The Houston Chronicle has a touchy-feely report about NASA moving head after the Endeavor landed safely in Florida yesterday. I’m glad to see the media portraying a sense of optimism about space travel, but one quote from Michael Griffin (NASA Adminstrator) caught me off guard:

Griffin said his agency can move ahead to finish the station’s construction by 2010 — the date set by the White House for the shuttle’s retirement — without rushing. But he stressed there will be risks.

“This is very much an experiment vehicle,” Griffin said. “Anyone who doesn’t believe that just doesn’t get it.”

I’m sorry, but how is the space shuttle still an “experiment vehicle” when it’s twenty-eight (28!) years old? When does space travel cease being experimental and start becoming normal and mainstream? In my opinion, it is this attitude and the short-sightedness of policy makers which have doomed us to repeat the same types of missions in low earth orbit time and time again.

I guess Dr. Griffin is right–I’ll never get why we quit reaching for the stars, instead settling on doing the same missions that we did in the 1970′s with thirty year old technology.