Frankly, the main reason we continue to pour so much money into the space program with so little results readily available to the general public is that we'll look like total losers if we just stop. We all know that the shuttle is defunct, but we can't make something better without seriously re-prioritizing NASA, and getting a major funding extension. The Cold War gave us the push to develop past separation modules, but to put up a new type of manned vehicle would mean stopping use of the current one, and the military has too much use for the shuttle. Not major, but they get the fun, really delicate satellites and the like. And there is a lot of new technology coming out of the shuttle program, it's just most of it isn't useful to the general public.
Although I was so glad he had all his facts right! Most articles these days are full of errors and misconceptions (blah blah don't feel like using the Hubble any more blah). Although I gotta tell you the supersekrit reason for all those chats with elementary school kids: you get first dibs if you're somehow related to the astronauts, so there's a bunch right there (a lot of the astronauts tend to come from big families, and they're proud of it), and the other thing of it is just for the guys up there, especially on the ISS. I mean, you're up there for at least 6 months, with only one other person for company, and most of the communication you get is through email, or CAPCOM, and they are not the most exciting of people. It's isolated. So they do things like send care packages with the supply modules, or let the astronauts use the teleconferences to talk to their families on their birthday.
I love NASA. It just sucks because they're a competitive market program that's not got anyone to compete with.