it's obvious that the United States has not taken the most effective route to establishing large scale, low-cost human activity in space.

Well, the Europeans have an ATV that cost a couple of billion bucks to fly, the Chinese flew a couple of flights for a billion or two, the Russians, they're with US, so who exactly are you referring to, the people that we are trying to catch up to?

Inquiring minds want to know. Like I said, the commercialization of space transportation is our next big thing, now that Bush's VSE and Constellation have proven to be such HUGE FAILURES, and will certainly be canceled shortly.

Surely Raoul will have some great criticism for something we've just started.

Raoul has nothing. Trust me.