NASAwatch has a series on interesting posts on Mike Griffin, the Shuttle, its successor and a recent leaked e-mail.
Read if you deeply care about NASA funding and medium term policies and funding issues.
It started with an e-mail from Griffin leaked to the Orlando Sentinel. The e-mail only had 8 recipients, all senior NASA HQ personnel. The e-mail copy is a bad scan of a paper printout. Curious.
NASAwatch's take is here (take time to read the comments)
The gist is that the new Exploration launchers will not be available on time, that the US is looking at 3-5 year gap with no launchers and no ISS access.
Griffin predicts the next administration will stretch the Shuttle and do so without providing extra funding to expedite CEV/Ares development, probably at the cost of the back-to-the-Moon initiative.
The analysis is crisp and looks spot on, modulo something unexpected like a broad increase in science agency funding within the next couple of years.
More here from Cowing, and here
Kobayashi Maru ploys are rarely successful and should only be used in extremis.
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No problem. We just announce that we are boycotting the ISS in retaliation for Russian armed action in Georgia.
It was inevitable that reality would catch up with both the space shuttle and the ISS. They were both advanced for political purposes not for valid scientific purposes.
Back in the 50's when I was in high school and avidly reading science fiction, I too dreamed of space stations and manned missions to Mars and beyond. When I learned enough science I soon realized that the exploration of space will be done much more quickly and inexpensively by autonomous and semi-autonomous robot devices.