The current online MSNBC poll shows that the mob is still screaming for more Space Shuttle fun! It hasn't yet sunk in to the pea-sized collective brain of the TV mob that NASA has not fixed the deadly foam shedding problem AFTER TWO YEARS AND ONE BILLION DOLLARS.
The Discovery Astronuts are lucky to be alive, and NASA is again shown to be a collection of fools and incompetents. The tension must be reaching a breaking point on board the shuttle, as the Kamikaze crew keeps up its PR cheer and bravado while contemplating their exposure to a potentially deadly malfunction that NASA failed to fix. NASA has made fools of them all by publishing their repeated statements of confidence in the Space Turkey.
But the mob wants more! Whoosh! Gollee! Look at her go! That's the pride of America! So let's slap some paint on that foam. Maybe that will hold it together - or use some duct tape. Hell, Billy Bob has a big roll of it in his truck!
The TV news organs are in a bit of a delicate situation here. Their breathless and teary-eyed enthusiasm for RETURN TO FLIGHT is now morphing into sweaty anxiety about RETURN TO FRIGHT. What is a cable airhead to do? Tell the truth? OMIGOD! Tell our tender children that NASA is run by corrupt assholes?
America will keep flying the shuttles until the last one is blown to bits. Then we will erect a gigantic monument to our collective stupidity and commence building the next space joyride machine. Nothing can stop the TV joyrides! No emperor dares deprive the mob of its games.