July 4th, 2006 by The Bosphorus
We just watched the Space Shuttle Discovery launch. So far all’s well. It’s striking to me how complex an operation it is to get a crew of people into space. That’s not anything I ever realized when I was a kid and watched all the shuttle launches. Just didn’t know how much it takes to get something off the ground.
May God bless them, all.
July 4th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I’ve written something about this like 4 or 5 times and stopped doing it every time, because I’m seriously afraid of jinxing that 30 year old piece of shit they’re driving into space. I mean, I don’t want to drive my 83 Volvo down to Knoxville, much less to outer orbit.
The space shuttle is an iconic thing for me, just being in the late 20s, and seeing it start off in the early 80s, the whole Challenger thing and being grounded, its gloryless comeback, and even more gloryless Columbia disaster (which really hurt, being THE space shuttle. Discover and Challenger were backups, in my mind as a kid)
Its a shame that this is their swan song, with everybody crossing their fingers, hoping like hell that these executive bastards at NASA haven’t doomed the crew. Meanwhile NASA’s only other winners of the last 20 years crap out. The Hubble, which took FOREVER to get work, is doomed. The incredibly long lasting Mars explorers are way past the expiration date. The international space shuttle is a joke.
That just disappoints me.
July 4th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Alrighty then…so much for being afraid of jinxing that 30 year old POS they’re driving into space.
July 4th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
That was fairly optimistic about the shuttle, wasn’t it?