Instead of going backwards to an Apollo command module on a solid rocket motor we should be going forward to a fully reusable shuttle. Mike Griffin is going backwards because that's the only way the Space Program can be saved.

The current Space Shuttle has several major design flaws. Some of the worst are:

1) The nonreusable external tank (ET)
2) The semi-reusable solid rocket boosters (SRB)
3) A delicate thermal protection system
4) Effectively no fuel storage on the orbit vehicle
5) No escape system for the flight crew

There are numerous minor flaws but the above 5 flaws really jump out. The engineers who designed the Space Shuttle were amongst the brightest people who ever lived. They were well aware of all of the above design flaws. Unfortunately the Space Shuttle wasn't really designed by engineers. It was designed by politicians, bureaucrats and bean counters. The original Space Shuttle designs were sound but the bean counters said the development costs were too high and needed to be cut in half. The Shuttle was accordingly redesigned. Then the politicians said to cut the development costs in half again. After this dismal process, the resultant design passed the U.S. Senate by a single vote. If the system had worked correctly, the engineers would have refused to proceed with the compromised design (Do it right or cancel it!!). They would have pointed out the impossibility of achieving the $1000/kg launch cost objective and the obvious safety issues. Unfortunately they didn't. At the time, aerospace engineers were undergoing mass layoffs. They were afraid of losing their jobs and wanted to feed their families. So they painted the roses red and bowed down to the naked emperor. The ultimate result was a Space Program in the toilet, dead astronauts, and 35 years wasted going around in circles.

Gary