[P-51]

A *little* perspective here guys:

- The foam has obviously been falling off the shuttle since flight #1. There have been 100's of flights, with no issues, and one that had a problem. This flight is no different than any of the other 100's of successful flights, the foam fell off... except this time people were LOOKING for it.

-Now lets see... which other countries have reusable orbital vehicles? Oh... nobody. Everybody else uses completely disposable rockets, complete with foam that falls off, the only difference is it doesn't hit the orbiter because... they don't HAVE an orbiter.

-10 million dollars to put 1 man into LOW EARTH ORBIT for one hour. How much does it cost to send 6 men up into HIGH orbit, for a few weeks at a time, complete with however many tonne payload and a robotic arm? I bet it costs about as much as NASA's budget.

I'm pretty critical about many American things... but this isn't one of them.

I mean come on guys, let's see how smart you are:

Problem: The fuel storage tanks are minus 200-dam-something degrees. They need to be insulated. The insulation can't weight very much because it takes 100 lbs of fuel to get 1 pound of payload into space. The insulation must be able to withstand 100G's of vibration and shaking.

How do YOU solve the problem if you're so smart?