The space shuttle reconsidered. The debate over whether the space-shuttle program should continue is in full-throated cry. Gregg Easterbrook has an exceptionally smart, and extremely negative, take in this week's Time magazine. He writes:

For 20 years, the American space program has been wedded to a space-shuttle system that is too expensive, too risky, too big for most of the ways it is used, with budgets that suck up funds that could be invested in a modern system that would make space flight cheaper and safer. The space shuttle is impressive in technical terms, but in financial terms and safety terms no project has done more harm to space exploration.

Easterbrook recently established his credentials as a leading critic of SUVs. With space and land taken care of, I can only assume his next stop is the briny deep.