Space Shuttle Disaster

[pt]

I still feel the magic of space. I had it instilled in me when I was a small child and watched Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon.

I saw that, too, as an even smaller child. Sat there in a room of enthralled adults while I was thinking, So what?

As for the benefits, exploration has ALWAYS benefited the world. If you let someone like Chris Columbus go out and look around, you get a new world. Along with this new world you get untold riches--along with benefits you never could have dreamed of if you had been standing on the dock wishing him "bon voyage."

Hmmmmm. Have you gotten the Native American take on that particular venture?

I can't imagine anyone not supporting the space program

So much for the space program being a trigger for and expression of imagination.

Re: computers. I HATE working with the dang things. One more reason to reject the space program....

I'm not really picking on you, Velvet - just can't resist playing with your post a bit!

Cheers!

[Velvet]

I probably should have more appropriately said I couldn't "fathom" anyone not wanting to support the program.

Oh, and the perception of the indigenous people on this continent doesn't matter in this discussion. It's a matter of the wealth that was discovered and opportunity for growth on this continent that altered our world and improved how we live.

It's all about ME, ME, ME!!! (The only signature worthy of a real DQ.)

[Lily]

DMK, Anne FS and Velvet

As much as I'd like to take credit for that photo (and the post accompanying it), talloaks deserves the credit. She posted the photo and paragraphs on another thread; I just copied them here.

[Khataan]

I am very calm and breathing deeply as I write this statement.....

I am having a hard time trying to convey the depth of sadness that I feel about this tragedy, and I come to a place of comfort and I run smack into the wall of indifference!

PT, I am not in the habit of flaming or not allowing anyone their personal opinion but your quote

"I saw that, too, as an even smaller child. Sat there in a room of enthralled adults while I was thinking, So what?"

was the ultimate in selfishness, arrogance, and perhaps a plain old lack of imagination!

I am not going to say another word about it, nor am I going to respond. It is important that everyone has a opinion, and my opinion of you is that perhaps that you are lacking a basic understanding of the human need to research and explore ones surroundings.

Feb 1 was the deadline for my research proposal to NASA. I turned in my outline for all of my scientific work for the next two years in the hope that I can become a NASA fellow. My entire reason for attending graduate school is so that I can work at NASA and conduct research that will benefit all, including people that think I am wasting my time and their tax dollars!

Quantum Physics meet Dressage...Superposition Position

[RAyers]

Khataan, I assume you are doing a GSRP. Good Luck!!!! I had a couple of my student do applications too.

As for some of the things being said,

pt and others, I agree we should disagree! Your questioning of the work we do makes our results that more important. As scientists and researchers we should always be questioned about our motivations and results. It keeps us on our toes and for that I thank you!

To all of you who have responded, I will refer this thread to the researchers here as a show of what our work signifies. It will make a big difference to some people who lost dear friends this weekend.

The word "imagination" has been used here quite a bit. To some it implies a false world or state of being. The dictionary states it means being able to create something from nothing in the mind's eye that is not sensed or perceived wholly before. When I am out on a cross country course on a sunny day, I can imagine what those astronauts feel when they are hanging, weightless in space looking at our frail world. And when it comes to changing the world and our lives, imagination is a necessity. Albert Einstein perhaps said it best "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Reed

[dogchushu]

Well pt, I guess we just look at the world differently. Where you see the "age old motivations of conquest and greed" I see the age old motivations of discovery and exploration.

As RAyers pointed out, the budget spent on NASA is a small percentage of that spent on other research. Would it really make so much of a dent in our earthly ills if we took that money from NASA and put it towards them?

I guess you could take your argument and say that the money I contribute towards horse rescues would be better spent if I put it towards AIDS or cancer research. I recently gave some money to help rescue one horse. Sure, I could have donated that money to cancer research or another worthy human cause. But that money would have been a drop in the bucket to those causes--whereas it meant the whole world to that particular horse.

Come to think of it, it would probably be better for humanity if I took all the money I spend on my horse and pursuing my riding and donated it to human charities. But there are some things we humans do to improve the quality of our lives. Not just the longevity of it--but the enjoyment of it.

You look at space travel and say "so what?" I look at it and say "wow!. And we each have a right to feel that way. You can vote against spending on NASA--and I'll be right there voting to increase it!

[Weatherford]

Just an aside, the father of a former A/O Jumper rider, now turned pro, was one of the founders/inventors of ARPANET. (He died some time ago. )

That's how she was able to afford to be an a/o for so long... Til her mother told her she really should be paying for herself!



It's OUT! Linda Allen's 101 Exercises for Jumping co-authored by MOI!!!

[poltroon]

I worked on some cameras that went to Mars; one is still returning images. (The first one didn't survive the orbit insertion... I still vividly remember when the moment to reacquire the spacecraft came .. and went.) I also worked on various prototypes, some of which will fly eventually and some that won't.

The work we did didn't just get pictures of Mars or employ engineers and geologists. A lot of the work I did hunting up cutting edge vendors provided money that helped small business units try out a relatively crazy, expensive idea that not only benefitted our instruments, but also allowed them to thrive and commercialize their concepts.

That spiffy digital camera you have? I helped make them small enough and light enough and durable enough to send one to Mars. You would've needed a backpack to carry the first one, but only a coffee cup for the second. And now they're ubiquitous.

[Louise]

I'm even older than Velvet, and I can remember coming home from college, so I could be sitting in the living room with my Dad watching man set foot on the moon for the first time. I was thrilled, but not nearly as thrilled as my Dad.

He turned to me and said, "I'm old enough to remember the talk when Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew, and now, here I am watching a man land on the moon."

Think about it, in one man's lifetime we mastered flight and set foot in space. People pushed the boundaries again and again, and each time they did something good came out of it. I suspect that that urge is what created the kind of world we live in now. A world where, beleagered right now as it may be, there is a large and basically flourishing middle class. A hundred years ago, that middle class didn't exist. It is the advances in science and the discoveries of 20th century "explorers" of all kinds that have given us the comforts that we all take for granted now.

I saw an interesting show on PBS a couple of weeks ago, about how we are all descended from the same small band of people in Africa who set out to find something new and better. The urge to push on, to explore, is in our blood that deep. Oh, I'll push for expanded funding for space exploration all right. I may never see another planet, but the same genes that I carry will be right there, seeing what is beyond the next star.

---------------------------
This too, shall pass.

[Whistlejacket]

Got to agree with Reed here...specifically that this type of analysis, whether the conclusions reached are pro, con, or somewhere in between is crucial to good science.

Yes, science (whether it be NIH funded, NASA funded, or otherwise publically funded) must answer to the public in terms of how much "bang they are getting for their buck".

This bang can come in the form of practical applications (i.e. Tang ) , possible applications in the future (as triggerfoot mentioned), or for altrustic reasons.

Different individuals will have different interpretations and different priorities for all three of these.

Regardless, good science (which frankly is the only type worth doing!), absolutely must subject itself to regular critical analysis.

This is extremely hard if the project being analyzed is "your baby", but that makes this type of independent analysis even all the more important.

While the sadness and tragedy of the Columbia disaster is poignant, in my opinion, the discussion and analysis of the NASA projects and NASA "vision" that it has generated can only bring good.

Science and scientific advancement is achieved only through such critical analysis ...regardless of where the facts may lead.

[Khataan]

I should have followed my own rule of typing out the e-mail and then instead of hitting send, hit delete. Anger and sadness do strange things to people!

Reed, I did not do the GSRP this year, I went for the Harriet G Jenkins fellowship. I tried for a GSRP last year and when it I got the rejection letter it said please contact us for more information and some advice for next year, well needless to say I inquired and never heard back! It was kind of like being socked in the stomach!

So, do you need a post-doc anytime soon? JK

Thanks for all of your kind posts on this forum, it really helps to know that there are others that feel the same way I do!

Quantum Physics meet Dressage...Superposition Position

[Snowbird]

Dear pt did you not know that the fuel cell you desire was a result of our space exploration the original patents are over 30 years old and the result of the propulsion of the space module into outer space it is a dirivative of the same process that they use for space travel and we would have never known about it if we did not send a man to the moon.

Do you also realize that it has only been 60 years from the Kittyhawk to the moon because of the revolution of space travel. And, if this earth does self destruct we will all be standing in line for a spot on the shuttle to take us to the space station.

Battled Scarred Veteran

[Beezer]

Hope. Dreams. Aspirations. A universe of "what ifs" and "what could be's."

That's what I think of when I think of the space program. I think of great explorers in the tradition of the Vikings, Columbus, Magellan. (And, yes, I realize that not everyone these days think that those folks made the world a better place.)

I envy the space pioneers; lord, I wish I could be one of them. I applaud their spirit of adventure, their bravery, their sense of mission that engages the dreamer in me, the one who would SO BE THERE if only I had a fundamental enough grasp of math to be able to balance my checkbook and of science to figure out why putting gas in my car makes the wheels turn.

Exploring space is, at its barest essential, no different than the exploration of our globe that occurred eons ago. Sure, the rulers of the day viewed it as a way to increase their empires, but the explorers themselves ... man, talk about the adrenaline rush of finding a new world!

I remember the Challenger disaster like yesterday; I can remember where I was when I first heard, the somber mood of everyone that day and the days after. Saturday, awakening to the news of the Columbia, was like reliving that nightmare.

I remember watching the Columbia's first flight; even more vivid was watching its first landing and the reaction of the first astronaut off ... his utter awe and joy as he stood outside that craft and just looked at it and then leaped into the air, astounded like the rest of us at what the best of humankind had been able to do: Send a reusable spaceship into the stratosphere and have it come back to Earth.

I salute them all. I mourn their loss. And I thank them for allowing me to go along, if only through my tax dollars. Had I been blessed with their mental and physical traits, you can bet that I would have been elbowing my way onto one of those magnificent ships.

** Dear Cupid: All I really want for Valentine's Day is flying LEAD CHANGES!! **

[DMK]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Louise:
I was thrilled, but not nearly as thrilled as my Dad.

He turned to me and said, "I'm old enough to remember the talk when Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew, and now, here I am watching a man land on the moon." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Louise, the story I remember most from my childhood was my mother's conversation with her father (who was born before the turn of the century, so was witness to the greatest advances in technology in civilization). She asked him if when he was a young boy, did he ever dream we would land a man on the moon. His reply (being the very pragmatic railroad man that he was)... "I never imagined today's automobiles. I couldn't conceive of flying to the moon."

With the greatest respect to my grandfather, I am so profoundly grateful to those who dream, and those who dare to make a dream reality.

Of course it goes without saying that I am a Discovery Channel geek. I will also refrain from asking if Weatherford's A/O friend's father was Al Gore, because I didn't know he had "passed" from anything more than the political scene.

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein

[M. O'Connor]

It's our nature to be curious, and it is our destiny to keep looking around corners, over the horizon, past the next mountain, up at the stars....

Trying to change this part of our nature would be like trying to stop the waves from rolling in off the ocean. Sometimes it's just not about the money.

MCL
'r' H/J/HEq

[Elghund2]

I do stand in awe of the people like astronauts who will put their lifes at risk to explore. I can't think of anything more thrilling than to be out in space and to be able look back and see the earth.

If NASA launched a shuttle tommorrow, I'd go.

"I thought I was dead once but it turns out, I was only in Nebraska."

[findeight]

Well I am surely prejudiced........not only the product of a long line of aviators but the daughter of a rocket scientist...........Dad worked for Hughes concentrating mainly on Neucleonics but spent months at a time working on chemical analysis of systems in the early communications satellites to determine why they failed...things like a duplicate batch of battery fluid from Telestar after it shut itself off.
I am grateful he lived to see man walking on the moon, he devoted his life to the much less glamorous task of getting them there...and back.

We owe the space program for everything from the computers that run the systems in our cars to velcro to fire suppression tecniques in a pressurized environment........read at cruising altitude in a jet as you sip your bloody mary.
Current zero g studies included developing ways to manufacture pharmaceuticals and grow tissue, medical technology that may revolutionize that industry.

Wasted time and money? Not to me anyway.

No doubt we do need to develop a better material for heat insulation-those tiles were always a pain but the best we know how to do at the moment. Surely a new propulsion system is in order...Warp drive anyone?

I was struck by something the brother of one of the fallen said..........She got to go. She realized every dream she had devoted her life to. She lived for that dream......in a way I envy her.

The Horse World. 2 people, 3 opinions. That's the way it is.

[Pixie Dust]

Haven't read this thread, for fear it was just an argument and as much as I like to argue, just not in the mood right now. So maybe this has already been posted.

"High Flight"

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Written by a 19 year old pilot who was shot down months after this was written.

[pt]

Khataan - I was going to reply to your first post when I reread it, and your second post, and understood the pain you are feeling. Let me repeat from one of my earlier posts, I have great compassion for the families of the astronauts who lost their lives this week. This discussion really has gone a different direction and is in no way a denial of their courage or of the bereavement of their friends and families.

Do you appreciate [the internet]? Do you think you'd have it otherwise?

I accept it as a fact of modern life. I enjoy using it to communicate with others such as this BB especially since I'm presently living in such a dreary place. Could I get along without it? Of course!! I already get along without Tang.

Dear pt did you not know that the fuel cell you desire was a result of our space exploration the original patents are over 30 years old and the result of the propulsion of the space module into outer space it is a dirivative of the same process that they use for space travel and we would have never known about it if we did not send a man to the moon.

Yes, I know that. My contention is that we should have been researching for this sort of fuel cell anyway, for the good of the Earth, and that it could perfectly well have been discovered without polluting space with our garbage. Which we are doing, BTW.

And, if this earth does self destruct we will all be standing in line for a spot on the shuttle to take us to the space station.

The Earth will not self destruct. We humans will destroy it. And I, for one, will not be standing in line for the space station. First, because I am a child of Earth and will die with my mother, cursing the fools who destroyed her and second, because death would be by far preferable to living the sort of life possible on the space station. I can't tolerate a crowded subway - a space station would be purest hell. Not everyone wants to live on Tang!

As for air travel - again, I use it occasionally to conserve time in our hurried world. But I wonder if we would need to conserve time had we not developed the means to crowd way too much into a day. I also wonder how many decisions, personal and political, are taken in too much haste without sufficient reflection because the speed of communication seems to demand it. While you are all praising the glories of technology, you might reflect on the truth that not all motion is progress, not all steps should be taken, and change should be preceded by serious reflection.

A hundred years ago, that middle class didn't exist.

One hundred years ago was 1903 and the middle class certainly did exist. Quite comfortably.

We owe the space program for everything from the computers that run the systems in our cars to velcro to fire suppression tecniques in a pressurized environment........read at cruising altitude in a jet as you sip your bloody mary.

Cars were more easily maintained without computers (do we really need a voice asking if we've fastened our seatbelts?), velcro is not a necessity, and jets - well, my comments are above on that, not to mention what jet fuel exhaust does to the environment. These are debatable "virtues."

My point is not to convince you who love the space program to think otherwise, but to offer another POV. As Whistlejacket said, science - and I'll add, all human endeavour - must subject itself to regular critical analysis. The space program is not something above question.

You talk about exploration and explorers; let's not forget that the motivation for exploration has invariably been exploitation. Columbus = alternate route to the Orient for easier access to spices ($$$$ in his time.)

I love Earth. I hate what is being done to her, often in the name of scientific progress. In addition to the profit motives behind the space program, I see it as one more example of man's drive to leave the mess he made behind and move to new places. I would prefer to see man's unquestioned intelligence, imagination and creativity focused on resolving the problems he has created on Earth before taking his pollution into space.

I certainly don't expect anyone on this thread to agree with my POV. You have given me a broader understanding of your POV's - though without any compelling reason for me to change mine!

This discussion has been far from "just an argument;" it's been a reasoned exchange of opposing ideas expressed civilly and with mutual respect. Thank you all!

[Khataan]

Well said PT! And there really is no surprise that we agree on alot of the same issues. Yesterday, I was in a "bad place", and I know better then to post due to an emotional response, oh well......

I am a die-hard environmentalist and I hate what is being done to this planet, but I see it as mostly due to the greed and arrogance of big business driven by corporate irresponsibility and consumer whims, not really because of scientific endeavors, afterall why are the rain forests being destroyed? Certainly not to put up research labs, we are the ones fighting for preservation because more than likely cures for a lot of human disease might be hidden there, yadda yadda yadda…

I have completely changed my mind about this thread and I now find it such a comfort, and it is great to know that in addition to our passion about horses, we all have passion about life and exploration as well!

Thanks everyone,
Melissa


Quantum Physics meet Dressage...Superposition Position