Sailing to the stars. Only slowly.

[desperance]

Just a quick 'bon voyage' to Discovery. My first real memory of any space programme is the moon landings, which just felt like an absolutely right and proper thing to be happening, and next stop Mars; and it seems like we've been going backwards ever since. Be nice to think that reversal had stopped, and we were starting to go forward again. Not that the shuttle has ever been a substitute for real rockets and real exploration beyond Earth orbit (me, I'm just a bug-eyed spaceboy at heart; my cousin is a big-shot astronomer - Roger Griffin, look him up - and when I was a kid he sent me a commemorative silver dollar from the States, struck with an eagle landing on the moon with an olive branch in its beak, which I still carry thirty-five years later), but at least it's better than nothing.

Comments

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

One of my earliest 'spacey' memories is being fascinated with Voyager, and clipping all the stories about it from the newspaper to take in to school for current events. I was blown away by the idea that it was taking pictures of Saturn and Jupiter and all those cool moons.

Not too far from my home is a photographer who has taken quite a few photos for NASA. I was there to get my camera fixed (he's also a camera repair man) and he showed me his pictures. They're amazing. He has a six foot mural of the moon on his living room wall that he printed from a negative borrowed from one of the astronauts. On the opposite wall is a mural showing the underside of one of the spaceships. In the next room, he has a series of slightly smaller murals showing various space ships, including one of the shuttles. The scale of those early rockets is just amazing. They're HUGE. You can see some tiny people standing on one of the catwalks; they're dwarfed by the rocket. Even the shuttle is dwarfed by the early rockets.

Yeah, I know there are all kinds of fabulous discoveries being made by astronomers, but somehow, it's not the same as having spaceships landing on the moon.

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

My earliest real space memory is the first shuttle take-off. It was really exciting at the time. I was too young to realise what a huge step backwards it was from earlier. I was also quite excited to get a huge pack of stuff from NASA which I wrote off for whilst doing a project at school - I've still got it all at home somewhere.

I'd love to see your silver dollar as well.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

God, I'd have loved a pack of stuff from NASA. Are all boys this shallow, or is it a girl thing too?

As for showing you my silver dollar - of course, any time. Just ask. I only wish it didn't sound so very much like a euphemism.

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as I was writing it, I was wondering if I should add an (ooer) to it... I'll have a look and see if I can find my NASA stuff to show you. I'm reasonably certain I know where it is.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

The shuttle is not "better than nothing" -- it's a vile turkey, a kluge of a space transportation system that leeches money from more effective projects while convincing the ignorant that it's the only way to do it.

The cost of a single shuttle launch could put a hundred astronauts into orbit if used to buy Soyuz-TM launches. It could put five times the cargo into orbit if used to buy Ariane-5ECMA payloads. And as a system, the shuttle has killed more astronauts than every other manned space launch system put together.

(Sorry, you just pushed one of my buttons ... yes, I'm a bug-eyed spaceboy at heart, too, but if I had a dart-board it'd be a toss-up between whether the photograph pasted over the bullseye would be Tony Blair or the space shuttle.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey - don't apologise for putting me straight. See, I didn't know that stuff (except about the deaths, obviously), and am always willing to learn. I like pushing buttons, it generates unpredictable feedback.

Tho' - being a bug-eyed spaceboy - I am still romantically vulnerable to TV shots of big white things blasting into orbit, and I can't remember the last time I saw a Soyuz take-off, and the only times I've ever seen an Ariane are those times they exploded.

So you'll 'scuse me if my soul still sings a bit, and I wish Discovery well, while I'm happy to adopt what you say into my whole we-should-be-doing-better-than-this position.

Oh, and personally I'd have Bill Gates on my dartboard. But that's not for the welfare of the world, particularly, it's just personal loathing of him and all his works...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

My first space memory? Walking on the common with my father and asking him: "What's a sputnik?"

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

A book I read recently called Moondust puts this into context quite well. It's about the author going around America and interviewing the surviving astronauts who walked on the Moon. And, as such, it looks at the Space Shuttle thing, doing a bit of compare and contrast. It's really interesting and does the whole bug-eyed Spaceboy thing really well.

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

I've always loved the space program, and, I agree, it feels like we've been going backwards. I'd feel much better about this launch, had those in charge actually heeded the safety warnings about the crack they found. But no, to the suits it's far more important to launch on the 4th than do their best for the safety of the people involved. The people actually at the controls are working their asses off to make sure it goes well, but I will worry until they're safely home.

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

In 1957 my father worked for a company that imported sophisticated electronic gear from Germany and made some too. They had very sensitive radio receivers and an aerial on the roof: they let me, a ten-year-old boy, go into the factory and tune into the beep-beep that the first sputnik made. At that age there didn't seem to be a downside to it all, though the rockets were adapted ICBMs.

By 1969 I had graduated and a friend of mine from University was doing a PhD in astronomy: at some point in 1970 I was ushered into an annex (a large garden shed) in a suburban house in Mill Hill to be shown a very small piece of Moon rock they had been given for their researches.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Mmm - moon rock! I think you should have licked it.