As some people have noted, the shuttle project was designed to have almost fifty launches a year. That's one a week. Instead, this year it has been reduced to 4 a year, with no restart point in sight until the Columbia disaster is fully reasearched.

That's why pieces like this get me steamed. The thought that echoes through the piece is simple: the shuttle is simply too costly, whether in terms of dollars or human life, to allow the program to continue. But isn't this the attitude that got us here in the first place? With a much-larger budget, the nation's full support and the prospect of Russian superiority, we were able to get to the moon. Yet three men died during the attempt. Should we have ratcheted back? I think not. Yet months after men landed on the moon, the budget was trimmed for the following fiscal year.

Why the disconnect? In some ways, I think because NASA, unlike every other agency, has a mission that is both inspiring and practical. It's tough to get fired up about diplomatic efforts at the State Department in comparison to seeing a shuttle launch. Yet millions could die from wars due to bad diplomacy, whereas the space program risks relatively little in human life. Likewise, although the economic team at the CBO may institute an economic model revision which attempts to predict the value of tax cuts by adding in future revenue growth (kind of like the argument that if I buy a big-screen tv, and spend money on a lavish super-bowl party, that networking with the people I invite might land me a cushier job one day which will allow me to afford the tv and the party), it's much easier to say that the bottled water the astronauts drink is exorbitantly expensive. Forget that this so-called 'dynamic scoring' could affect the budget by trillions. We've got to cut back on that damned water!

In many ways, the space-program is at it's worst when it attempts to defend costs. Much like the International Space Station, which has been lampooned for cost-overruns, the space agency must constantly justify research money by saying that it earns money in the long run. Yet, overall, the value of space research is immeasurable. Let's take a down-to-earth example: the Washington Metro system. The system is old, uses cars made from one manufacturer in Italy and experienced mechanical problems constantly. Like the space-program, people think the Metro is a good system. No one, for instance, argues that replacing the entire Metro system with a bus-rapid-transit system would be a good idea, even if the costs of maintaining the existing Metro system (let alone expansion) are far greater than constructing an entirely new fleet of rapid-transit buses. And like the shuttle, the initial expectations for the Metro system (8-car long trains, a stop in Georgetown, a line to Dulles) were too high for practicality. But here's where the comparisons diverge: both the Metro system and the shuttle would benefit from greater use. If the shuttle were actually flying once every week and the Metro had 8 car trains located throughout the system, they'd both be able to keep production costs down (more shuttles and metro cars mean less expense for each), to keep maintenance lower (more people trained on how to repair both systems would mean less time spend on each task) and to keep problems from occurring in future use (having a huge pool of experienced technical personnell who have dealt with the system would mean that new problems would be more quickly solved). The New York City subway system can't be shut down by a single subway car problem, yet the Washington Metro can. Why? Because the sheer number of cars and lines in the NYC system lowers the costs for replacing each one, or even shutting down a portion and allowing other cars to route around it. If NASA were to increase the number of flights and the number of shuttles in the fleet, much like NYC, we'd be able to get around problems much easier.

The final rub? Unlike the shuttle, no one expects every city in America to eventually install the Washington Metro system, or for Washington itself to expand the system much beyond the beltway. (The line that runs through Georgetown, for instance, may never arrive...) There are too many cheaper, more reliable alternatives to installing a new transit system from scratch with only one manufacturer. Space, on the other hand, will definitely be explored in the future. The knowledge learned now, on shuttle flights and the International Space Station, will never go out-of-date. So there's a good reason to continue having shuttle flights. Yes, the system might be expensive. Yes, there might be cheaper alternatives out there. Automation is a wonderful thing, and automating more controls is better. But what seems silly to me is the notion that abandoning manned spaceflight would either save lives or money. The cost to ferry humans into orbit is high right now, to be sure. But the landing procedure that resulted in Columbia's disintegration was FULLY AUTOMATED. So if human error isn't a factor, the only consideration is whether it's worth risking human lives to explore space.

And the answer to this question, in my mind, is simple: yes! I think every single person aboard Columbia would agree with me. One day, hopefully not too far in the future, people will look back on these early days of space exploration and think to themselves that it was risky, but worth it. One day space travel will be as easy as boarding an airplane. To think that we can somehow tie our feet to the ground is as defeatist as it is silly. And no matter how many satellites we launch into orbit from unmanned rockets, we still don't gain any knowledge of how to put more humans into space. That's what we should focus on: the pursuit of the future. And the future will have more men and women in space. Now is the time to keep moving forward, not back. If that means designing a better system to move people into space, so be it. But giving up the dream for cost reasons is a silly argument.