Shuttle Atlantis blasts off

Thanks. And while I'm sure that has tons of merit, I'm just longing for a mission that seems cool, like something that seems like a step towards getting man out of our solar system.

 

In that case, you're gonna have to wait a long, loooooooooooonnng time.

 

I saw a sweet camera shot from the shuttle as it was in full liftoff mode, looking down toward the earth with all the boosters still going full-bore. Never seen that before. Very cool.

 

I know. But can't we make a concerted effort to get man slightly farther than he's been before, like having him orbit Mars or something? I'm not expecting Alpha Centari any time soon.

 

A couple years ago, George Bush was all hot on the idea we could get back to the moon by 2018.

Took us 9 years in the 1960s -- takes us 14 years now.

Then, of course, he cut funding -- for pretty much everything by NASA beside the shuttle program itself.

The shuttles are supposed to be grounded for good by 2010.

At best, supposedly, the next generation of spacecraft should be ready in 2013-14. In the interim, we'll be dependent on the generosity of Vladimir Putin or whoever is in control over there. Unless we want to start hitching rides with the Chinese.

 

Yeah, it's all messed up. Don't like the funding cuts for NASA at all, but I also don't think NASA should be wasting money on the international space station. NASA's goals should be:
1) making sure we don't die from some giant rock hitting Earth
2) taking the steps needed to make sure we can get off this rock when need be.

But then again, no one at NASA ever asked me (and probably with good reason, what do I know?)

 

Well, when a giant rock does head our way, if we're going to send anybody (or anything) to do anything about it, they are going to have to have a LOT of practice in the nuts and bolts of spaceflight -- getting into orbit, rendezvousing with a station, constructing larger structures and vehicles in space, etc etc etc. They will have to know how to do all that stuff almost implicitly, and that takes practice practice practice.

Same goes if we're ever going to go to Mars, or even go back to the moon for more than just a hop-skip-and-a-jump right back. We've got to be better at it than we are now.

Of course, if Bush would just pull the plug on the Iraq idiocy, we could probably be back on the moon by 2012.

Just like if LBJ and Nixon had pulled the plug on Vietnam, we could have been on the moon by 1967, and probably Mars by 1980.