The new Ares-Orion spacecraft is supposed to be literally 10x safer than the space shuttles it will replace. And a recent safety board report endorses the early smaller version of Ares (called the Ares 1) which is currently under threat of cancellation.
That report by the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel also says that private space vehicles [...]

Now NASA is expected to re-organize. Why? Maybe to make up for the failures of the government to provide a steady budget that’s necessary to complete a multi-year project? Maybe because people somehow expected the agency to develop a new generation of space vehicles without unforeseeable s cost over-runs?
Yeah. That must be it…
Now, NASA is [...]

The Senate passed an $18.7 billion funding bill for NASA, including $3.8 billion for exploration. Beyond that, the Senate inserted language into the bill designed to protect the Constellation Program—NASA’s planned successor to the retiring space shuttle.
Will Constellation (the Ares rocket and Orion spacecraft) survive?
Well, first of all, the President has to sign the bill. [...]

NASA is in for major changes. This has been obvious for months. The agency doesn’t have the money to do what it’s trying to do now. It’s absurd to pretend they have the money to send people to the moon or Mars.
The Wall Street Journals suggests that the agency will do more outsourcing, possibly abandoning [...]

Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin praised President Obama’s choice for his successor, former astronaut Charles Bolden. Griffin had hoped to retain the job, but the new president refused to keep Griffin, a Bush appointee. (Griffin himself succeeded another Bush appointee, Sean O’Keefe who was, in my opinion, the worst administrator ever.)
Instead, Griffin is now an [...]

Business Week writes about the symbiotic relationship between Russia and the U.S. in space exploration. It re-iterates the biggest upcoming situation—that for five years or more, the U.S. will depend on Russia to get its astronauts into space. After the shuttle retires, only the Russian Soyuz will be available to ferry people to the International [...]

Acting NASA Administrator Christopher Scolese told the House Appropriations Committee that some of the stimulus money will be used to help speed the development of private spacecraft for delivering astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

Competition to deliver astronauts
Currently, two companies have been developing spacecraft capable of being used for this purpose: SpaceX and Orbital [...]

Reportedly, NASA will be removing 2 seats from the new Orion spacecraft, leaving it with the ability to bring only 4 astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). In short, because the ISS will hold a crew of 6, Orion will be unable to fully rotate a crew.
Could still be used for 6 person flights
Given [...]

Tragically, the Apollo 1 crew was killed by a fire in the cockpit—during a ground test. Even though that incident didn’t take place in space, it highlighted the problems of fire in space travel.
Fire on Mir
NASA and others received another reminder during the joint American-Soviet missions to the Mir space station. During one mission, a [...]

When the shuttle fails, astronauts are in big trouble. There’s no way to get away from a failing vehicle and safely return to the earth. The shuttle MUST not fail for astronauts to survive.
Earlier escape systems
Apollo was different. Apollo had an abort system that could carry astronauts away from an exploding Saturn rocket…albeit on a [...]