3 flights, 3 MPLMs. Its a shame to leave them on the ground! So simple!

3 Billion? Outfit Donatello as a soundstage. Cha-ching! Instant destination for Spielberg, Howard, and Hanks! Sell a flight to Bigelow so he can put an inflatable hab on ISS, like it is supposed to have! Do one more commercial mission with elements from all of the leading companies in the cargo bay and provide live HD coverage of Orbital and SpaceX drop tests.

Seriously, at least AMS is going to fly. We'll probably discover some magnificent secret of the Cosmos and then forget that we almost left it on the ground.

It doesn't actually need 7 people in it every time it goes up. We should be flying its C-c-cousin via remote by now.

Bad enough we're in a shaky and uncertain international climate, where it seems depending on which way the wind blows (and the cost of natural gas and crude black gold), the Russians are showing their old red flag more often than not anymore; and in an uncertain national politial climate, where many unknowns still exist before January 20; and in a totally unstable financial situation here at home, why should the public even care about astronauts and cosmonauts drilling holes in the sky with little to show for their efforts - other than maintaining what appears to the general public (IF they notice at all!) as a white and ugly 100+ billion dollar bloated elephant?

You then heap on top of this steaming fetid mess an aging space transportation system, with it's ever-present 'doomsday' scenario of another deadly accident, which looms and lurks like stage-4 cancer. On top of that, it has as it's replacement a system barely past the drawing board stage, embroiled in what seems as endless controversy, which the soon to end administration has all but ignored since day-1 (excepting for February 2003).

Where's the bucket, because my head is spinning like a neutron star...........

Why not ask the Chinese to get us around up there?

They'll be owning space in a few years, so let's get our place in line ready to go now.

India is another option, as they plan on having a native up there in 2015.

What's surprising here is that it appears that all the talk beforehand about it 'being too late' to continue Shuttle past 2010 appears to be nothing but that: talk. The word 'impossible' was sometimes used. A lot of good people put their reputations on the line...and for what? An argument that wasn't even valid? I guess the lesson here is that you just really can't ever believe what's told to you by NASA mgmt.

This is rediculous to even be considering! QUIT WASTING TIME/MONEY NASA!!! Get busy building the replacement launcher/capsule and go fly already! NASA and its contractor team(s) need to be purged of this idiotic mentallity that everything they are assigned to do has to take 10 or more years before anything at all gets done/built. I blame the lack of leadership from the beltway and the unions at the various contractors for their womb to tomb mentallity of "job security" crap for the way things have gotten so far off skew in the past 25 years.

If this was how we approached projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo; we'd still be trying to get to the Moon in the first damned place!!!

NASA/Boeing/Lockheed Martin/NorthropGrumman GET BUSY or GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!