Keith Cowing writes about the inflexibility and fragility of the Shuttle (a subject near and dear to my own heart).

NASA’s current launch dilemma began to develop much along the lines of the 70’s movie – based on the 60s novel “Marooned” where a hurricane threatened the launching of a rescue mission to an orbiting space station. When things got tough – the Russians helped out – at the last minute. Things are not as dire this time around, but the confluence of various facts would make for a good book someday.

Weather has always been an issue for launched from Florida – and it always will be. Russians will be as obstinate as they can get away with so long as they are in the equation for American human spaceflight aboard the ISS.

Given that NASA seeks to used “shuttle derived” architecture and hardware – and launch it from KSC – it has more or less guaranteed that such uncertainties will remain part of human spaceflight for decades to come.

I disagree with him though, that the lessons to be learned are from the Russians, who have developed only a slightly less expensive, and slightly more robust system.

Until we develop a truly robust and low-cost space transportation infrastructure (with full redundancy in vehicles and vehicle types), spaceflight will remain expensive, and rare.