Re:probes die, shuttles die quicker (Score 1)

"Shuttles die quicker"? You forget that in the entire history of NASA, there have only been 17 fatalities. It is true that 14 of them were on shuttles, but I think that just came from not having a mission and/or funding. During the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo era, NASA had a clear mission and plenty of money to do it. Now, or at least before the Columbia incident, NASA was basically told, "Go do small stuff, as long as it is cheap." It was amazing the amount of begging that NASA had to do in order to get the money to take part in the ISS. What NASA needs is to finally retire the Space Shuttle, as they were supposed to do a while ago, but also hurry up and make that space plane that they have been talking about to shuttle people to and from the ISS, and then build/assemble future large manned spacecraft up there for a return to the moon, and eventually Mars.