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To Boldly Go...
Jan. 9th, 2004 10:22 amI've been interested in Space exploration since... hard to put a date on it, while I was alive when we first landed on the moon, I was still barely walking when we stopped going. I think it was when I read Tintin: Destination Moon aged about 4 when I thought - wow, that's what I really want to do.
Through the 70's I wanted to see the Shuttle fly, cheap access to space, a veritable bus into orbit complete with passenger opportunities. The 70's turned into the 80's, Skylab was crashed into Australia and the shuttle, which was meant to save the space station, didn't fly until the early 80's. When it did fly, the expectation far exceeded the reality.
However, by Christmas 1985 things were looking good again - there was a record number of missions planned for the Shuttle in 1986. Gallileo was off to Jupiter, Hubble was to be launched, the first US civilian was about to fly, the USAF launch facility at Vandenburg would be launching shuttles, rumours abounded that the Russians were about to launch a new and larger Space Station to replace Salyut 7, private companies were acutally getting close to orbiting free floating labs.
Of course, on January 28th 1986 (18 year ago in 3 weeks, is that possible?) Challenger ended that about 9 miles above the Atlantic. The Shuttle program was halted for several years while they tried to make it safer.
Russia launched Mir but then the Soviet Union hit the rocks just after the spectacular and only flight of their Buran Space Shuttle on their equally spectacular Energia launcher.
The US President decided that they had to come back with a vision and committed NASA to take the US to Mars, the Space Exploration Initiative was launched, around 12 years ago.
That President's name was George Bush.
The SEI died an undignified death when the NASA budget came in at a shade over $450billion, but that included finishing the space station, a new shuttle, moon base, mars base and other sundry hardware.
According to this another George Bush (W this time) is about to announce a return to the moon and mars. This annoucement was touted for the December celebrations of 100 years of flight but was delayed, some say to make sure that the current lander missions were effective.
I wish I could be upbeat about this. I really want to see space developed, I want to see a return to the Moon and men on Mars while I'm still able to approciate it. But I am also highly cynical. The USA is fighting wars on several fronts, it has a huge deficit - my expectations is that this iniative, like the other, will fade away as the costs mount up.
Some believe there is a private future for space development - Scaled Composites and Xcor are both now flying rocket planes, SC recently broke the sound barrier and are preparing their Space Ship One for the first private suborbital flight.
I'm skeptical about that too - I'm not convinced a large market exists at the price points modern technology can deliver at.
I suspect I'll have to be content with my Concorde flight.
Through the 70's I wanted to see the Shuttle fly, cheap access to space, a veritable bus into orbit complete with passenger opportunities. The 70's turned into the 80's, Skylab was crashed into Australia and the shuttle, which was meant to save the space station, didn't fly until the early 80's. When it did fly, the expectation far exceeded the reality.
However, by Christmas 1985 things were looking good again - there was a record number of missions planned for the Shuttle in 1986. Gallileo was off to Jupiter, Hubble was to be launched, the first US civilian was about to fly, the USAF launch facility at Vandenburg would be launching shuttles, rumours abounded that the Russians were about to launch a new and larger Space Station to replace Salyut 7, private companies were acutally getting close to orbiting free floating labs.
Of course, on January 28th 1986 (18 year ago in 3 weeks, is that possible?) Challenger ended that about 9 miles above the Atlantic. The Shuttle program was halted for several years while they tried to make it safer.
Russia launched Mir but then the Soviet Union hit the rocks just after the spectacular and only flight of their Buran Space Shuttle on their equally spectacular Energia launcher.
The US President decided that they had to come back with a vision and committed NASA to take the US to Mars, the Space Exploration Initiative was launched, around 12 years ago.
That President's name was George Bush.
The SEI died an undignified death when the NASA budget came in at a shade over $450billion, but that included finishing the space station, a new shuttle, moon base, mars base and other sundry hardware.
According to this another George Bush (W this time) is about to announce a return to the moon and mars. This annoucement was touted for the December celebrations of 100 years of flight but was delayed, some say to make sure that the current lander missions were effective.
I wish I could be upbeat about this. I really want to see space developed, I want to see a return to the Moon and men on Mars while I'm still able to approciate it. But I am also highly cynical. The USA is fighting wars on several fronts, it has a huge deficit - my expectations is that this iniative, like the other, will fade away as the costs mount up.
Some believe there is a private future for space development - Scaled Composites and Xcor are both now flying rocket planes, SC recently broke the sound barrier and are preparing their Space Ship One for the first private suborbital flight.
I'm skeptical about that too - I'm not convinced a large market exists at the price points modern technology can deliver at.
I suspect I'll have to be content with my Concorde flight.
