I watched NASA cope with this disaster using a combination of denial and intellectualization/rationalization. In the months that followed, I began to realize that the Agency I had idealized for so long as being one of the best and most competent, was actually corrupt and primarily concerned with covering its own mistakes. They were an Agency caught up in hubris, who believed in their own press far too much. Instead of making the changes in the culture that had led to this catastrophe, they were only concerned with making sure everyone thought they had made the changes. The appearance was more important than the reality…I also watched as they carried out the motions of changing, but from the inside I saw no changes in attitude or behavior.

Although I’m on the outside looking in at the post-2006/2008 GOP, that passage eloquently captures my suspicions about them.

I’m pretty critical but her I outright admire.

Hopefully commercial spaceflight will succeed so she can finally go.