The rumor mill makes it seem increasingly likely the Obama administration will review the entire Ares program. According to Aviation Week, man-rating a booster is an extremely non-trivial task, which is why NASA decided to try shoehorning already man-rated designs into new tasks. Did the agency subsequently, as they have so many times before, allow mission creep and a fetish for new technologies ruin the savings they were looking to reap with this strategy? Heck, I dunno. Ellen let my Aviation Week subscription lapse three months ago. You go find out.

And call the Obama team. I hear they're sniffing around this very issue.