Medary.com

NASA finally acting like the Shuttle is an experimental spacecraft.

Indeed, the spacewalk suggests that NASA has fundamentally changed the way it looks at the shuttle, seeing it as a truly experimental vehicle.

For years, NASA managers were loath to make this concession. It amounted to an admission of defeat. The shuttle was intended to be an operational vehicle - something that made going into space almost routine.

Twenty-five years and 14 dead astronauts later, NASA finally figures out that the Shuttle is an experimental vehicle. Progress of a sort, I guess.