Here’s a newspaper editorial calling for a phaseout of the Space Shuttle. What’s surprising about it is the source. It’s Florida Today, traditionally one of the best sources of space-related news on the web, and the newspaper of the Space Coast, home of Cape Canaveral and all it entails.

We think the shuttles should fly again, but their day is coming to an end much faster than NASA is willing to admit.

This I agree with.

We believe the fleet should be phased out — as soon as five or six years, if possible — and replaced with a new manned vehicle that could be launched atop an unmanned rocket and take crews to and from the International Space Station.

This I don’t, at least not if it’s going to cost anywhere near NASA’s current estimates.

Better in my mind to have no manned space program than a very expensive one based on debilitating and flawed premises.

It’s time to take some of those billions that NASA plans to spend on human space transportation, and put them in escrow for companies that can affordably provide it, cash on delivery. I suspect that this might leave Boeing and Lockmart out in the cold, though.