Posted on 07/08/2011 12:23:45 PM PDT by SoonerStorm09
OKLAHOMA CITY – For those fascinated with America’s Space Shuttle program and the exploration of space, today is a bit bittersweet.
Today is the end of an era of NASA-led spaceflight. The Atlantis Space Shuttle took off this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its final mission – and the last mission of the remaining Space Shuttle fleet. We wish the crew a successful mission and a safe return.
At a very early age I was fascinated with space travel and the exploration of space. The final Apollo mission – Apollo 17 – took place when I was a mere baby. A few years later I was only vaguely aware of Skylab and later its fiery return to Earth in July 1979. It would be the first launch of the Columbia Space Shuttle in 1981 that really captured my attention.
I distinctly remember, right before the launch, playing with Star Wars spaceship toys in my friend Jason’s backyard and tossing a ship in the air and watching it crash to the ground. I told Jason that that was what was going to happen to Columbia (call me a pessimist). Fortunately the first launch was successful, although, sadly, Columbia would disintegrate over Texas and western Louisiana while I was a reporter at a Louisiana newspaper. Covering that event was depressing, as was hearing about the loss of the Challenger 17 years earlier.
And just by coincidence, doing some freelance work for The Norman Transcript last week, I had a chance to briefly interview Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space.
(Excerpt) Read more at reddirtreport.com ...
I still enjoy the possibilities of space travel, and figure that everything will have it’s own dark ages. But my belief, as dogmatic as it may sound, suggests that there are still better future space technology developments to come.
This taxpayer is thrilled! NASA has become a huge, wasteful government agency just like all the rest. How much money have we spent to find out whethere newts breed in space and in making sure that every possible ethnicity has been represented in the shuttle program?
NASA was once an amazing agency, but now, anyone who would board a government rocket is a much braver person than I am. Government eventually ruins everything it touches.
Bittersweet?!?
It is the unoffical END of Space Exploration for years. The people who are leaving NASA will take with them generations of knowledge; that cannot be immediately replaced.
After the shuttle returns, we will have NO space program - at all. Nothing. Zero has killed American space exploration efforts. It will take years to regain what he has thrown away.
Ping.
But Obama said something about this being our Sputnik moment. We’re going to accept the challenges of the future, and all that.
I guess I tuned him out, because I really don’t know what he was talking about. We want to WIN THE FUTURE but who knows how he will accomplish it.
That’s one huge waste of money over with.
Why so glum, chum? Now we can devote all of NASA's energies to making Muslims feel good about themselves, despite their remarkable lack of contributions to science and technology (unless you count improved efficiencies in suicide vests and intestinal explosives).
Pathetic.
Money for genocidal mohammedan savages, but none for research.
The amount of economic activity, medical discoveries, and technical innovations fostered by the Space Program was unprecedented.
As long as we have leaders whose greatest vision is to enslave and control the populace, we never will see such scientific achievment in this country again.
B-b-b-but, at least we had a stimulus package to get everyone back to work! That trillion dollars was well spent, no?
Does this mean the end of Tang and Velcro?
Hey, like Obummer said, “This is the greatest country in the world, now help me change it!” Well, he has. we now “lead from behind.”
FUBO
Considering how much money I still see NASA putting into Orion and a heavy lift vehicle, both of which were touted by NASA officials post-launch, I don't see NASA dead yet. Furthermore, unless a NASA engineer is being furloughed, I don't see him going into the private sector right now.
For those at KSC, the loss of manned flight will mean lean times, but even Pad 39A is still being refurbished for the heavy-lift vehicle.
Since there is no more space shuttle program, the nasa budget will take a massive haircut next year, right?
The heavy-lift program is being scaled back. Here, one of the area’s largest employers is ATK; who make the rockets for NASA. They are having layoffs in the tens of thousands.
When you have nothing but equipment on-board; you can take many short-cuts. When you have people on-board - not so much. We won’t realize how much we have lost; until we are tasked with resuming manned space flight.
Space Station was “SUPPOSED” to be a jumping off place for interplanetary exploration. It never lived up to what it was supposed to be. We haven’t been back to the moon, and have no plans for future manned efforts. I seriously doubt we COULD get back to the moon if we wanted to. What should be an easy ‘repeat’ would take years of ‘re-design’ and would cost 10x what the origional mission did - and that 10x doesn’t include having to re-discover what NASA was forced to discover all those years ago.
Sadness? You’re kidding, right? I couldn’t be happier. The shittle single-handedly killed US manned spaceflight. Lets spend billions upon billions to go up 300 miles for 30 years. YIPEE!!!!
I’m sad it’s taken this long to retire it. Too bad the US Government doesn’t have the stones to replace it with something that is forward thinking.
If you ever want to see a shuttle in the future don’t come to Houston, the city where it all started. obama screwed another red state. What I’d like to know is what gave him the authority to make this decision?
I agree with everything you said.
Further, now it is the Russians that are in charge of space exploration efforts.
I watched the last launch this morning on NASA TV... after the launch the Black guy—the top guy for NASA gave a speech and it made me sick. It was as though Obama was speaking, right down to using the words, “Winning the Future”.
There is no wining of the future under Obama and his dems, the future is being killed.
No space program? Nonsense. Maybe no gummint space jobs program, but have you ever heard of the private sector? I mean SpaceX, Scaled Composites, and many others? And having worked with NASA for several years, I can tell you that maybe its better we don’t engineer stuff like they do. We used to say that when the weight of the paper equaled the weight of the flight article you were good to go. And you seem to forget the 9 year hiatus between Apollo and the Shuttle. We did fine then and will do fine now.
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