2. CONSTELLATION: WHY RETAIN THIS OLD FASHIONED PROGRAM?< \i>
This is the 21st Century. To send humans on long voyages long voyages in environments for which we were not evolved is terminally misguided. On February 1, 2010 President Obama proposed to cancel Constellation in the FY 2011 budget. Most scientists cheered, and when he scheduled a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center for yesterday, it was widely assumed that it would be to enlarge on his February 1 decision to scrap Constellation. Every op-ed and TV commentary in anticipation of his talk began with a recital of technological benefits of putting humans in space. They cited everything from Hubble to GPS; they had no connection at all to putting humans in space. What the heck, it’s April, Persephonys soft footsteps have covered Washington with blossoms; this is the season for resurrections, but it was a serious mistake to resurrect Constellation. Whoever sold Obama on this has weakened his Presidency. The idea of sending humans into space is hopelessly old fashioned. < \i>

“…here’s a very important point: we cannot and must not let the access to space fall exclusivley on other countries nor private enterprise. Public access to these spacecraft are what have inspired people for generations: engineers, enthusiasts, biologists, mathmeticians, physicists, chemical engineers and everyone who is inspired by the surreal nature of our endeavor. I also think that deep down in our genes something tells us all that getting off the planet (our only home) is the right thing to do. If you watch all the launch videos every single person says, “Wow!” or “Oh my gosh!”. Everyone. Everyone understands what it means on some organic level. We must never lose the idea that a child who feels that must be able to achieve the goal of becoming one of his or her heroes being launched into space and beyond. I am happy to pay for that child to live their dream because it is also mine.
As for the crew of STS-131: thank you for one of greatest memories of my life. God speed and get home safe!”

I agree – good point & well said.

Overall, the shuttles just don’t make economic or practical sense. Sad, yes, but I don’t mind spending that $450 million on something else.

But here’s a very important point: we cannot and must not let the access to space fall exclusivley on other countries nor private enterprise. Public access to these spacecraft are what have inspired people for generations: engineers, enthusiasts, biologists, mathmeticians, physicists, chemical engineers and everyone who is inspired by the surreal nature of our endeavor. I also think that deep down in our genes something tells us all that getting off the planet (our only home) is the right thing to do. If you watch all the launch videos every single person says, “Wow!” or “Oh my gosh!”. Everyone. Everyone understands what it means on some organic level. We must never lose the idea that a child who feels that must be able to achieve the goal of becoming one of his or her heroes being launched into space and beyond. I am happy to pay for that child to live their dream because it is also mine.

As for the crew of STS-131: thank you for one of greatest memories of my life. God speed and get home safe!

This may be obvious to alot of people, but not me.

Go to sleep!

Dude, what is your problem?

Honestly, what?

I am as fallible and as messed up as the next person – hey, maybe more so than most. I’ve done & said my share & more of stupid things over the years but I wouldn’t post like you did there & recently in other threads here.

It is one thing to try to make positive interesting contributions here or to at least attempt to express your opinions, however dissident & disagreeable to many folks, clearly, rationally and intelligently but it is quite another to keep posting 1-line flame comments like yours.

If you keep on like this (& that’s not the first or worst such comment I’ve seen from you in the BA blog comments) you are likely to get banned or at best unite everybody here against you.

My initial reaction to comments such as yours is to get angry, then to roll my eyes & think “Oh man, not him again” and then finally on reflection, well .. this:

Why do that?

Why are you doing this & what do you think your gaining by it?

Would you care to explain please?

PS. Yeah, I know, shouldn’t feed the trolls.

That was comment 8 – now vanished w/o trace – I have contacted the webmaster (the administrator? ) and explained & hope it can be restored but hasn’t been yet.

So take II & NOT repeating that mistake – or another one I made ages before of trying to add more than 4-5 links. Note : DO NOT even TRY to ADD MORE than, say, 4 (?) LINKS in the one comment. That nearly got me blocked once when I was just trying to post a number of references & sources.

@ 5. Len Says:

bulletproofcourier — A great way to find stuff like that out is to go to the Heavens Above website (not sure if they allow linking here, it’s at www dot heavens-above dot com — you know what to do!).

Yes, you can link here & people do all the time.

3 methods :

1. Just post it straight away & it will go into “awaiting moderation” limbo - assuming its not spam (or gets wrongly marked as such, grrr.. ) then it’ll eventually turn up once the moderator (just the BA?) accepts it. Which can also throw out the numbering.

2. Add the link on editing – you should see a black bar with “You can click your name and /or comment to edit” and an approx. fifteen minute countdown in which you can edit.

(This how I personally usually add links.It doens’t effect the comment count & escapes “moderation limbo.”)

3. You can add a link in the “website” field of the “submit comment” preliminaries then say click my name for link – and peopel clicking on your now hypertexted (if that’s the word) name should get tothe site you’ve linked. Some folks here do this & it seems to work.

Hope this helps.

Finally, there is a way to get a link done as a word in some sort of hypertext thingummy but I’m afraid I don’t know how to do that one – it beats my level of net-fu.

Perhaps someone whose much more expert than me here (IVAN3 MAN are you out there? Could elaborate further on that?

PS. BA Please could you perhaps have a post on linking things here and setting out the exact limits and elaborating on this topic – & you could link it somewhere handy for newbies and the less-computer savvy here?

You’ve got a great blog, FSM *you* know how much I love it – but this would be a small step to making it even greater & much appreciated.

If they land tomorrow, will they still cross over the eastern US? Preferably after 10 am???

Gary 7

I’ll miss the shuttle, too. Yes, it is too expensive, too dangerous, and requires too much maintenance to be considered “easy turn-around”, but it is also very cool.

J.

“Mission Control Entry Flight Director Bryan Lunney has decided to wave off the first landing opportunity for space shuttle Discovery because of precipitation and cloud coverage at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility.

The shuttle’s next landing opportunity is at 10:23 a.m. EDT, which would call for a 9:17 a.m. deorbit burn.”

My best wishes to the shuttle astronauts & NASA ground /mission control folks for a smooth and successful touchdown.

I’d love to see the Shuttle lives & flights extended – ideally until their replacement takes over. I loathe the thought of the who knows how long gap between the Space Shuttle retirements & its US successor (which is??) taking over – wish it was no more than a month or six at most rather than the unknown number of years it is currently.

For all its faults (& yes there are many) and its failure to be quite the craft that was promised, I still think the Space Shuttle’s are among the most magnificently superb machines Humanity has ever constructed. I will miss them.