By Jim Banke
Senior Producer, Cape Canaveral Bureau, SPACE.com





CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Wading through the huge volume of editorials and opinion pieces that followed the release of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) final report, one cant help wonder if most were written by people with scant knowledge of NASA (news - web sites)'s history.


Many of the pieces seemed to come from commentators who watched CNN or the Fox News Channel for five minutes. A lot of analysts, quoting certain lawmakers and "outside experts," just seem ill-informed, more interested in being quoted than in actually offering productive advice.


If their vision of the future is to be collectively believed, we face a dismal future in which the United States stays home, feet firmly planted on terra firma, hoping to avoid any chance of danger or harm. To them, risk is a four-letter word.


In that world, the space shuttle can never be made safe, is too expensive to operate and should never fly again. Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour are death traps waiting to torture more families with the loss of loved ones. Some suggest the International Space Station (news - web sites) (ISS) should be abandoned and dumped into the ocean before we waste another billion dollars.


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