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CalliArcale
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This is from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune at http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5551755.html -- since registration is required, I'll post it here in its entirety. I won't be sticking around to discuss it; I'm hideously busy today at work. But during a break, I saw this article and knew I had to post it here. I know some folks will want to disagree, especially those who aren't Shuttle fans, but for those who ARE Shuttle fans, I think this is a nice piece, especially after AP describing STS-114 as a "troubled" mission and general media pessimism.<br /><br /><br />Editorial: A giant leap for shuttle reliability<br />August 10, 2005 ED0810<br /> <br /><br />Discovery's safe landing on Tuesday probably assures the shuttle fleet's eventual restoration to full flight status. Despite a few glitches during the mission, which could not help but recall the catastrophic loss of the Columbia 2½ years ago, craft and crew demonstrated that these stubby, stalwart gliders can still do the job.<br /><br />That job is destined to disappear as soon as 2010, or whenever the United States decides it has fulfilled its obligations to the international space station. Then it will be time to retire the shuttles -- not because they are aging, not because they are faulty, but simply because their purpose is fulfilled.<br /><br />It has always been a humble purpose, essentially to ferry stuff into orbit -- satellites, at first, and then shipments for the space station and the Hubble Space Telescope. But critics who mock the shuttles as rocket-powered delivery vans mistake the simplicity of their task for insignificance.<br /><br />An honest argument can be made that there were better, cheaper ways to lift some of the early payloads into orbit. But unless you are among those who see no worth in the Hubble or the space station -- and probably, therefore, in most anything NASA does -- there is no denying the critical role <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>