Space: The Final Frontier – A personal note
The STS – Space Shuttle has one more mission, and then retires to the semi-oblivion of being a museum relic.
I worked at the NASA Tracking Station Koke’e, Kauai, Hawaii during first 8 or 9 Shuttle missions. The site has since morphed into something quite different.
When I first went to work there (circa 1980) we tracked scientific satellites. Earlier the station had participated in manned space flight up to, and including, the moon missions. Between tracking chores we frequently swung the dish on the moon, locking up on experiments left behind. Some of the folks there had been involved since the first US manned space flight. This is important because most there had never seen a launch.
Then, just a bit over 30 years ago we supported STS-1. The elders were excited. They NOW had live coverage from Honolulu. Coverage from satellites they’d helped launch. We were all pumped, perhaps the elders more than us newbies.
During my tenure I had the pleasure of drinking a beer or three with some of the astronauts during ‘meet and greets’ organized by NASA. In particular I got to chat with Ellison Onizuka, who was lost on the Challenger.
Now with a single manned launch the US is leaving behind an era of wonder. Man will continue to go into space, atop Russian rockets, and perhaps private spaceships, but there will be few USA insignias to cheer on to the next achievements.
It saddens me some.
Category: Politics
It saddens me much. Having grown up during Apollo and having friends who worked on it and currently having worked on support tests for the shuttle and working on development tests for Orion It hurts me that this nation has lost the will to send people into space and continue to explore our neighbors.
It saddens me a LOT. This nation should have already landed men on Mars and had a working station there. We should have already had permanent bases on the Moon, and both mars and Lunar bases supported through commercial enterprise.
We will, as you say, be going back into space, but we will be doing so as private commercial ventures, as we should have been doing after Apollo. A great deal of commercial work was non-permitted and shut out by the government who felt the need to justify the extravagant costs of the shuttle, as well as NASA’s budget.
There are several solid commercial concerns ready to take the lead with NASA stepping aside, who will be able to do that same work more efficiently, with less expense and a better safety record.
It saddens me terribly. There was something very special about the US always coming out on top when it came to technology and innovation. Exploring the unknown is and reaching for the unreachable is how we managed that as a nation. I think letting go of the space program is a big mistake.
President Nixon should have said..
“We have achieved Pres. Kennedy’s goal of sending men to the moon and safely returned them to Earth. Now, we shall send a men to Mars and safely return them to the Earth before the end of the century”
And this nation would have done that.
Now it’s going to be “Muslim Nations (out reach program) you can do better” however in hell they make it past the 19th century. A better part of our US History…sliding down the toilet. Bye bye astronaut program! So long, bang! Nice knowing ya! You were good!
Its interesting, it was a republican that canceled Apollos 18-20, even though the Rockets were already made.
Obama had a program (Constellation) which was perhaps 50% complete, and having taken lessons learned form the shuttle (DO NOT put the main vehicle on the side of the primary boosters and Fuel Tank) and had both an unmanned Heavy lift vehicle and a crew vehicle. The program was less than perhaps 3 years from full implementation when Obama canceled it. This, unlike the Shuttle would leave low Earth orbit, so it would have done MORE than the shuttle, AND cost less overall.
In my criticism of Obama I quote Story Musgrave, one of NASA’s most celebrated astronauts: “to stand still in space is to surrender.”
So Obama has no problem surrendering when it matters, and is full steam ahead when it doesn’t matter.