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MSD · 07-08-2011, 09:59 PM

I stopped answering my phone and responding to emails at work today after the 20 minute hold, I wanted to see this shuttle go up. The US space program has personal meaning to me because my dad worked on the Hubble Space Telescope and my parents got me interested in the space program when I was really young, so young that my earliest childhoood memory is of a shuttle launch. I was just over 2 years old, my mom had brought me to a friend's house and my friend Douglas and I were playing with our model space shuttles; these things were great, they even had switches to detach the SRBs and main fuel tank. I hope I still have mine in a box somewhere so I can pass it on to my children someday.

Our moms called us into the TV room to watch the shuttle launch. We watched the launch and being little kids, enjoyed the smoke and the sound of the launch. We watched it go up asthe announcer was narrating, and suddenly everyone went completely silent for a few seconds. The debris from the explosion fanned out and the guy on TV said something along the lines of "obviously something has gone seriously wrong."

I didn't really understand what happened at the time, but I do now. The end of the shuttle era means we need unwavering support for continued human spaceflight for the sake of scientific exploration. The shuttle program was inefficient, dangerous, and built on foolish compromises; we need to overcome that with what will replace it. Whatever that is, we have to have a successor. What we've learned in Earth orbit and from our few flights to the moon only scratched the surface.

My greatest fear for the future of manned spaceflight is that declining public support for NASA means it ends now; I hope I'm wrong in my belief that the patches on the sleeves of the next people the US government launches into space will read "US Air Force" rather than "NASA." I'm a pessimist and a cynic but that's what I expect to happen. I have no faith in the American people and our government to recognize the importance of continued civilian space exploration. If we don't continue to put scientists and teachers into space to learn and to educate, the crews of Challenger and Columbia gave their lives for nothing.

07-08-2011, 09:59 PM	#9 (permalink)
MSD The sky calls to us ... Super Moderator Location: CT	I stopped answering my phone and responding to emails at work today after the 20 minute hold, I wanted to see this shuttle go up. The US space program has personal meaning to me because my dad worked on the Hubble Space Telescope and my parents got me interested in the space program when I was really young, so young that my earliest childhoood memory is of a shuttle launch. I was just over 2 years old, my mom had brought me to a friend's house and my friend Douglas and I were playing with our model space shuttles; these things were great, they even had switches to detach the SRBs and main fuel tank. I hope I still have mine in a box somewhere so I can pass it on to my children someday. Our moms called us into the TV room to watch the shuttle launch. We watched the launch and being little kids, enjoyed the smoke and the sound of the launch. We watched it go up asthe announcer was narrating, and suddenly everyone went completely silent for a few seconds. The debris from the explosion fanned out and the guy on TV said something along the lines of "obviously something has gone seriously wrong." I didn't really understand what happened at the time, but I do now. The end of the shuttle era means we need unwavering support for continued human spaceflight for the sake of scientific exploration. The shuttle program was inefficient, dangerous, and built on foolish compromises; we need to overcome that with what will replace it. Whatever that is, we have to have a successor. What we've learned in Earth orbit and from our few flights to the moon only scratched the surface. My greatest fear for the future of manned spaceflight is that declining public support for NASA means it ends now; I hope I'm wrong in my belief that the patches on the sleeves of the next people the US government launches into space will read "US Air Force" rather than "NASA." I'm a pessimist and a cynic but that's what I expect to happen. I have no faith in the American people and our government to recognize the importance of continued civilian space exploration. If we don't continue to put scientists and teachers into space to learn and to educate, the crews of Challenger and Columbia gave their lives for nothing.