Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Houston, we have a problem....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8720825/

This is very scary. To think that almost the same exact thing happened to Discovery as did Columbia in 2003....only not in the same spot and not as bad. I wonder how those astronauts feel right now. To think that something could go wrong on its way back to Earth is very unnerving. WOW.

I have nothing against NASA, but they really need to reconsider how many things could go wrong on these shuttles that are so flippin old in the first place. A 20 year old car IS NOT going to be in the greatest of shape either, is it? Things get old. Things break.

Makes me angry though how NASA is so gung ho on sending shuttles into space to gain the public's respect without thinking about the lives of the astronauts and how their deaths could impact their families and future potential astronauts. When I was a kid, I heard "I want to be an astronaut when I grow up." all the time. Back then parents thought, "Sure. Great." If Kyra said that now, I'd be pretty darn skeptical. The future of NASA is uncertain. And I think with these turn of events, even NASA knows that now.

1 comment:

Jen said...

I'm not really a fan of space exploration, for those reasons. I know it's voluntary and the people that go up there go through lots of training, are told what to expect and are prepared to die instead of returning home, but the idea of being YEARS away from everybody up in space is just crazy! Why would a sane person WANT to do that, chose to miss out on life with their family, all "just to see" if there's "something else" out there. Things like shuttle explosions and plane crashes make me believe man was not meant to fly. It's a necessary inconvenience that I'm not a fan of. I don't want to know if there's life on other planets. It isn't worth the risk. I don't want to "disturb" the peaceful life of some other critter and have it seek revenge on us. If they're out there, they deserve enough respect to be left alone. They haven't bothered us, so- if they're out there- they're treating us respectfully by leaving us alone.

We're behind in the space exploratioin program, compared to other coutries? Look at it this way: we have less dead citizens than them. Let other countries have space exploration as their claim to fame.