The space shuttle Endeavour made its final flight before retirement today, carried by a jet across parts California. This is a symbolic end of NASA's shuttle program, which lasted 30 years, but was officially retired in 2011. The Endeavour itself will become a museum piece, never to fly again. It is saddening that the space shuttle program is no more. The final frontier is a place outside all political boundaries, where discovery reigns supreme. But is this really the end of discovery and space exploration, or just the end of one program? Should NASA consider rebooting it, or is it time to let go?
(Would this have been a good field trip opportunity? Look at that Golden Gate photo, Aragon...)
2 comments:
I wish we could have seen it! The end of shuttle program is bad news for the International Space Station considering we can't really send people back up there anymore, but there is still a lot that can be done in space research without humans being present in space (for example, the Curiosity rover). Maybe private organization will start building space shuttles and make that become the future of manned spaceflight.
I remember reading
an article about 2 weeks ago about the possibility of space research through crowdfunding.
I thought this was an amazing use of IndieGoGo and would love to see more projects like this one in the future!
While I understand that there is little room for space exploration in the federal budget, the continuation of research through crowdfunding or private funding sounds promising. Hopefully, this is a trend that will catch on.
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