Good Morning, Starshine.

[poliphilo]

Captains Kirk and Picard were never unduly worried by stray bits of foam detaching themselves from the Enterprise.

But then, as some NASA person was saying on the radio yesterday, sci-fi has left us with the mistaken impression that space flight is easy.

But it was easy once. The Apollo missions were easy. And why were they easy? Because the will was there.

We've lost the will. We got to the Moon and...and...

...we'd put one over on the Russkies and that was that. But it wasn't just about defeating the Russkies. Or was it?

Neil Armstong sounded as if he believed in his famous first words.

I'm sure he did.

I want that spirit back.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's the job of the politicians to get the people enthused about space flight.

I dunno.

How do these things work?

[zen-punk.livejournal.com]

Well, why should they, when there are easier ways to be re-elected?(from the politicians point of view.)

Back in the days of the moon shot, it was a response to the Soviets, who were first in space. Now there are no Soviets and apparently space isn't exciting anymore. I don't know. The Columbia accident really put a damper on things. People seem to expect that space travel should be safe for some reason. I don't know why people who didn't know the astronuats get worked up about the "terrible loss of life" involved. I don't think that our record is so bad, considering how new this all is and the complexity of what we're doing. The astronauts knew the risks and wanted to go up anyway.

I don't know what it would take for people to become enthused about space flight again. I suppose that's what Bush wanted to do with his Mars inititiave.