Seriously, I never get tired of this stuff. We did this! We built this machine and flung it halfway across the solar system, and it landed just right and sends us photographs back. It’s mind-blowing, and shouldn’t cease to blow our minds, ever.
Triumph Of The Nerds
12 Responses to Triumph Of The Nerds
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MH - Secular Misanthropist says:
Scot, the Sun will take care of that for us. Its output changes with the sunspot cycle and when it reaches solar maximum the upper atmosphere expands. The extra drag brings all manner of space junk down to Earth. Skylab in the 70′s was one victim of this effect.
The Delta launch vehicle is one awesome rocket. It is one of the more reliable systems built.
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proud and hopeful says:
These achievements break my heart, in part because they show what we are still capable of doing. So many of the best of us seem to have gone into these endeavors, but we need people and efforts of the same quality and scale to help restore our republic.
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All good. Let’s do some more of this!
(I note that the landing process is a little different than depicted in “We’re NASA and we know it.”)
Speaking of space junk though, we do need reuseable launch vehicles carrying reusable interplanetary vehicles.
Arthur Clarke would be proud, if impatient. And Kim Robinson?
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A great work of engineering, no doubt
Also, there are legitimate fears that there is now a critical mass of space debris around Earth’s orbit.
I’m not sure if it’s kosher to post links in the comments, but here’s an article from Space.com that gives some details on why that’s a bad, bad thing:
http://www.space.com/11607-space-junk-rising-orbital-debris-levels-2030.html
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I never could get real excited about such things. Honestly, I fail to see the point. Granted there have been some cool discoveries made in the process – OK. But man is made for earth.
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Beyng says:
This “stuff” is cool, to be sure, but I can’t really fathom the purpose of this “stuff” other than to serve as a testament to man’s hubris. The entire space program (excepting communications satellites) could be abolished tomorrow–indeed, could never have existed in the first place–and none of us would know the difference. I’m with Arendt when she commented on the 1957 launch of Sputnik: that we have emancipated ourselves from the surly bonds of earth is, at best, a deeply ambivalent development.
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Evgeni says:
Jeff,
Man was made to offer the totality of Creation back to its Creator in a free exchange of love. If going into space helps us to do that, we should. To offer God a sacrifice of praise in orbit around Jupiter; to offer the Eucharist with bread and wine grown on Mars, or under the light of another star even; to shout with joy to the rock who saves us and sing a song to the Lord from the vast reaches of the deep; these are the things we should aspire to as a species.
Seriously, we’re called to love one another and forgive our enemies. Compared to that, space is easy. That’s just engineering.
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Rod,
Who’s the “we” in the “We did this!”? And does this “we” deserve our respect and our trust, or is its existence an immense waste of human mental energy, while implying all kinds of centralization and concentrations of both knowledge and power in certain hands?I know, I know; a broken record I am; but the questions deserve asking and are arguably more important than the cheerleading.
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Agree that it’s inspiring and very cool, but it’s worth mentioning that even though this is a made in the USA, that the ambition of this enterprise speaks to people around the world. As a reporter I covered the launch of a satellite last year from Vandenberg AFB, whose “bus” was built by a consortium of South American nations. A diplomat from Argentina spoke movingly to me of growing up in the 60′s, and of how much NASA and space exploration meant to him and his country. The satellite launch barely made the papers in this country last year, but he said the whole nation back home was watching the launch, including the president.
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Evgeni: I take your point, but it’s about choices. Opportunity costs, if you will. Of the ten thousand things man might do with the resources it takes to go to Mars, is going to Mars the best use of them? Is that good Christian stewardship? Really? There isn’t going to be any human colonization in space that’s worth the massive expense in money, time, and lives. Man is made for the earth and should be content with the earth.
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Richard Barrett says:
“There isn’t going to be any human colonization in space that’s worth the massive expense…”
Tell me that when the sun’s going nova.
I’ve got a billion dollar idea: cleaning up all the space junk we’ve left laying around space, the moon, and now Mars.