Get this!

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, was asked to take a look at NASA's plans after the Columbia accident highlighted the need to fix up the 20-year-old space shuttle.

Originally designed to be used for 10 years, the aging shuttles are not as safe as they could be and there is no replacement in sight.

"The shuttle will now be needed for another two decades," the GAO report reads.

"Efforts to upgrade the shuttle have been stymied by the agency's inability to develop a long-term strategic investment plan to fly the shuttle safely and a systematic approach for defining the spacecraft's requirements because its life expectancy and mission have continued to change from an original design of a 10-year life to the year 2020 and possibly beyond."

There is nothing in this article, and thus I assume the GAO report, about the retirement of the shuttle in 2010. I mean clearly they started this investigation before Bush's space policy announcement but is the GAO really this fucked up that they release what they must know are completely irrelevent data and conclusions? I'm stunned by the sheer idiocy of the GAO.