In the natural world, to keep supple and strong, birds periodically molt, snakes shed their skins, furry creatures replace old fur with new, deer strip cover from their growing antlers, etc. Not so with the animal that is the space transportation arm of NASA, which stands in sharp contrast to the superbly performing space exploration arm. Sixty years of evolving contractual requirements, piled one upon the other, have left it so mired in bureaucratic process that thoughtful, energetic endeavor is no longer recognizable, and achievement of engineering projects on time scales demonstrated in the 1950s and 1960s is now unthinkable.
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