re: NASA's continuing cowboy culture, Feynmann, Challenger, Columbia and STS 107.
How does unmanned spaceflight mature manned spaceflight technology? They are different things. If america drops out of manned spaceflight for long they will loose that capability.
Space does not have a sign on the door saying science only, I think nasa should be supporting non pure science goals in space, and so should other government space agencies. I'd love to leave it to the newspace companies but they aren't ready yet.