Philip Finnegan, a corporate analyst with the Teal Group, a defense industry research firm in Fairfax, Va., says Northrop has been selling several of its unneeded assets acquired in previous deals. “There were a number of things they acquired and were ultimately not interested in,” Finnegan says. “They’ve been divesting various components.”

Before even contemplating a replacement to the shuttle, NASA’s near-term goal will be to fix and upgrade the shuttle fleet, says Marco Caceres, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. “What they’re not going to do is anything rash.” A re-examination of alternatives to the shuttle won’t come until after space shuttles are flying again and supplying the space station, he suggests. Any alternatives to the shuttle would also likely generate a new round of federal spending. A smaller, more agile spacecraft called the orbital space plane has been under consideration. If built, the plane would not take the place of the space shuttle. “The orbital space plane is more of a ferry, tugboat or lifeboat,” Caceres says.

NASA took steps to shore up its most glaring weaknesses, ending its downsizing plan and hiring some new staffers to fill the biggest gaps. But not everyone believes the agency has come close to recovering its prior strength, and a GAO report released just three days before the Columbia mishap said the problems were persisting. At first blush, it seems obvious that safety “has got to suffer because they have fewer people,” said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at the Teal Group, an aerospace research firm. “I’m not sure it’s as simple as that, but in hindsight, with this tragedy, that’s one of the first things you’re going to look at.”

“A few years ago, I realized (Teledesic officials) don’t even have a clue, and this just confirms it,” said Marco Caceres, an analyst with Fairfax, Va.-based aerospace analysts the Teal Group. “You’d expect more from a visionary, who knows the market’s not there but says, ‘We’re going to go out there and develop it.’ You go out and you have enough confidence in your marketing and your concept” to make it work, he said. Teledesic, which is backed in part by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and The Boeing Co., says it hasn’t given up on its vision of a constellation of satellites giving government, business and consumers access to portable Internet connections that are from 10 to 100 times faster than DSL and cable modems. The company, which has received more than $500 million in private investments and much of McCaw’s own money, said it remains solvent. But Caceres’ take is that Teledesic is in trouble, because it has been on the wrong course since the outset. Skepticism so far has been muted only because of McCaw’s reputation as a telecommunications wizard, he said.

Now the issue is what to do with the existing satellites in orbit. This will involve an additional expense to bring them down in a controlled way so that they burn up in the atmosphere away from populated areas, says Marco Caceres, senior space analyst with the Teal Group consultancy in Fairfax, Va. – the one person who will speak for the record about Iridium. Iridium officials have been exploring the alternative of selling off the crippled satellites, including offers to the U.S. military and even a Middle Eastern group that would use them for distributing Muslim religious messages. Caceres, however, says he doubts these efforts will succeed. U.S. military forces increasingly rely on commercial communications services, as demonstrated in the peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, he notes. The exorbitant operational costs are likely to frighten away other potential buyers.