Success of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch is terrific news.Getting NASA out of the business of manned space flight is way overdue.
I'm a 71 year-old scientist/engineer who grew up dreaming of traveling to the moon. I can still recall the excitement I felt watching the 1950 movie "Destination Moon". So, no one was more thrilled when Neil Armstrong set foot on it. But even in the early stages of the space program, it was clear that the shuttle was a brute-force solution with no long-term future. This first became evident to me when I learned about the glued-on heat tiles that would have to be repaired in a labor-intensive process after each flight.
