I keep trying to keep at least this forum clear of this kind of thing! If you are going to use sarcastic and snide innuendos, please go over to the land of such, otherwise known as free space. There you will have the opportunity to duel with the lords of such nastiness. Of course, don't expect any kind of mercy from either of the extremes of the political spectrum over there. However, if you are going to take these kinds of liberties with your posts, then please do NOT continue to post here!<br /><br />Your statement is totally unfounded besides. I know of no posters here that work directly for NASA. Some may work for various NASA contractors, but like shuttle-guy quite probably could easily either work somewhere else, or are old enough to retire. And don't even bother with me, I retired six years ago, and what is left of by Boeing retirement is a mutual fund not even dependent on Boeing, much less NASA. The rest of my living is social security. <br /><br />So what you posted is not only snide, sarcastic innuendo, it is also totally false!<br /><br />In no manner is the US congress going to shut down either the shuttle or the ISS at this time! You can be upset about it all you wish, you can even write your representatives all you want. It will just be a waste of time! What you may do is to turn congress against any further funding of NASA at all. If you succeed in doing this, then ALL of the various scientific robotic probes will be history! Tell me, how many such deep space probes have been funded by pure profit making private interests? You know as well as I do that if the federal government doesn't continue to fund NASA there will be exactly zero such probes in the future!<br /><br />I too, as well as the others here that support NASA, the shuttle, ISS , and CEV programs have also protested the cuts in the scientific programs (by the way just how is the Hubble supposed to be serviced without the shuttle?). <br /><br />I have shown where it would take VERY L