NASA's future depends on spaceflight neophytes, MSNBC

"This week brought the first hint that NASA's standards could be dropping. With the space shuttle era nearing its end, the agency awarded more than $269 million in contracts to build commercial spaceships: two capsules, a space plane and a gumdrop spaceship to taxi astronauts to and from the International Space Station or other destinations in low Earth orbit. NASA says Americans will be riding their own spaceships once again by the middle of the decade. But old hands argue that it'll be more like seven to 10 years."

Jay Barbree Needs A Fact Checker, earlier post