When things start getting streamlined and rolled into big companies (like Lockheed-Martin, BAC, Airbus etc etc) then you lose the inter-competitiveness of the industry that brings about big changes in the first place.

We never saw a leap forward in technology like during WWII, the space race, and the cold war. Now that all of those little companies have formed conglomerates, things have kind of stagnated.

I for one would love to see more international growth right now first in this sector, so that we can perhaps grow as a people technologically.

With the Indians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Americans, and ESA all vying for airtime, I'm looking forward to seeing how much things advance over the next 30 years.

Just wait 'til the Koreans, Japanese, Brasilians and Canadians start flying, and when the ESA breaks apart and you have Britain, Germany, France and Sweden all exploding in the Aerospace field, the changes will be immense!

There is no way NASA will shut down the Shuttle program by the end of 2010"

NASA has already burnt that bridge behind itself. The manufacturers of the assorted spares for maintenance no longer have contracts and are re-tooling for other things. And soon, the pads will be re-built for Ares/Orion, just as conversion from Saturn to Shuttle began near the end of Apollo.

The farther you get down that path, the MORE it would cost to try to restore the capability.

All things being equal we should either have changed that policy or refused to do business with the Russians entirely.
The second best option is to use them in a pinch but switch off as soon as possible to native launch systems. That would mean the moment Falcon proves viable (like say, right now) our plans should include buying launch services from them
…which was the point of COTS.
The money spent on falcon helps Spacex advance their own capabilities. Which gives us an entirely new launch system and expands private sector operations in space.

Soyuz is not flawless and remaining attached to the Russians for spaceflight puts our own goals at extreme risk every time they have a fit or invade Europe.
Blowing up a cargo ship or three with a cots launch system is a minor inconvenience in comparison.

Not to cast dispersions upon you all, but although US private industry may have the capability to launch to orbit, do we honestly think that the SpaceX machine has anywhere near the proven reliability of the Russian ride to space? Comparing SpaceX's meager technology to a government sponsored program anywhere in the world is laughable.

The article states "…since the recent launch success of US-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 1 rocket on September 28th, hopes are high that this option will stop NASA's dependence on Russia…"

This is rapidly followed by:

"The previous flight (Flight 3, on August 2nd) suffered a stage separation anomaly, which caused the loss of two NASA satellite systems, NanoSail-D (a prototype solar sail) and PRESat (mini-laboratory to carry out tests on yeast cells)."

In a previous article (linked to from this article), we have the quote:

"SpaceX's first three attempts to launch the Falcon 1 all failed, with different problems occurring on each try. "

So let me get this straight – There has been ONE launch success recently, on the back of a very serious failure, in which expensive satellites were lost, and two other failures before that. Are the US seriously going to risk important payloads being lofted with technology that currently has a failure rate of 75%, in comparison with the mature Russian system, that has been in steady operation in one form or another since 1978?

Get real. I'm not saying it's not move in the right direction. Just that they would need to get their success rate to maybe 95% before they should even be considered as an option.

Please note this article is about unmanned Progress supply vehicles not being bought by NASA. Soyuz vehicles will still be used. Partly because COTS is unlikely to provide an alternative. Orbital found they could put at most 2 astronauts on Taurus II, making it useless for ISS crew transport. And Space X, while apparently confident in their capsule's ability to transport crews, may not accomplish that for quite some time at best.

There is no way NASA will shut down the Shuttle program by the end of 2010.

Internationalism in and of itself is not a 'good' thing if we sacrifice our ethics, values, and moral self-respect in the process.

I think the message is clear: Thanks congress for enabling us to work with Russia as a fallback, but, Russia, guess what, our private sector has muscled up to the challenge and is becoming as capable as any government's space program.

This will also go a long way to paving the path for more commercial efforts to get into space. I want a room at the Hilton – in orbit – by 2020.

Buy American!