Of course he also made mention of the simple base problem of a congress that expects fantastic results from a pennywise budget. Here I absolutely agree with him, that is exactly why the CEV is designed so conservatively, there just isn't enough money to take the kind of chances that were routinely taken during the 1960's. And heaven knows where the kind of tolerance for mistakes like there was then has gone to. So under these circumstances what do people exprect from NASA, bold new proposals? Ha! were lucky to have even the current proposals!<br /><br />However, I fully expect that Burt Rutan may very well get his big chance here, not only is NASA quite probably never going back to Hubble, but they might even never fly a shuttle again! If this happens then on another thread I have just been told rather emphatically that the ISS would never be finished either. I personally don't think this is true as the other people and countries involved would also be going down big over such a fiasco, and so I think some other way to finish the ISS would still be found!<br /><br />But if both the shuttle and the ISS are going to turn out to really be failures, then I fully expect NASA itself to go under also! If this happens perhaps all these more ambitious people such as Burt Rutan, Elon Musk and the others may even become the new NASA itself, with far more funding than the ever dreamed that they would have! Maybe they can actually do what they say they can do. If NASA does go down over the shuttle and ISS then I would hope that they can do what they say, as they will be the only game in town for humanity in space from the US! <br /><br />And even though I have supported NASA, the shuttle, and the ISS in the past, I have also said quite truthfully that I really don't care WHO gets humanity into space in a big way I just want SOMEBODY to do it!