…I’m looking forward to the next stage of exploration: going back to the moon and beyond!
Someday I’d like to actually be in Florida to watch a rocket launch.
…I’m looking forward to the next stage of exploration: going back to the moon and beyond!
Someday I’d like to actually be in Florida to watch a rocket launch.
I agree that would be cool, but I’m not optimistic about ‘beyond’ the moon.
Humans are very fragile space travelers, at best. Once you get outside of the Earth’s protective magnetic field, known as the Van Allen belt, you’re exposed to a bombardment of charged particles that rip through your body’s cells and destroy pieces of your genetic material that are potentially critical.
The size relationships are lost on most people. Take a bicycle ride around Sheldon Schafer’s Lakeview Museum scale model of the solar system.
The Planetarium is curved into a 34 foot diameter sphere that serves as the Sun. Then ride down from Lakeview to Beachler’s BP at War Memorial Drive. Go inside and see the scale model of the Earth. It is a four inch sphere. At that scale, the continent of Africa would fit into the ring your thumb and index finger make when you form an ‘OK sign.’ There is no scale model of the moon displaye, but it would be a one inch ball nearly 9 feet away, the length of a tandem bicycle!
We humans think we are a real hot item because we visited the moon.
Now travel to Mars’ orbit path, for example, at it’s closest point which occurs once every 3 years because both planets lap around the Sun at different speeds, would require at visiting channel 31 studio at 3131 N University.
Think of what a sizable expedition would be required to stay there 3 years waiting for Earth’s next close approach, all the fuel, 3 to 4 years of food and water, all the supporting systems…
This coming from someone whos seen 5 shuttle launches (1 of those at night), 2 unmanned rocket launches, and 1 shuttle landing….watching on television doesnt do them justice at all. With as many as ive seen, id love to see more, if only i were still in Florida…it just never gets old to me
Sam
Not excited by Ares I (the Stick).
Obama hasn’t even appointed someone to run NASA yet, so not hopeful about the next 4 years.
Review starting on Ares/Orion. I am hoping they drop the Stick and decide to launch Orion on an EELV (Delta IV or Atlas V).
…but I am REALLY hoping SpaceX products (Falcon 9 and Dragon) beat them all.
The shuttle was a spaceship designed by committee. It is absolutely AWESOME what it has done, but it is also now, and always has been, dangerous as hell.