So, I’m getting Charlie up for school, and he wants to talk about NASA’s decision make its new Orion crew capsule reusable.

I told him that it really did not make a whole bunch of sense: It’s a minuscule part of the cost of a launch, but if it were not reusable, it would be a very public admission by NASA that the entire shuttle program was a failure, and that they were unwilling to do this as an organization.

He asked why this would be a problem, since everyone else saw that this was a true, so their admission would not materially effect their budget (not an exact quote, but the gist is the same. He turns 10 tomorrow, which means that yes, he is scary smart).

I explained that, like many stupid decisions, this was driven by pride: NASA was unwilling to admit that the Shuttle was a failure because this conflicted with their self image.

They think that they are Captain Kirk.

His reply:

Who is Captain Kirk?

Excuse me, while I scrape bits of my skull off the ceiling.