Infinite Monkeys

The Shuttle

When I was a kid, my father was stationed at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. I got to see a few missle launches, and they were beautiful. I never have been able to see a shuttle launch, even though Vandenburg was crawling with shuttle engineers when I was there (the hope at that time was that the shuttle could launch from there, much closer to a good landing spot). I was there when the Enterprise flew from the back of a jet...it seemed like the future was so close.

The AP has some beautiful photos of the shuttle launch today, next to an American flag, or across the waters of Florida. Watching the shuttle launch is beautiful, and I hope--fervently, and patriotically--that this is the last launch I will ever see. The program has always been troubled, and it is time to end it. It is unsafe, and is a dead end for human space exploration. Focus the energies elsewhere. Free the engineers for other things. It's time for the future.