A Sad Day; the End of Manned Flight

[Black3 16]

I didn't see Alan Shepard's flight because we didn't have TV in schools yet in '61, but I did hear it on the radio. The principal put the radio on the school PA. I saw most of the Mercury and Gemini flights but was getting too cool to watch stuff like that by the time the Apollo missions came on but NOBODY was too cool to watch the Apollo mission around the moon at, IIRC, Christmas of '68 and, of course, Apollo 11 in '69; everything in America and much of the World stopped for that. Interest waned in the later Apollo missions and the networks hardly bothered to cover them. For you young'uns most of the Country still had only at most three channels until well into the '80s. The first live television broadcast ever here in Alaska was the Apollo 11 landing, and even that was only available in Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. Even when I first came here in '74 there was no live television.

 

Anyway, with the end of Apollo, nobody paid much attention to the space program and only diehards even knew about the Shuttle program. By the time of the Shuttles, space flight was so routine it didn't garner much attention until the Challenger disaster drove home the fact that this really was a risky business. I saw the Challenger explode, I think live, but sometimes you can't be sure about stuff like that here since we're four hours off Eastern time and sometimes the taped version is the first thing we see in the mornings. All through the program, I tried to catch shuttle launches and landings. If you came up in the Space Race days of the '60s, that fascination with the space program was hard to shake, at least once you got over teenaged coolness.

 

So, now it is all over. For the first time since I was in grade school, the US doesn't have a manned flight program and doesn't seem to have any plans for one, at least not under the current regime. The US left and Black advocacy groups always opposed the space program. Even in the heyday of the Apollo program, there was always some opposition from the poverty pimps and class warriors. But even at the height of the Left's political ascendency after Watergate, they never had the power to take the US out of the heavens. Now they've done it! Now that the Left has their darling in the White House, the foremost symbol of American exceptionalism and American technological power has ended and even the shuttles themselves sent off mostly to places that had nothing to do with and in some cases didn't support space exploration. I just can't make myself like the feeling of once again having my nose rubbed in the power of the pretender in the White House. I can only hope that soon we can re-establish a legitimate government in this Country and return to the skies.

[topmaul 42]

I really thought the space shuttle program was a financial disaster and am glad to see it gone. I do believe we should not give up our lead in manned space flight. So how do you have it both ways? Easy make one time use heavy lift rockets and smaller passenger rockets to take crew to the Space station and carry limited cargo. The Space Shuttle never come close to the promises made early on in the program. It was to be a space pick up truck. But the year turn around time between flights was just crazy. The porgam was ill concevied from the start.

 

As far as blaming the left for it you can make that point, before the shuttle the US had almost all the commercial satellite launching business world wide. We lost most of it because of the shuttle program it's was just too expensive! Business votes with the wallet and NASA just cost too much. The French and the European Space Agency cleaned our clock because we were so fixated on the Shuttle Program.

[Black3 16]

Yeah, I'll not argue for the Shuttle program per se; typically NASA, too big, too expensive, too complex, and especially too political. We lost the military impetus to build single use heavy lift rockets with the end of the Cold War and the technological change to solid fuel, sub launched missles instead of the dual use Atlas, Jupiter and similar missles. I'm just lamenting the end of it all, and I really do believe it is the end. With the current economics and demographics, my children and probably not even my grandchildren will ever see another man on the Moon or the first man on Mars.

[physicsnerd 139]

The best thing to happen to space is to figure out how to monetize it and let the private sector do it. I bet the private sector will eventually figure out a way to send people into orbit cheaper and more efficiently than NASA. Remember that 20-25 years ago cell phones were $4000 and only a few really rich people could afford one. Now we can all have way more powerful, significantly cheaper communication devices. Same thing will happen with spaceflight. Sure the super rich will be the first but it'll get cheaper, easier and safer.

[RobRez 1,895]

I have always felt that we can't even take care of our own B.S. on this planet, so why are we Crapping up space? Our taxes put a remote control car on Mars for mere Billions of dollars. Smart spending right there! Yep, Raise my taxes and buy another B.S. $12,000 wrench. Space travel is just glorified "Look at us" Bull, in my opinion. Just another stupid thing to get Oafs to chant "U.S.A.! U.S.A! U.S.A.!"

I am a proud American and I don't need a Stroke-Job to feel that way.

NASA's theme song should be "The Stroke."

How about if we had been putting all of that money into Schools??

The way they are now, we won't be needing a space program at all!

Sorry to rain on the Space guy parade....

[frz1197 128]

Even if it was just another way to piss away millions of dollars, at least the money got us something. It provided a bunch of good jobs. The feds could have put all that money to HUD our welfare and all we would have gotten was more drugs, crime, and cutlass's on 24 inch spinners. Thought I saw every space job provided for another 2 non space jobs down in titusville. The reason the government is getting rid of all of it is to crack down on all the conservative, upper middle class workers who will now have to suck the governments teat just to live.

[Black3 16]

"How about if we had been putting all of that money into Schools??"

 

We put one Helluva lot more money into government schools than we've ever put into space exploration and the only thing we got for it was illiterates like you.

 

 

 

[RobRez 1,895]

"How about if we had been putting all of that money into Schools??"

 

We put one Helluva lot more money into government schools than we've ever put into space exploration and the only thing we got for it was illiterates like you.

 

 

 

 

Oh my!! Sorry Mr Astronaut! That must have struck a nerve!!

Crazy illiterates Reading And Writing! Next thing you know, they will have different opinions than you!!

That's o.k. though, you can always handle it in an adult fashion and start calling them names!!

[yakdung 2,926]

Putting money into government schools you've got to be kidding me. Teachers unions would have loved that one while the kids would have continued to suffer. Governor Perry chimes in:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/07/rick-perry-accuses-obama-of-leaving-astronauts-to-hitchhike-into-space.html

 

Yakdung

[superA 289]

The Gov. wastes money on anything it touches. I wish that the end of this would lead to private corporations leading the chase into the unknown but I really doubt that will happen. If they do something awesome, the military will take control.

[DogMan 2,343]

I've read a few stories on the end of the shuttle program and they seem to be filled with a lot of talk about how manned space flight gave kids the ability to dream of being an astronaut, or how we need to "dare to dream" to explore space ,etc, etc. In other words, not a lot of substance on what our goals were or what we actually did accomplish. Yeah, I'm sure there were accomplishments, I just wish I could think of three significant ones right off the top of my head. I remember watching that first shuttle launch sitting on a couch in Galveston Texas and thinking how this was going to change everyone's lives. Well, I don't think it changed my life much at all. I think a lot of people made money, some people got to be astronauts, a few got blown up, we lost two vehicles,. we know how ants build ant farms in zero gravity, and let's see, what else now..........

[magsite20 1,664]

End of the shuttle program time for NASA to read:

 

 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

 

Knowing where one's towel is

 

 

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

 

 

Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything (42)