Blogtrek

The Columbia Disaster

I watched with horror the asteroid-like streaks across the sky on TV that was the remains of Columbia, which catastrophically broke up over the skies of Texas yesterday. It gave me the "not again" feeling, and reminded me of Challenger in 1986. I grieve for those people who went out into space, risking their lives, to extend the depth of human knowledge. The question is whether this is the end of the Space Shuttle or of space exploration. I don't think space exploration should ever end. It may be the one thing that saves our species, and it helps to extend the breadth of human knowledge; look at all we found out about the universe through the Hubble Telescope. But the Shuttle may have seen its last days. There should be one more Shuttle flight - to get the astronauts in the Space Station down. Then it should be considered as to whether we should continue flying this 1970s-technology craft again. A suggestion has been made to do as much through unmanned probes and robots as possible, and to send humans up to space in a small space plane when they are needed. The technology is certainly available to fly an airplane, have it turn into a rocket and fly into space. I think it should be worth considering. In any case, the Shuttle is full of old technology, and we need to get something that is up to date, not premillennium.