As long as all the meetings of all the committees and groups and teams exist to recommend things rather than actually making them happen, we never have to do any work. On the down side, it means the meetings go on forever.

Wait, do you work at the same place that I work or something???

The problem isn't the vehicle, it is the culture. It's incredibly risk averse.

Eh, I probably shouldn't get into it. NASA, to me, is an incredibly leaden bureaucracy. When it comes to big missions, I'm just really doubtful that they can be at all visionary. Its time has passed, short of blowing it apart and starting over. Smaller, contracted out missions, sure, but...

eta: Dude, they named a telescope after an administrator. That's just not done.

In follow-up news on the bones underneath the Mormon Tabernacle:

Richard Talbot, director of the Office of Public Archaeology at Brigham Young University, said that during excavation for the TRAX light-rail line, archaeologists found evidence of a Fremont Indian village dating from A.D. 900 to 1300.

"The evidence so far shows a large Fremont Indian village basically underneath downtown Salt Lake," he said.

Without analysis, it isn't known whether the remains are from that period or ethnic group, "but we know the Utes and other groups lived in that area as well. It's very possible those kinds of groups could have lived on and buried their dead in the same general area."

As for the possible presence of additional remains under the Tabernacle, Talbot said Fremont Indians didn't typically use common burial grounds. "They would bury people anywhere it is convenient."

They left the bones where they were when they were first found because they couldn't determine which tribe he belonged to.

The problem isn't the vehicle, it is the culture. It's incredibly risk averse.

I agree that their culture is a big problem, and that they are now very risk averse. But the shuttle is less safe than other manned space vehicles because A) it has solid rocket motors which cannot be shut down in case of an emergency, and B) it rides next to the external fuel tank (not on top of everything) leaving it vulnurable to damage from debris falling from the tank.

Both of those problems can be mostly overcome by carefull engineering, so it's not all bad... but it just needs a lot of attention paid to these vulnurabilities.

I was tryingto be a little bit rational, but clearly I'm gonna have to fall back on Jessica's

...moon! Base! Base on moon! Want!

That's what any argument of mine is really gonna boil down to.

pitstop of errands on way to food.

A THANK YOU to JZ and David. I now have a snazzy tiara of my own with extra especial pink crystals. THANK YOU!

off to get BK for lunch!

...moon! Base! Base on moon! Want!

To bring the movies discussion into it:

We love the moon!
and Zeppelins!

...moon! Base! Base on moon! Want!

Good lord, you're all channeling Clovis.

Clovis wants a base on the moon?

Clovis wants a base on the moon?

The better to control his sugary minions with.