Delbert said:

>I've always had this fear that if we had canceled the ISS, and
>Shuttle the Anti-space faction in congress would have one the
>day, and we would not have a manned space program at all
>today, and little hope of ever getting it restarted. So flawed
>as they were, and the politics being what it is, they are the
>only hope of keeping a US human space program.

Delbert is spot on. The anti-space folks see no value at all in Space Exploration and will exploit every opportunity to shutdown the Space Program. These people are intelligent, well educated and politically well connect. The worst mistake is to dismiss the anti-space people as a bunch of empty headed Luddites. NASA is on its knees right now and the anti-space people are sharpening their knives. If Griffin makes any serious mistakes or there is another Shuttle accident then the party is over. Griffin is smart enough to avoid making any obvious mistakes. However keeping another Shuttle from killing its crew requires almost an act-of-God. This is one of the reasons why Griffin must shutdown the Shuttle program as quickly as possible.

Gary