Will She Fly? Should She?
Beginning to wonder if the shuttle Discovery should fly again. So many delays, so many potentially awful problems found and (hopefully) fixed.
The launch date is now December 3, 2010. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
These remaining spacecraft are not aging gracefully. Due to budget cuts over the years new craft have not been funded and you can only repair the old vehicle so many times before it just isn't workable any longer. And with the dangers inherent in space flight are we really willing to risk lives for a few final missions? I'm not sure we should. And I am a huge supporter of the space program.
I think it is a shame the program is dying. I think there is so much left to learn. And while I adore the rovers tooling around Mars I think the real value in knowledge gained is through human exploration. But I do not think that risking lives in an aging space craft is a good idea.
With apologies to Princess Leia: "They went up in that thing? They're braver than I thought."
The launch date is now December 3, 2010. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
These remaining spacecraft are not aging gracefully. Due to budget cuts over the years new craft have not been funded and you can only repair the old vehicle so many times before it just isn't workable any longer. And with the dangers inherent in space flight are we really willing to risk lives for a few final missions? I'm not sure we should. And I am a huge supporter of the space program.
I think it is a shame the program is dying. I think there is so much left to learn. And while I adore the rovers tooling around Mars I think the real value in knowledge gained is through human exploration. But I do not think that risking lives in an aging space craft is a good idea.
With apologies to Princess Leia: "They went up in that thing? They're braver than I thought."
Comments