Calling this the "worst economy since the Great Depression."
Folks, this IS the Great Depression.
Be grateful for what you have and those who care about you.
The war for freedom and the future starts here. Do what you can to make the world a better place. Our "leaders" are corrupt, and for the most part, beyond hope. Vote them all out, I say. Ymmv...
I am optimistic, that once we all figure out the new paradigm, we Americans are going to be in a pretty good place.
Only time will tell...
Crazed American, out.
13 July 2011
08 July 2011
End of an era
- 548 million or so miles flown...
Today marks the beginning of the end of Government Sponsored Human Spaceflight in the United States of America. It is my fervent hope that a a vessel that has fulfilled 39/100ths of it's lifespan returns with it's human cargo intact. NASA, in all of its issues recently, does not exactly strike a great deal of confidence. NASA will be known for brilliant success (and painful failure) in the era that stretched from 1960-1986.
The Crazed American is of the mind that when a civilization stops innovating and exploring, that civilization is doomed. Of course, I'm of the mind that the human spaceflight exploration factor in the USA died in 1986 with Scobee, Smith, Jarvis, McAuliffe, Resnik, Onizuka and McNair. NASA and it's human spaceflight program hunkered down and wallowed in a Safety mentality that crippled it from assuming risk and doing the hard thing. As CAPT James T. Kirk once said of explorers in general: "risk is our business". Anyone who thinks they can innoculate themselves from risk in spaceflight is a daft fool.
I was born two years after the end of Apollo, and seven years before the launch of the first space shuttle, Columbia, in April of 1981. I remember being woken up by my parents to watch the launch on TV. After moving to Florida in 1983, I grew up literally within earshot of launch pads 39A and 39B, I have seen my own shadow, cast by the piercing light of Solid Rocket Boosters, during a secret DoD night launch in 1985. I was given a copy of the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual, and memorized it. I read the cover off of that book and it still sits on my bookshelf. I used it at Space Camp and commanded a simulation of a shuttle mission.
I understood fuel cells, the magic and power of the turbo-pumps, understood the necessity of APU's SRBs and ET's. I dreamed of a future, the early 21st century when space shuttles and their successors would build space stations and ferry supplies to construct interplanetary spacecraft and perhaps starships in low earth orbit. Columbia, Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis were explained to be vanguards of a fleet of space trucks, prototypes launching every two weeks from KSC and Vandenberg AFB making space travel for the common man a reality.
We were naive. The bureaucracy took over and became risk averse.
So I will be left with the memories I have of the Space Shuttle. I will remember distinctly Saturday, 18 June 1983, when I, as a nine year old boy, just moved from Ohio to sunny Florida, was blessed with the opportunity to see STS-7, the Challenger, carry Dr. Sally Ride and her four compatriots (Crippen, Hauck, Fabian, and Thagard) to orbit. I will remember the low rumble of the SSME's and the gut punch of the shockwave from the ignition of the Solid Rocket Boosters. I'll remember the afterimage in my eyes of the sun like brightness of the rocket exhaust against the cobalt blue and fluffy white of the Florida sky.
Perhaps that is the best analogy I can think of to relate to NASA. It has been an afterimage of it's greatness that started with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and ended when Challenger was ripped apart by the vast quantities of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on that cold January morning in 1986.
Exploration is what we need right now as a nation. Probes and robots are one thing, but they do not capture the heart and spirit to elevate the hopes and soul of a people. The Crazed American hopes that the private sector can muster the ability to reach again into the final frontier. Companies like SpaceX make me again hope for the future, as long as the lessons of NASA's astounding successes, litany of dishonesty and failure are learned dearly.
Mission Control, this is Crazed American, out.
Today marks the beginning of the end of Government Sponsored Human Spaceflight in the United States of America. It is my fervent hope that a a vessel that has fulfilled 39/100ths of it's lifespan returns with it's human cargo intact. NASA, in all of its issues recently, does not exactly strike a great deal of confidence. NASA will be known for brilliant success (and painful failure) in the era that stretched from 1960-1986.
The Crazed American is of the mind that when a civilization stops innovating and exploring, that civilization is doomed. Of course, I'm of the mind that the human spaceflight exploration factor in the USA died in 1986 with Scobee, Smith, Jarvis, McAuliffe, Resnik, Onizuka and McNair. NASA and it's human spaceflight program hunkered down and wallowed in a Safety mentality that crippled it from assuming risk and doing the hard thing. As CAPT James T. Kirk once said of explorers in general: "risk is our business". Anyone who thinks they can innoculate themselves from risk in spaceflight is a daft fool.
I was born two years after the end of Apollo, and seven years before the launch of the first space shuttle, Columbia, in April of 1981. I remember being woken up by my parents to watch the launch on TV. After moving to Florida in 1983, I grew up literally within earshot of launch pads 39A and 39B, I have seen my own shadow, cast by the piercing light of Solid Rocket Boosters, during a secret DoD night launch in 1985. I was given a copy of the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual, and memorized it. I read the cover off of that book and it still sits on my bookshelf. I used it at Space Camp and commanded a simulation of a shuttle mission.
I understood fuel cells, the magic and power of the turbo-pumps, understood the necessity of APU's SRBs and ET's. I dreamed of a future, the early 21st century when space shuttles and their successors would build space stations and ferry supplies to construct interplanetary spacecraft and perhaps starships in low earth orbit. Columbia, Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis were explained to be vanguards of a fleet of space trucks, prototypes launching every two weeks from KSC and Vandenberg AFB making space travel for the common man a reality.
We were naive. The bureaucracy took over and became risk averse.
So I will be left with the memories I have of the Space Shuttle. I will remember distinctly Saturday, 18 June 1983, when I, as a nine year old boy, just moved from Ohio to sunny Florida, was blessed with the opportunity to see STS-7, the Challenger, carry Dr. Sally Ride and her four compatriots (Crippen, Hauck, Fabian, and Thagard) to orbit. I will remember the low rumble of the SSME's and the gut punch of the shockwave from the ignition of the Solid Rocket Boosters. I'll remember the afterimage in my eyes of the sun like brightness of the rocket exhaust against the cobalt blue and fluffy white of the Florida sky.
Perhaps that is the best analogy I can think of to relate to NASA. It has been an afterimage of it's greatness that started with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and ended when Challenger was ripped apart by the vast quantities of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on that cold January morning in 1986.
Exploration is what we need right now as a nation. Probes and robots are one thing, but they do not capture the heart and spirit to elevate the hopes and soul of a people. The Crazed American hopes that the private sector can muster the ability to reach again into the final frontier. Companies like SpaceX make me again hope for the future, as long as the lessons of NASA's astounding successes, litany of dishonesty and failure are learned dearly.
Mission Control, this is Crazed American, out.
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