Craig Couvault reports that our fragile and unreliable launch infrastructure isn't just important for commercial space activities. It may be affecting our ability to effectively prosecute the war.

Nearly a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Reconnaissance Office and National Security Agency lack two $1-billion secret eavesdropping spacecraft that should have been operational by now to provide critical intelligence to help track terrorist operations and plan for a possible war with Iraq.

The story also says that NRO may be responding as ineptly and ineffectively as the FBI and other government agencies. Former NRO engineer Dave Thompson rakes them over the coals. I've always been impressed by Dave, who remains a straight shooter, even if it puts his business in jeopardy (NRO is a primary customer of Spectrum Astro).

"NRO exhibits an astounding lack of revolutionary innovation to get Al Qaeda," said David Thompson, president and CEO of Spectrum Astro, a company that has contracts with NRO and other military programs. "Over the past decade, the NRO has posted a sorry decline into mediocrity and aristocracy." Before moving to the private sector, Thompson was an engineer at NRO.

He said NRO has not "done anything to make innovative new satellites to fight Al Qaeda."

His remarks, little noticed at the time, were made four months ago at a Space Foundation dinner in Colorado Springs. If the changes delaying the payload will help it better monitor Al Qaeda or Iraq, it might help blunt some of Thompson's criticism.

"The NRO has suffered a shocking decline in the technical performance of its satellites over the past several years," he said. "They haven't told you about that because it has been kept behind closed doors.

"Many NRO satellites never even got launched as they meandered their way through years of technical and program 'management mismanagement,' yet no one was held accountable. NRO is actually moving backward, getting less capability and fielding less capable technology for the future," he noted.

Yup, I feel better now. At least we got that shiny new office building out in Reston, for all those unaccounted-for billions we've given to them.

Why did we get rid of the Saturn rocket so quickly after the space shuttle began service? Where can I go for an explanation of why that seemingly perfectly good vehicle was abandoned?