Fare thee well, you beautiful bird
Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 10:04 am
Whatever can be said about the failures of the Shuttle program, this was an emotional moment for me.
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Enzo wrote:But I heard spokespeople claiming it flew flawlessly for 30 years.
Enzo wrote:But every story I heard quickly turned into a report on all the lost jobs that result from the end of this program.
KLA2 wrote:Well. I state the obvious.
The STS was a marvelous piece of technology. Much essential work needs to be done in low earth orbit, and that will always be the case. (The ISS? Hmmm.)
KLA2 wrote:The last manned space flight that went further was 1972.
KLA2 wrote:I was humbled by the courage and dedication of the crews.
KLA2 wrote:Still, to me, it is as if we sailed six times from Europe to the new world, congratulated ourselves, and settled for sailing around the local bay thereafter.
KLA2 wrote:Should we send humans, rather than robots, to the moon, mars, beyond?
Caveats, caveats, but … yes.
Mactep wrote:Some of them talk about the compelling need to begin space colonisation to reduce overpopulation of earth, which I suppose they will begin right after they launch the rock of Gibraltar into orbit by pissing on it.
Mactep wrote:So I'm not particularly optimistic on this point; I think it will probably take a dramatic drop in the cost of getting stuff up out of this deep, deep well we all live in before we start to see things like Mars missions,
Mactep wrote:and that cost has remained quite stubbornly high for decades.
Mactep wrote:But let me perform an act of liberation here: those of you living in the rest of the world, you don't need the Americans! The GDP of the EU is larger than the GDP of the US; Russia has a smaller GDP than Italy, and yet it has more manned space flight capability than the entire European Union (the latter quantity being, none).
KLA2 wrote:I would rather see a few trillion dollars “wasted” on a space program, than another pointless war for dwindling resources.
Halcyon Dayz, FCD wrote:As always, I blame Nixon.