Columbia exploded during reentry this morning over Texas. My prayers to the astronauts and their families.
Everyone knows it was Saddam in the kitchen with a WMD. Seriously though, it's a tragedy for the families, and you have to think this will set back the space program a bit. Not as long as Challenger did, but at least a while.
What the hell is wrong with you? Did you like to pick the legs off of spiders when you were a child? Do you wonder why women don't find it charming when you belch?
Corazon's a good guy. I'm sure that he'll offer an apology for this ill-timed and unfortunate attempt at levity.
There is a similar, longer thread on FFA here. Considering the politics of this, is NASA done for? At the very least they need to get people down from the Int'l Space Station, but I get the feeling that we may have seen our last shuttle flight.
I don't want to discourage anyone from criticizing NASA when the appropriate moment comes. But I will have little patience with anyone on this board who who expresses glee over this accident or who suggests that "we deserved this". A bit of reverence and restraint, please. God bless them all.
I was in seventh grade when Challenger exploded, and this brings up bad memories. It's a terrible day. I do wonder about the purpose of manned space flight at this point. Why do we spend billions of dollars and court human disaster to examine spider behavior in space? Is it worth it? We mourned Challenger, but we didn't replace it.I assume that's because it wasn't cost-effective. I also, sadly, wonder how long it will take fanatic Arabs and anti-semites of all colors to start rumors about the Israeli astronaut being a Mossad agent tasked with bringing the shuttle down. It's sad, but I know it's coming. I don't think the general public and particularly the young adults are as interested in space flight as we were when I was young. I don't remember the first Columbia mission well, but I remember they brought the TVs into class to watch both the takeoff and landing. There was an air of optimism and interest then that's not present today. It's very sad.
Oh boy, here goes obie again with his "sky is falling" rhetoric. We have plane crashes, too, but I don't hear people talking about the end of air travel. It was inevitable that another tragedy would occur, accidents happen. They just need to find out the cause, make the changes to ensure that it never happens again, and then move forward.
Obie has a valid point though, after Challenger there were many calls to end the space program saying it was a waste. You can almost bet on it that there will be politicians wanting to cut NASA's budget, just as there were back then and when the Mars lander fiasco occurred.
While I appreciate your outrage, I think metrocorazon merely said aloud what many people have already been thinking. While our first thoughts should be for the astronauts and their families, given the events of the past several months you knew almost immediately that the topic of terrorism would come out sooner rather than later. It's not like any political entities on any "side", including the Bushies, have been shy about using the 9/11 tragedy to shamelessly try to further their political agendas so I see no reason why this will be any different. Ghost has already mentioned that some people will inevitably proffer the idiotic idea that this was an Israeli plot. Sadly, I think his has a better chance of being right than wrong. Equally sad to say is the fact that, considering their eagerness to paint Saddam as the source for every evil from terrorism to male pattern baldness, it's not unreasonable to then wonder how long it will take Bush or the pro-war faction to either overtly blame Saddam for this or merely hint at it and not make any corrections, much like the "Iraqis on the 9/11 planes" lie has been conspicuously been allowed to circulate without correction. While I'd prefer the pro-war faction to resist using this tragedy for their own pro-war ends, the recent past does not make me hopeful. So yes, while metrocorazon's "joke" was in mindbogglingly poor taste, the topics of terrorism and the political effects of the disaster are, unfortunately, valid. And that's a shame, really.
Drink some coffee, take a shower, you'll feel better. To compare NASA (hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars per mission, two very public disasters in ~125 shuttle missions) to commercial air travel is beneath even you, Ian.
I think the focus of any questions would likely be on the shuttles themselves. The shuttles lifespan was said to be "100 Launches" or "10 Years". Columbia was well over 20 years old. Years the Space Shuttles were built Enterprise-1976 (Never flew) Columbia-1979 Challenger-1982 Discover-1983 Atlantis-1985 Endeavor-1991
Wow! Who let this split? "Columbia Streaks Toward Florida Landing By Marcia Dunn AP Aerospace Writer Saturday, February 1, 2003; 8:28 AM CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. –– With security tighter than usual, space shuttle Columbia streaked toward a Florida touchdown Saturday to end a successful 16-day scientific research mission that included the first Israeli astronaut. Etc etc" Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9943-2003Feb1.html
It's pretty chilling to read that astronaut Brown joked - "Do we really have to come back?" Such a shame.
I believe Endeavor was the replacement shuttle for Challenger-- The Challenger name was retired in honor of the tragedy. Tragic day. I grew up in the Texas Panhandle, and find out that the Commander was from Amarillo (where I grew up and where my parents now live) and the Pilot was from Lubbock. Space travel is dangerous. Always will be, no matter our best efforts or how much money we put into it. Perhaps we can, for once, just recognize that and avoid the Junior High-ish bickering that goes on so frequently on these boards.