Posted 6/15/2007 05:11:00 PM by Douglas

Gene Kranz, of course, weighs in on the current affairs at NASA.

With the shuttle program on the distant horizon, the legacy of our first decade was surrendered and many of our leaders would move on. The most technically proficient and imaginative space team in the world would disperse. America had lost its will to explore.

Our nation now faces a similar gap in manned space flight if our political and congressional leaders don’t act soon. In 2010, after completing the assembly of the space station and restoring the Hubble space telescope to many more years of scientific achievement, the shuttle fleet will stand down, initiating a more than four-year hiatus in U.S. human access to space.

The American space effort will be stalled and U.S. space leadership will be running out of time. The American astronauts that will fly to the space station will be totally dependent upon Russia, Japan and Europe. We will have to rely on the generosity and goodwill of other nations to maintain a minimal presence in space, as America will be grounded.

Is this a push to "dream big" and get Orion off the ground sooner than expected, or is this a plea to keep the "shuttle to nowhere" going past 2010? Hopefully the former.