This coming Monday morning at 6:21am will be the third to last space shuttle launch. As of this time, it is projected that the final launch of the shuttle fleet will occur before the end of 2010, leaving the United States without a vehicle to launch humans into space.

If you would like to see a launch I suggest that you visit the ksc.nasa.gov website and begin planning to be here for one of the remaining launches.

If you find yourself with plans to be here, let me know ahead of time and I will try to get a pass for you to see the launch on the space center.

For those of us who grew up with splash downs and ocean recoveries the first shuttle launch was a thrilling sight. I have seen triumphs (I saw the Hubble Telescope) up close before it launched and tragedies, watching as Challenger exploded in the bright cold Florida sky killing seven astronauts.

There are plans to develop a commercial vehicle but that is years away if even possible and though there are plans to begin taking civilians up to 400,000 feet within the next 2 years at $1million per ticket, it is a long way from there to orbit.

I have had a front row seat to witness our reach for the stars for 50 years, and this is the first time I have felt that the dream is no longer alive.

I saw an article in the Washington Post about the launch tower for the Aires rocket that now has no use except possibly as a giant slide for Sea World. It seems the Obama administration is turning over manned space travel to private companies. The death of the govt.'s manned program would naturally be hard to take for those like you who have invested a lot of their lives in it. But I have to think that everyone is better served by robotic exploration of space, Until there is a really practical mode of interplanetary travel, is there a point in continuing these programs? Is there a point to revisiting the moon, and is Mars at all practical?

DWill wrote:I saw an article in the Washington Post about the launch tower for the Aires rocket that now has no use except possibly as a giant slide for Sea World. It seems the Obama administration is turning over manned space travel to private companies. The death of the govt.'s manned program would naturally be hard to take for those like you who have invested a lot of their lives in it. But I have to think that everyone is better served by robotic exploration of space, Until there is a really practical mode of interplanetary travel, is there a point in continuing these programs? Is there a point to revisiting the moon, and is Mars at all practical?

If you promise not to tell anyone I said so I see no point in a moonbase and it is rediculous to talk about a human mission to Mars with our current technology. My argument has been for a permant orbiting space station. The ISS is not permant and is a fraction of what it was originally planned to be. The STS (Shuttle Transportation System) never achieved its goals and has inherent dangers but there are other options for near earth access. NASA planned to develop a new vehicle, the cost of which was one excuse to cancel the program. I never could get interest in my idea to just rip off the Russian design. It is proven technology and already compatible with the ISS. Ironically, now that we are retiring the STS, the Russians are talking about resuming theirs. They developed a prototype about a decade or so ago but the program died for economic reasons.

In addition to the ares tower, the VAB, at one time the largest building in the world by volume will have to me maintained or allowed to atrophy.

If you look at the countries who are planning human space launches in the near future:
China
India
Japan
Iran
Russia continuing, they will be our ride to the ISS.
I think even Ubeskistan or at least one of the 'stans'

The space race if finally over at least for the US since we just quit.

The space race if finally over at least for the US since we just quit.

When half the country think the Earth is only thousands of years old, what use is there for children to study science? You have absolutely no right to complain about this, whether you work for NASA or not. Your position is the perfect opposite of what we'd need as a country to stay in the space race.

Interbane wrote:

The space race if finally over at least for the US since we just quit.

When half the country think the Earth is only thousands of years old, what use is there for children to study science? You have absolutely no right to complain about this, whether you work for NASA or not. Your position is the perfect opposite of what we'd need as a country to stay in the space race.

You continue to surprise me with the unexpected. Your response has given me the evidence I need to prove that evolution is wrong; we are not descended from Neanderthals since at least one is still alive.

Beliefs about the origins of the universe do not preclude curiosity and the desire to explore. Personally I would prefer that as a pure justification for exploration rather than, “so we can find out where we came from.” That reason has always seemed pretty insipid to me. When we hike to a beautiful waterfall, it is not to determine where we came from, etc., and I doubt we'll find a spot on Mars and say, "yep, this is it."

Additionally, there are aspects of national pride and security that are involved. Where do you suppose all of the talented Americans who want to be involved in human spaceflight will go? Work at BK or Mickey D’s, or perhaps, Russia, or India:

India Developing Winged Reusable Rocket
by Staff Writers
Bangalore, India (PTI) Mar 30, 2010
India is developing a winged reusable rocket and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has configured a Technology Demonstrator as a first step towards realising it, the space agency said in a report.

India's space scientists have already configured a winged Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD). This is a first step towards realising a Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO) fully re-reusable launch vehicle, according to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The agency said in its latest annual report that a series of technology demonstration missions have been conceived.

"The RLV-TD will act as a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies like hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air breathing propulsion. First in the series of demonstration trials is the hypersonic flight experiment (HEX)," it said.

Meanwhile, for the Chandrayaan-2 mission, expected by 2012-13, ISRO has received 36 Indian payload proposals for orbiter and lander/rover.

The Scientific Advisory Board of Chandrayaan-2, a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-1, is currently in the process of reviewing the payloads proposed for orbiter.

ISRO sources said the space agency has also received foreign proposals evincing interest to send their instruments for hosting by the Chandrayaan-2 which would be jointly developed with Russia.

It would have an Indian orbiter and mini-rover, and Russian lander and rover.
According to ISRO, the Megha-Tropiques satellite, an Indo-French joint mission for the study of the tropical atmosphere and climate related aspects, is expected to be launched later this year.

It is set to join a string of global spacecraft designated to study climate change.
"Considering the strong global demand for data from Megha-Tropiques, ISRO, CNES (French space agency) and NASA have agreed to integrate this satellite into Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) constellation of satellites," ISRO said.

"With this, Megha-Tropiques will be one of the eight satellites contributing to the global scientific community to study and understand the dynamics of climate system," it said.
Data from the recently-launched Oceansat-2, which carried an atmospheric sounder 'ROSA' from Italy apart from main payloads - ocean colour monitor and scatterometer - is highly sought after by international scientific community.

In this respect, a cooperative programme on sharing the data with National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for their operational research is expected to be signed shortly, it said.

Beliefs about the origins of the universe do not preclude curiosity and the desire to explore.

We cannot explore space without science. The YEC belief is a suppression of science. If you propogate your beliefs, you are hampering our ability to explore space, whether you intend to or not. No matter how much you may have the desire to explore, it will not happen without science.

You continue to surprise me with the unexpected. Your response has given me the evidence I need to prove that evolution is wrong; we are not descended from Neanderthals since at least one is still alive.

You make comments like this as if you're clever, then I go on to show how your reasoning is sloppy. The 'desire to explore' is not the limiting factor I'm referring to. What I'm referring to is scientific progress. Your world view is against scientific progress. Scientific progress is required for space exploration. "Desire to explore" all you want, but unless science is in your toolbag, you're not going anywhere.

Your statement is proof of your scientific illiteracy. For one, being descended from a species doesn't mean they are extinct. There's also no evidence to show we've descended from Neanderthals.

Interbane wrote:

Beliefs about the origins of the universe do not preclude curiosity and the desire to explore.

We cannot explore space without science.
No matter how much you may have the desire to explore, it will not happen without science

If you intend by this that science will provide the means, I suppose you are correct.
If you intend by this that science will provide the reason you may be correct, but only maybe. There are reasons other than science to explore.

Interbane wrote:The YEC belief is a suppression of science. If you propogate your beliefs, you are hampering our ability to explore space, whether you intend to or not.

This statement is self indicting as inaccurate. The impediments to space exploration are economic and technological, not religious or philosophical.

Interbane wrote:You continue to surprise me with the unexpected. Your response has given me the evidence I need to prove that evolution is wrong; we are not descended from Neanderthals since at least one is still alive.

You make comments like this as if you're clever, then I go on to show how your reasoning is sloppy. The 'desire to explore' is not the limiting factor I'm referring to. What I'm referring to is scientific progress. Your world view is against scientific progress. Scientific progress is required for space exploration. "Desire to explore" all you want, but unless science is in your toolbag, you're not going anywhere.

Your statement is proof of your scientific illiteracy. For one, being descended from a species doesn't mean they are extinct. There's also no evidence to show we've descended from Neanderthals.[/quote]

Perhaps you are correct, but I Love Lucy was not a show about an interim species.

I Love Lucy? What does that have to do with anything?

I'm totally lost now.

This statement is self indicting as inaccurate. The impediments to space exploration are economic and technological, not religious or philosophical.

The boundaries are blurred when technology is impeded by religion. You can't deny the fact that you are at war with science for religious reasons. Technology is the product of applied science. We are no longer competent participants in the space race, meanwhile anti-science YEC's work for our space agency and complain about it. Talk about a classic true to life oxymoron! You deny most of the greatest achievements of science, yet work for an agency that relies most heavily on science!

This reminds me of the comment you made a while back about how exploration a useless endeavor anyways, since you and the other YEC's already know the answers. But you're going along with it anyways! No, you have no room to complain. Just please don't teach any young people you know to hate science. Our country is already falling behind as it is.

Star, thanks for bringing this topic to light.

There are many people who, perhaps, are not up to date on where we stand with our space programs.

At first i thought Interbane was a bit harsh, since you brought up a valid point, star, but i am tending to agree with him on this.

It is precisely YEC and other inherantly luddite world-views that threaten to end American space exploration, and scientific progress.

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