Comments on: Space & the beginning of summer http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/05/space-the-beginning-of-summer/ Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:42:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Joshua Zelinsky http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/05/space-the-beginning-of-summer/#comment-42950 Joshua Zelinsky Sun, 27 May 2012 22:13:33 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/?p=16848#comment-42950 <i>Rather, for my generation space and NASA had become rather pedestrian, with the shuttle being a sky ferry par excellence. </i> The last bit of this sentence seems a bit too strong. The shuttle had a lot of problems and travel with the shuttles was never as routine, cheap, or safe as was planned (in fact, by an order of magnitude for each). Sky ferry yes. Helped make space travel more routine yes. Par excellence? Not really. And one of the really unfortunate things is that rather than make a new version of the shuttle that learns from the problems of the previous, the government is making a new manned vehicle whose specifications are more decided by lobbyists for the shuttle manufacturers like Morton-Thiokol who want to keep their big contracts. Rather, for my generation space and NASA had become rather pedestrian, with the shuttle being a sky ferry par excellence.

The last bit of this sentence seems a bit too strong. The shuttle had a lot of problems and travel with the shuttles was never as routine, cheap, or safe as was planned (in fact, by an order of magnitude for each). Sky ferry yes. Helped make space travel more routine yes. Par excellence? Not really. And one of the really unfortunate things is that rather than make a new version of the shuttle that learns from the problems of the previous, the government is making a new manned vehicle whose specifications are more decided by lobbyists for the shuttle manufacturers like Morton-Thiokol who want to keep their big contracts.

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