hello everyone.
I start this blog so that I may express myself and share my views, thoughts and stories with people who bother to read them, and to keep track myself.
posts will be sporadic at best and will only appear when i have something to write about.
my first post will be about an experience i had today while at work. i was walking past the break room and on the television was the live feed from America of the last launch of the space shuttle Discovery. being the little kid inside that i am, i paused my working to watch and marvel. i was quite inspired by the amazing feat of engineering, the culmination of many years of research and struggle by specialist from so many feilds to make it possible. when i turned to see the reaction of my colleague who was on her break at the time i did not see her gazing at the TV with the same look of awe, but playing with her phone. i asked her if she wasn't at least a little bit impressed by humans MAKING IT INTO SPACE she said "no, not really." even when i tried explaining that without the work of shuttle crews, her mobile phone would essentially be an expensive hunk or carbons and crap.
i was more than a little bit taken aback by this. has space travel become so mundane that it warrants no interest? or is it less of a major marvel now that we put people into orbit around our planet? i personally am quite dismayed at the fact space travel and exploration funding is being cut back. it has been labelled the final frontier and it looks like it will remain so because of both the lack of funding and also because of the astounding lack of interest in the younger generations.
I also suspect the lack of interest may be because of the lack of interest shown by the media. space flight only attracts any real attention by big media corporations when a serious disaster occurs, such as the explosion on board the space shuttle Columbus which killed all the crew. the only reason this particular launch was being shown on TV was because it was the last flight of the Discovery. back in the day simply making it into space was a huge thing, and when Buzz Aldrin and crew made it to the moon there was a social frenzy. people stopped work to watch the footage of the landing. 50 years later people just aren't excited by it anymore. its kind of sad really, all things considered.
i think its high time for space flight to make a triumphant return. Except funding for any plans for a trip to mars have been cut. so there goes that idea.
so that was a fun first blog. see any of you who keep reading another time.
Rob
