Much of the gloomy commentary on this announcement, Cringely's included, is uninformed. (And statements like "NASA has had zero success in relying on outsourced systems" are just bizarre.) Canceling the Constellation program is a <i>positive</i> step, and an essential one---it makes possible the very dream, bold human spaceflight, that Cringely seems to be mourning. At the very least, read the Augustine Commission's summary report; it's only 12 pages. Note their statement of the goal of space exploration: "human expansion into the solar system". That's cause for excitement, not mourning.