You'll have to excuse me if I choose not to suggest we throw the baby out with the bath water. Replacing one bureaucracy with another one will solve nothing.

The fact is, human travel into space is a dangerous enterprise. We can reorganize up the ying-yang and we will never be able to offer 100% perfection. Things can and will go wrong. Fact is we had seventeen full years without a serious accident. Find me a commercial airline with a similar record.

Yes. Let's reform agency management. And, yes lets replace the Space Shuttle with something better and safer. But lets not use this tragedy to further political agendas over America's priorities for space.

If change is warranted, its more leadership in the White House and Congress. If greater clarity on what our goals in space should be is needed, we need to start there. Having done that, then provide the resources necessary to make it happen.