The Space Shuttle was the ONLY option remaining to NASA once
Senator Walter Proxmire had succeeded in killing off Project
Apollo just as it was at the point of providing massive economic
returns for the money invested in it. Proxmire did this because
NASA had no Apollo-related employment in Proxmire's electorate.
The problem was that the Space Shuttle was in fact a retrograde
step: It locked Space exploration into Near Earth Orbit for the next
50+ years, which meant that there would be NO real progress.
It also meant that a complete new infrastructure would have to be
built from the ground up in order to ever continue manned
exploration of space beyond NEO.
Now that the Shuttle Program is about to end, there is no real
goal in place. With the Constellation Program now in shreds,
there is no support available for any prospective goal.
Proxmire, and the other Luddites that have since followed him
has effectively caused any space exploration to be useless for
the foreseeable future, well into the next century, by which time it
will be too late for mankind to save himself by living on two
planets instead of remaining shackled to this resource-dwindling
Earth. The result is one the Luddites are blind to: that Luddite
ideology of Proxmire and his ilk has doomed the human race: Just
as Werner Von Braun warned it would.
FACT: if humanity does not expand to live on two planets, it DIES,
becomes extinct, on one.
- Uyraell.
NASA’s venerable Discovery first launched in 1984, with two early communications satellites in tow. On November 1st, this same craft will carry vital equipment to a space station built by and carrying crew from two nations that, all those years ago, were still at odds.
As STS-133, the 39th flight for the Discovery, marks the end of a specific shuttle’s life, it also reminds us of another approaching date: the February 26th launch of STS-134, when the Endeavor will also end its active life. 10 days later, at touchdown, the shuttle program will have drawn to a close forever.
The Discovery lived an exciting life, even by the standards of an orbital space craft. Its first charges were to furnish the world’s communications infrastructure with satellites, a task that it continued to perform almost constantly until the launch of the ISS. It was the first shuttle to fly after the Challenger disintegrated during launch, and the first to follow the Columbia after its disintegration during reentry. It carried the massively prolific Hubble Space Telescope in 1990. It was brought John Glenn into space for a second time at the tender young age of 77. In the end, it will have made the trip to space more times than any other shuttle, by a fair margin.
With the end of the shuttle program comes the beginning of another–well, sort of. Until the true successor to the shuttle program–whatever remains of the Constellation program–replenishment of the ISS will be carried out by a combination of Russian craft and Falcon rockets, designed by private spaceflight firm SpaceX.
In any case, if you’ve never witnessed a shuttle launch, your time is running out. (Trust me, they’re spectacular.) The launch will take place at Kennedy Space Center; the Discovery is already docked at the launchpad.
