Remembering Space Shuttle "Columbia" and Crew

[Amazon 7]

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I disagree. Until we are willing as a species to expand beyond our single point of failure by being on one planet, we are doomed to extinction.
The only way to learn to live in space and expand to other worlds is to do it.

If the world put forth just 10% of what is spent in killing each other here on this planet since the development of rockets, we would be a lot farther out into our solar system. By doing so we will develop new technologies to benefit all of humanity. Right now it HAS been a political stunt essentially... since grandiose plans are touted... and then not funded.

No bucks, no Buck Rogers..... is a VERY apt quote from the early days of the space program.

It's good to have someone like you in NASA's corner and I thank you.

Thanks... I really do believe that our future is out there and the sooner we quit the stupidity here on this planet.. maybe we might move forward as a species.

Plus.. it pisses me off that we have not gone further in my lifetime. We got off to such a great start when I was a kid. I remember sitting there in front of the tv on a warm summer night and watching an American man put the very first footprint on another piece of rock. We really do need to get back there for so very many reasons.

Yes I am a dreamer...but I am pragmatic enough to know that its only a matter of time before another big ass rock with our name on it comes our way.

[pchapman 262]

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Thanks... I really do believe that our future is out there and the sooner we quit the stupidity here on this planet..

Nothing against what you said, but when I saw that I couldn't help but think:

White flight!
Leave this s***hole of a planet to the poor and move out to a nice gated community world further out in the suburbs of the galaxy! Eventually Earth might get gentrified, so the neighbourhood will be safe again...

(I'm more in favour of trying to fix what we have here.)

[lawrocket 3]

I agree with you, Jeanne - for slightly different reasons. I have libertarian leanings but I think if the government is gonna spend my tax dollars, I want it to be spent on cool people doing awesome shit with cool things. Hence, the manned space program.

The unmanned space program is, of course, cool shit done with cool stuff. What is missing is the cool people doing it. I'm not saying the engineers and flight controllers don't do cool shit or aren't cool in their own right ("SCE to Aux!") It just doesn't look as cool.

Take something like STS-27 - perhaps my favorite shuttle flight (commanded by Hoot Gibson, one of the coolest fuckers to walk this earth and float outside of it). Unmanned space flight would have a launch and tecnhical briefings. STS-27 had a preflight press conference where they dressed in black masks (it was a classified DOD flight) and told the press that they could tell them about the payload but they'd have to kill them.

Then during launch the heat shield was freaking ravaged - it took in excess of 700 hits by the nose cone from an SRB disintegrating. Due to OPSEC, they couldn't send decent images and the NASA guys thought nothing too bad happened. They finished the mission and prepared for re-entry, pissed off at Mission Control's lack of appreciation of the damage. Gibson again spoke up: "No reason to die all tensed up." They enjoyed the view until re-entry (One astronaut stood on the upper deck through half of re-entry). they landed and everyone saw the damage.

But they weren't done. The crew presented a photo of the satellite to the payload commander, with "Suck on this you Commie dogs" written on it.

Then to a debrief with other astronauts, where Gibson acknowledged their curiosity about the payload. He said, ""All I can say is that Armenia was our first test target - and we only had the weapon set to stun." Armenia had suffered a devastating earthquake during the mission.

You can't get fucking cool stories like that from unmanned flight. Seriously. The shit is cool.

I'll say it - "Manned Spaceflight should be Expanded because it is Fucking Awesome."

Exploration? Nice, but "No shit. There I was. Outside the Van Allen Belt and a solar flare! yeah, man. A fucking SOLAR FLARE. Coronal Mass Ejection. It was pointed right at us..." I'd go broke to keep the beer flowing just to hear it.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Squeak 17]

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You know, I have about twenty or so years before I retire so I certainly hope NASA is not dead. It looks to me like we are going to put a lot more emphasis on research.

I would LOVE to retire to a LOW G environment so I do not hurt so bad.

Your DD Boobs would float and be all perky again

AWESOME

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[Amazon 7]

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You know, I have about twenty or so years before I retire so I certainly hope NASA is not dead. It looks to me like we are going to put a lot more emphasis on research.

I would LOVE to retire to a LOW G environment so I do not hurt so bad.

Your DD Boobs would float and be all perky again

AWESOME

Yeah... that would be a BIG plus.... gravity really sucks after a very full lifetime of fun and doing 'interesting" things. I never thought I would have lasted this long anyway.

Hey they should just let us old fucks do the space exploration...... I mean.. who the hell cares if we get irradiated a bit... I aint havin another kid at this age anywayso you dont need to worry about 1 legged 3 armed children with one eye.

Plus I could actually use some of that geology background that i did not use . i doubt if the moon would get boring very soon, since it has a lot of surface area to go bang on the rocks. Plus you can sit back and gaze at Earth

[Rookie120 0]

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Spinning the AM dial I found a news station that filled me in on what happened.

I didn't have to spin the dial. It was on every station. That morning I had breakfast at a local diner with my best friend at 8am and I was heading from Michigan to Denver to finish my college. So 1,100 miles of listening about the accident made for a very sad road trip. So sad! Such great talent left us on that day.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[Amazon 7]

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Spinning the AM dial I found a news station that filled me in on what happened.

I didn't have to spin the dial. It was on every station. That morning I had breakfast at a local diner with my best friend at 8am and I was heading from Michigan to Denver to finish my college. So 1,100 miles of listening about the accident made for a very sad road trip. So sad! Such great talent left us on that day.

I was working as a senior analyst in the MSN Operations Center and we always monitored MSNBC's feed on the big monitors there. They had a live feed of the shuttle reentry and landing that morning and we got to watch the whole damn thing as it happened

[Abuaeden 0]

I remember that morning well. I turned on the TV to see the coverage and immediately thought of a classmate of mine whose brother was an astronaut. As he described it (back in 1999), his brother had finished his training and was "waiting for his name to be called." I hopped online to check the names of the crew and sure enough, my classmate's brother, Willie McCool, was on the shuttle.