For years, since its founding in the wake of the Challenger disaster by June Scobee (not June Scobee Rogers), widow of perished commander Dick Scobee, the Challenger Center has been a strong defender of the Shuttle program and traditional NASA human spaceflight. So this press release supporting commercial human spaceflight is sort of a big deal (or as the vice president would say, a BFD), I think. At some point (and particularly if we can get a new president, and people have forgotten that it was Obama who came up with the new direction), the only supporters of the Senate Launch System will be those who benefit from the pork. Most others who are truly interested in actual space accomplishment will see it for what it is.

[Update late morning]

It’s nice to see Bolden standing up for sanity at the National Press Club:

Bolden: ‘When I hear ppl say last shuttle launch marks end of human space flight, I say u must B living on another planet.

We’ve been getting lots of dispatches from other planets over the past year and a half.