Tuesday, November 06, 2007

“Successful undocking” reported

Yes, space cadets, “the US space shuttle Discovery has successfully undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) to begin a journey back to Earth, space officials said.”

That the “successful undocking” of a spacecraft from a space station is actually newsworthy in 2007 says a lot about the current state of human efforts to colonise outer space.

Particularly given that forty years ago, the great prophet of space-flight Arthur C. Clarke had, in his epic 2001 A Space Odyssey, envisaged scheduled commercial flights between the earth and moon well before now...

Entropy never sleeps.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Caz said...

I did notice that Bush's goal to "go to Mars" (via the moon) was met with a global yawn.

Not entirely sure how the certain deaths of the astronauts who eventually take that trip (if it happens) will be spun into a grand human success story.

Guess they'll be hailed as heroes for going insane in space (the "no visual link to earth" phenomena) and severely abbreviating their lives.

Yep, that'll get everyone lining up to take a trip in outer space, for sure.

6/11/07 1:53 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

It can be done. It will be done.

7/11/07 1:46 PM  
Blogger Jacob A. Stam said...

We will do this not because it is easy, but because it is (bloody) hard.

Almost entirely unrelatedly, my favourite space-related quote is the following from then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"The Russians have put a small ball up in the air. That does not raise my apprehensions one iota."

7/11/07 2:31 PM  

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