NASA Wises Up...Sort Of

Twenty years after the Challenger explosion, NASA finally announced the space shuttle will be scraped and they will undertake a new generation of design.

The shuttle has never worked the way it was supposed to, and by that I mean be cheaper to operate than a rocket and capasule. Thus, NASA will design a new rocket and capsule.

It took two disasters, five space-worthy (relative term) shuttles and a good four decades of development to finally admit what was demonstrated with every launch; it's just not worth it.

But the most puzzling thing is the use of old capsule design for the new phase of NASA space exploration in an age when the Ansari X-Prize generated 26 teams, each with their own method of getting to space. The most notable example being the winner of the Prize: SpaceShipOne. Hell, the craft's hanging in the National Air and Space Museum. It's not like NASA officials have to go far to see it. Perhaps they don't just want to admit the private sector has a leading role in their domain.