As I sit here and watch the final flight of the space shuttle program, I am mindful to remember that I am part of the generation that watched the birth of the space program, from the first unmanned flight, to the Russian flight, moon orbiting and eventually walking on the moon. I still sit in awe of those who were chosen to make that flight.
There has been sorrow in the space program with the Challenger, Columbia, Apollo 1, Apollo 13 as well as the Russian disasters. Man has a desire to be somewhere else, never satisfied with enough. But that is what keeps us moving as humans, the idea that there is somewhere else to discover, a new land like Columbus did, which really turned out to only be new to him. Discoveries are mostly made in science and technical fields these days, but to see the creations new for the first time has to be exciting!
Now that this particular program is closing on the shuttle side, I wonder what will be the next step? We have the Mars rover, China has a lunar rover and the Russians have theirs. Will we discover anything new? Not really, but we can learn about the planets that were created for us to study.
My last thoughts are, what on earth will they do with all the money not being spent to fly into space?
No comments:
Post a Comment