Space Shuttle Atlantis Final Launch Marks End Of Intellectual Curiosity

[zennie62]

The Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Kennedy Space Center this morning, and high into the sky and eventually into Earth’s orbit. It marks the final launch – the last time in 30 years America will launch a Space Shuttle. For this blogger, who’s saw the passing of the Apollo Space Program and now the Space Shuttle, and reduced budgets for space exploration, today’s event marks the end of intellectual curiosity.

Please understand that from my birth in 1962 to today, I’ve grown up not only with the idea that “something is out there,” but that we were making the instruments to place people in space to find that something. The highlight came when I was just 7 years old – Apollo 11 took the first astronauts to the moon, and for me, the term “moon walk” had nothing to do with a dance or Michael Jackson. It referred to what Neil Armstrong did when he set foot on the Moon.

More...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHtLzt2JYt0

[tridim]

1. Teafuckers killing the James Webb telescope is a much more serious matter IMO

[Ozymanithrax]

2. NASA was the last of those great grand things our civilization did.

If you want great things done now, you go to China and other countries. This is a sign of decline.

[RZM]

3. Hmm . . . :)

[right2bfree]

20. Space, the Last Frontier! Scotty, beam me up !!!! No intelligent life here. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

5. We reached our zenith...

in 1969- every aspect of our country, with the exception of racial discrimination, has gone down hill since.

[Moostache]

4. The lack of priorities of consequence in this nation sickens me.

The death of NASA's ability to actually launch manned vehicles into space is tragic beyond words. at least when Apollo was canceled, the Shuttle program was already approaching operational status. Do we even have ANYTHING in the pipeline that doesn't involve hitching a ride from another country?!?!?!?!

The fact that China and Germany and Brazil and damn near everyone else who wants to be a 21st century player is pumping out scientists and engineers at break neck speed and the United States is allowing national candidates who doubt evolution as a cornerstone for Biology is all you need to know about the fall of the American empire.

Its over already folks, the only question remaining is how messy the crash to earth is going to be for us all.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. "Its over already folks...

he only question remaining is how messy the crash to earth is going to be for us all."

Well said.

[rhett o rick]

7. We are in the last throes of capitalism in the American Empire. Ayn Rand wins. nm

[immoderate]

8. Manned orbital space adventures was a money pit, produced little science.

The shuttle and the ISS were very expensive and contributed little to the body of science. Other more worthy projects suffered like DSCOVR.

Hopefully, they can develop some more efficient means of achieving orbit. The shuttle was a dog.


--imm

[w4rma]

9. BS. NASA's entire budget cost less than the air conditioning for our troops in Iraq. (nt)

[immoderate]

10. An amazing yet irrelevant fact...

If it is a fact. :shrug: According to Colbert they overdo it a bit.

So what great scientific discovery from the ISS did I miss?

--imm

[plumbob]

21. Well, if you like the microcomputer you are using to get online,

thank NASA. No Mercury program, no need for chip technology. So everything around you with a chip is a direct result of the manned space program.

Water purification, remote medical monitoring devices.

It really is the death of intellectual curiosity, as well as the death of appreciating serendipity as an actual means of making knowledge. Instead, we'll just keep taking stupid multiple choice exams and worrying about kids taking cupcakes to school for parties, now forbidden everywhere.

Well, at least our death technology is bigger than anyone else's! We spent as much last year killing folks as everyone else on the planet combined. But yeah, the pennies spent on NASA were a waste. Pass the bullets and count the profits, boys!

[RoccoR5955]

14. Do you use a cell phone or GPS?

Do you look at the weather, and expect somewhat reliable forecasts?

Those are only three that I can think up in a nanosecond.

Most of all, when NASA conducts research, and finds a new product, process or other thing that can be used in another industry, it can be used free from royalties. Not so when a private company is responsible.

The shuttle was not a dog. The shuttle was a WORKHORSE. Atlantis took up a full year's worth of supplies to ISS. No other vehicle can do that. The shuttle was the only heavy lifting space vehicle. Now, instead of improving and expanding it, they kill it, because some folks don't think it was "worthy."

[immoderate]

17. Cell phones and GPS were invented on earth, had nothing to do with astronauts and ISS!

The manned space program was a publicity stunt. Nothing useful came from it. Weather, GPS, spying, Hubble, Mars, Cassini, all made science without astronauts, at much less cost than the shuttle and ISS. Climate satellites sit in warehouses because they could not be funded.

The shuttles had no real mission. They delivered supplies to campers on the Space Station, who were busy accomplishing nothing. (Lots of puking, though.) While they were there, they figured out how to overcome some of the effects of being there, but they never knew what the fuck they were doing there. The shuttle is an obsolete and dangerous vehicle. Two of them disintegrated!

Things developed and made here on earth, that are then used in space are not spin-offs, they are spun-on, it's a PR angle. NASA channels the money for those items. And it gets so little funding. Imagine if that science was funded directly.

--imm

[RoccoR5955]

18. Invented on earth, yes but.

You failed to see my point.
Though some people fail to see the value in sending up things like the Hubble Telescope, then being able to repair them, many of us see it as being part of human nature. I suppose that there are those of us who will poo poo things that make our life easier, while satisfying our human need to explore the unknown.
I guess that there people who said that of Columbus, when he was one of the first Europeans to set sail. Then again, there were probably some early humans who decided to sit inside the safety of their cave, rather than look out and explore the surrounding environs.
But then there are those of us who have an insatiable desire to explore the unknown. We want to see what's over the next hill, around the next corner, or in space. For those of us, there is the promise of space exploration that was part of the SHuttle's mission.

[immoderate]

19. It was an illusion.

--imm

[kristopher]

15. +100

There are a lot of questions to be answered and pouring money into publicity gimmicks is something we should be past.

[immoderate]

16. Thanks. I thought I was alone.

--imm

[Beartracks]

11. "The fact that China and Germany and Brazil...

... and damn near everyone else who wants to be a 21st century player is pumping out scientists and engineers at break neck speed and the United States is allowing national candidates who doubt evolution as a cornerstone for Biology is all you need to know about the fall of the American empire."

Also well-said.

===============================

[Cereal Kyller]

13. For 95% of us, it's gonna hurt. Bad.

The rich will be just fine.

[bemildred]

12. I guess it's not "morning in America" any more. nt

[plumbob]

22. Too true. If I had known in the 70s what this country would end as,

I would never have had children.

Sad epitaph.