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The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped It's costly, outmoded, impractical and, as we've learned again, deadly By GREGG EASTERBROOK ALLAN TANNENBAUM/POLARIS; PETER COSAGROVE/AP Columbia's first lift off on April 12, 1981; and its last, January 16, 2003 Sunday, Feb. 02, 2003 A spacecraft is a metaphor of national inspiration: majestic, technologically advanced, produced at dear cost and entrusted with precious cargo, rising above the constraints of the earth. The spacecraft carries our secret hope that there is something better out there—a world where we may someday go and leave the sorrows of the past behind. The spacecraft rises toward the heavens exactly as, in our finest moments as a nation, our hearts have risen toward justice and principle. And when, for no clear reason, the vessel crumbles, as it did in 1986 with Challenger and last week with Columbia, we falsely think the promise of America goes with it. Unfortunately, the core problem that lay at the hea...