Friday, July 29, 2005

Space Shuttle Mission Watch 2

We finally launched the Space Shuttle again, although there is a lot of tension for this mission because it is a test of the many changes that were made to ensure the safety of the crew and success of future missions. Those tests brought us the cool video of the Space Shuttle somersault to let the space station crew photograph tile on the shuttle underside.

Just when the Shuttle was docking with the International Space Station and that success was achieved, NASA cancels all future flights until the issue with the foam falling from the fuel tank and potentially damaging the shuttle can be addressed. Now there is cautious hope that another Shuttle mission could occur this year.

I reiterate my wish for a cheap, easy, safe way to get to Space. It is not much of a space age if all we send are robots and satellites. Those things are useful, but a human presence is the way to move forward with space industry and robots can only explore so much. If people were on Mars right now we could just look and see if it is water or there is life instead of all of this inference.

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