USS Wasp. What's the deal?

Thanks for the article Jonathan.

via Defense News.

So what is up with Wasp?
“USS Wasp is currently configured to serve as the Navy’s Joint Strike Fighter test platform,” Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a spokesman for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, wrote in an email. “As a result of Wasp’s assignment as the JSF test platform, she is not currently in the rotation of amphibious assault ships participating in scheduled routine overseas deployments. USS Wasp remains available for operational tasking; however, she will remain the test platform for JSF for the foreseeable future.”
But the JSF testing mission began only last year. A Marine Corps F-35B short-takeoff, vertical-landing aircraft — a model that eventually will operate from all assault ships — made the first JSF landing on the ship Oct. 3, the first day of about two weeks of tests that month. No more JSF flights have since taken place from the ship, and none is scheduled this year. Flight tests of the new jet aren’t scheduled to resume until the summer of 2013.
The dedicated JSF mission might explain why Wasp hasn’t deployed recently. But why didn’t Wasp deploy between 2005 and the advent of the JSF tests in 2011?

Read the whole thing but the thought of it is shocking.

The Marine Corps is crying for more amphibs and yet we have one sitting on the sidelines?

It just doesn't make sense.  Mark my words...this is a scandal in the makings...and don't you dare believe the trash that the Navy is tossing around about it being designated for F-35 workups.