar to that used by the military on its aircraft/hardware, would extend the life of the remaining fleet without further compromising safety, while providing additional funds to improve quality control and restore a zero-fault atmosphere at the agency.

During this period, NASA should intensively work to find a follow-on vehicle which really would reduce the cost of manned spaceflight.

In a related segment, a former NASA employee (a Mr. Garcia) noted that previously reliable subsystems on the shuttle were beginning to record failures, a sure sign (he said) of an ageing system that was receiving less, not more, quality control - a dangerous combination noted by many, some of whom lost their jobs because of their incessant warnings.

The shuttle was sold on the promise of reduced costs for manned spaceflight. It doesn't do that, nor is it reliable.

It's time for NASA to develop an air-launched manned orbiter.

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