My visit to Kennedy Space Center

My visit to Kennedy Space Center

by SouthernFriedInfidel | Published on February 15th, 2010, 12:01 pm | Travel

Look, I say we spend every dime to find another planet.... and all those interested in universal health care, civil liberties, and can handle having a black president get to move there..... all the republicans who wish to drive around in their SUVs believing global warming isn't true can stay here.

I like the idea but of course there are plenty of maybe insurmountable hurdles.

Sure -- there are plenty of those to be found. Insurmountable for many reasons, from cost/benefits to simply "You can't get there from here."

What gets me about the costs involved is that so far, we've not found any evidence that other major bodies of the Solar System can be profitably raped by human industry. You tell an oil exec that there's 10 trillion barrels of oil just below the surface of Mars, the flurry of checks to fund colonization there will be on the way in less than a week...

[Nfidel]

What gets me about the costs involved is that so far, we've not found any evidence that other major bodies of the Solar System can be profitably raped by human industry. You tell an oil exec that there's 10 trillion barrels of oil just below the surface of Mars, the flurry of checks to fund colonization there will be on the way in less than a week...

Complete with a detachment of Marines to ensure security. I do wish the shuttle had never been invented. Maybe then the past two decades wouldn't have been wasted circling the planet, but we may have actually ridden some rockets to the moon and to some of the asteroids. We could have gained excellent experience dealing with the unique problems of living and working in space which could be used when traveling further out.

[Liv]

I do wish the shuttle had never been invented.

I feel exactly the opposite. In fact I feel the throwing away of the shuttle will be like Ford getting rid of the Taurus. It's bound to come back.

I get what your saying... the design of the Shuttle limited it to "shuttling" goods into orbit and back. Therefore it limited it from performing extra-orbital missions. Remember though the intentions with the shuttle was they were going to light these things off every other day like an airline, building a infrastructure for science to go further. I just don't think the "additional" technology (or money) ever emerged for parallel projects which would send us further and use the shuttles and their contributions as the launching pad.

What really bothers me is how we're practically giving away the shuttles. It's been argued before, even if the life expectancy is short without maintenance, why aren't they docking at least one of the shuttles at ISS as an escape craft?

It seems as we are throwing away an icon that touches Americans deep down in their soul when they see it. It's like seeing the statue of Liberty being tossed in the junk yard. Rockets will never give the program the image that invokes nationalism, and patriotism like the Shuttle and I think it's a mistake.

Let's be honest. The shuttle program became a extension of the military tossing up satellites right and left. The "new" NASA is being created because the military killed the Shuttle program. The days of exploration, and expectations of humans rising to the heavens is a poetic historical foot-mark doomed for the pages of history book.