Yesterday, before the uBlog went to hell, I wrote about a Time article written by Gregg Easterbrooke precisely about the Space Shuttle: too expensive, antiquated, idiosyncratic; ultimately dangerous and not worth the nation's time. He made the points, but he obviously sees himself as an unheeded whistleblower - he recently spoke about the danger of the aging Columbia - and so his essay was littered with rhetorical rabbit-punches. He felt it necessary to break empty bottles of ripple over the alcoholic's head.
I'm more inclined to agree with both the position and presentation of Rand Simberg's piece in National Review. It's significantly shorter than Easterbrooke's on details - for instance, Easterbrooke's request that more time be spent learning the essentials of orbit and re-entry, lest we put the "cart before the horse" - but the scope is much clearer. NASA has gone too far without an objective that reflects the changing times. Novelty is gone; so is national greatness. Space travel is part and parcel to the technological development of mankind and, if you'll pardon the leap of faith, meeting others quite like us elsewhere in the cosmos, whose acquaintance will unimaginably broaden our perceptions of life, friend and foe.
NASA needs to check its compass much more than it needs to pretend to a ravenous Congress that spaceflight is perfectly harmless; men and women will always be integral to science, and risk never completely mitigated - but their sacrifices must be unquestionably justified.