The hits just keep on coming

ROBERT BLOCK is an editor for the Orlando Sentinel, covering NASA, which is just down the road a piece. He's got a piece on the Sentinel blog, The Write Stuff.

Well, it appears that Dubya's magic touch has NASA heading for a world of problems. Apparently the back-to-the-moon rocket system is problematic, as the blog comments illuminate. It's swallowing the budget, and behind schedule. The Shurrle fleet is scheduled for demobilization, and sanctions prohibit the US from buying Soyuz.

All of this came to light in an e-mail from the NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who's worried that the Shuttles will be kept flying. OOPS! How bad is it?

“My own view is about as pessimistic as it is possible to be,” Griffin wrote on Aug.18.

Below: an illustration of Ares 1. NASA says Crew transportation to the International Space Station is planned to begin no later than 2014. Only, that isn't going to happen.