Today, I managed to nearly watch the shuttle take off, live. Mission STS-120 will put a new European designed Harmony module onto the ISS. The exciting part was watching the post launch live video stream and listening to the chatter between the shuttle crew and ground control. I was watching the live camera feed off the main fuel tank when it peeled off the shuttle and fell to earth. Not something I'd ever seen before, but utterly amazing.
Space is still exciting stuff, I quietly wish that more money would be invested in space research, like habitats and near earth orbit asteroid mining, than is invested in weapons and wars, idealist eh? The whole back to the Moon and onto Mars thing doesn't really excite me as much as I thought it would. There is plenty of interesting stuff to be done between here and the Moon. Plus only a few people will ever get to Mars, if there is an active private space programme, then many more people will get into orbit and perhaps I can join them before I get too old. I can hold out for the Space Elevator I guess.
Leave a comment