Thiokol (ATK) took the money from arms sales for the Iraq war, and lobbied the hell out of the Congress. What ATK wanted was not only a manned launch monopoly, but also to develop a medium launcher for the comsat market on the government's (our) dime. Count the grains per year. Say 2-4 per year now rising to 12 or so if this comes to pass

This thing was bad from the start, and everyone said so - see Mark Wade or Charlie Vick's predictions. The entire idea of landing a heat shield on the Moon and then returning it to the Earth was a real good sign as to how stupid the entire architecture was.

I have my own particular problem with this, as it appears that SRB exhaust may work as a catalyst in the ozone reaction, and a lot of people are dying of skin cancer due to those holes. 2-4 grains per year I can live with, but more....

The violent weather may also be attributed, but I've had a stroke, and without the money to tie it all up once again all I can do is watch people suffer.

The crops have been flooded, and it looks like we're headed to a solar minima with an early frost. Mothers will be trying to put milk and cereal out for breakfast for their kids this fall. Here they'll do it, but at a higher price. Elsewhere, I don't know.

May Grandfather help those engineers trying to save NASA.