Goodbye and Farewell

[danalwyn]

I'm a physicist by training, and physicists have never really like the shuttle program. It was a huge waste of money, a lot of expenditure of cash on sending people on the world's most expensive roller coaster ride in lieu of doing actual science (I think what really rubbed it in was the claims that the shuttle was up there to do scientific experiments). Their ability to do things like fix the Hubble Space Telescope was offset by the fact that each shuttle mission cost about $450 million - in other words we could probably build a new Hubble in exchange for three shuttle launches. The shuttle, and the ability to put a human being into space, needed to be upgraded years ago with newer, cheaper, and probably lower-flying technology. The money spent on NASA probably would have better benefited the human race by being spent on NASA's robotic exploration program then it did sending people into space to grow crystals.

That being said, there's still something monumentally nostalgic about the image of the shuttle landing for the last time. We've always cursed the shuttle, but we've done it with the obscure pride of knowing that human beings were still stepping into space. Now we have to wonder whether this is just a temporary break in the greater scheme of things, or if humanity has begun to turn its back on the stars for another generation. Let's all hope we figure out a better way to get up there soon.