The explosion rattled the windows and doors and echoed through the neighborhood. It was sudden and sharp and over in a couple of seconds. It caused an adrenaline surge because it was a surprise in spite of the fact we had been warned hours ahead of time.
It was Shuttle Endeavour returning from the International Space Station to Kennedy Space Center breaking the sound barrier as it descended southwest across the coast before turning north above the Everglades and lining up with the runway somewhere near Fort Lauderdale for the final glide in.
From there it goes to a museum on the west coast. Atlantis goes up next month and when it returns we will have no manned space capacity at all. Which is where we were in 1960. Except then the future was still ahead of us and we were just at the start of our big adventure.
Showing posts with label Space Shuttle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space Shuttle. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Phantom Spaceship and the Invasion of the Lizard People
Endeavour lifted off this morning on its last voyage. In spite of the fact it was a perfect morning over Cape Canaveral and in spite of the fact it was a perfect morning over Cape Coral and in spite of the fact you can actually see the shuttles lift off from over 250 miles away, we saw nothing. There was a strategically placed cloud between here and there completely blocking any view of the launch. I ended up going back inside and watching the shuttle separate from the main tank on TV.
Meanwhile, on my way out to the front lawn to attempt to watch the launch I noticed one of the ubiquitous lizards clinging to the inside of the screen door. (As far as I can tell these little guys infest almost every square foot of the area and provide the base of the food chain for owls, hawks and other smallish omni-/carni-vores. Back when my brother had a dog, she used to chase them continuously,) I opened the door and nudged it off. It dropped to the walkway, went about three feet, turned and ran back not just into the foyer but straight on into the house.
When I came back in after not seeing anything, it was still plopped right in the middle of the living room. I tried shooing it out, nudging it first one way then another toward the front door and succeeded in getting it to hide under a recliner where it remains.
Meanwhile, on my way out to the front lawn to attempt to watch the launch I noticed one of the ubiquitous lizards clinging to the inside of the screen door. (As far as I can tell these little guys infest almost every square foot of the area and provide the base of the food chain for owls, hawks and other smallish omni-/carni-vores. Back when my brother had a dog, she used to chase them continuously,) I opened the door and nudged it off. It dropped to the walkway, went about three feet, turned and ran back not just into the foyer but straight on into the house.
When I came back in after not seeing anything, it was still plopped right in the middle of the living room. I tried shooing it out, nudging it first one way then another toward the front door and succeeded in getting it to hide under a recliner where it remains.
Monday, April 19, 2010
I Want To Believe
I "saw" the Space Shuttle launch last week. I didn't go up to Cape Canaveral this time, and just as well since the launch was delayed again, but the launch was still visible--158 miles away (as the crow flies)!!! It took less than five minutes. A tower of thick white smoke, a vertical cylindrical cumulus cloud, shot up into the breaking dawn with a point of intense yellow-white light atop it. The light seemed to come back down again, an optical illusion, as the shuttle curved off to the northeast away from where my brother and I were standing on the front lawn. We "saw" the booster rockets fall away in a flash of light that stayed behind and below the main show.
It was all very depressing.
Why?
Because by the end of this year, the shuttles will be retired and the nation that put men on the moon will no longer have any manned launch capacity at all. We will ride into low earth orbit as passengers on Russian ships. Because we won't be able to do it ourselves. We're too busy holding Tea Parties and celebrating Confederate History months, objecting to evolution, embracing anti-scientific non-rationalism and gutting our own economy while lashing out militarily around the world.
This is what a civilization in decline looks like.
I really want to believe the president when he says we will go to Mars and an asteroid. Maybe we will. Maybe we can do it in spite of not having the cutting edge technology, and the launch capability and the trained teams, both ground and orbital. Just because his predecessors promised the Moon and Mars and the rest while cutting NASA's capabilities doesn't mean his flat NASA budget portends the same.
Maybe private companies will take over the lunar program. Just because the railroad companies required federal land grants before they built transcontinental lines, just because the airlines required federal airmail subsidies before they would fly coast-to-coast, just becasue no one but the federal government would or could build the interstate highways and national air traffic control systems, doesn't mean private companies won't jump to fly to the space station and the moon without any immediate visible payoff for them.
I want to believe. Really, I do. In the long run, private enterprize in space is the way to go. In the long run. I'm just not sure we have that kind of time, anymore.
It was all very depressing.
Why?
Because by the end of this year, the shuttles will be retired and the nation that put men on the moon will no longer have any manned launch capacity at all. We will ride into low earth orbit as passengers on Russian ships. Because we won't be able to do it ourselves. We're too busy holding Tea Parties and celebrating Confederate History months, objecting to evolution, embracing anti-scientific non-rationalism and gutting our own economy while lashing out militarily around the world.
This is what a civilization in decline looks like.
I really want to believe the president when he says we will go to Mars and an asteroid. Maybe we will. Maybe we can do it in spite of not having the cutting edge technology, and the launch capability and the trained teams, both ground and orbital. Just because his predecessors promised the Moon and Mars and the rest while cutting NASA's capabilities doesn't mean his flat NASA budget portends the same.
Maybe private companies will take over the lunar program. Just because the railroad companies required federal land grants before they built transcontinental lines, just because the airlines required federal airmail subsidies before they would fly coast-to-coast, just becasue no one but the federal government would or could build the interstate highways and national air traffic control systems, doesn't mean private companies won't jump to fly to the space station and the moon without any immediate visible payoff for them.
I want to believe. Really, I do. In the long run, private enterprize in space is the way to go. In the long run. I'm just not sure we have that kind of time, anymore.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Things That Move...
Startled a buzzard the other day. I was taking my morning constitutional and had to detour across the street because this suburbanite was getting his pool pumped out at 8 a.m. and the pool pumpers had run a hose (we're talking 5-6 inch diameter flexible accordion hose here) from the backyard out to the street where they were recreating the original pool only 3 inches deep and a lot wider. As I moved along the shoreline, a dark shape jumped from the grass and launched itself in that long, slow, shallow awkward ascent typical of large birds, bombers and jumbo jets. It was a good hundred feet down the road before it was able to clear the roofline of a stucco ranch and disappear on the other side. Ungainly, with a long neck, so not a hawk despite the five foot wingspan. I'd seen vultures feeding on roadkill on previous trips (they'll step aside to let a car pass, but won't abandon their prize). I didn't see anything for it to feed on but I didn't exactly search the grass either.
Speaking of vultures, it's a little unnerving to be walking along, noting the occasional hawk/vulture float overhead and disappear, wonder where they disappear to, turn around and realize you're being followed by two dozen of the things. A couple days ago I looked straight up after losing track of a couple of them and found myself at the bottom of a swirling vortex of raptors/scavengers at least 500 feet high. Must have been thirty of them. Toto at the base of a bird tornado. Now I know how Tippi Hedren felt.
Speaking of big ungainly birds, I drove up to the mythical town of Cocoa Beach (geezer reference) to watch the last night-time launch of the space shuttle. Ever since the moon landings we have been slowly cutting back our goals, dreams and capabilities with regard to manned space flight to the point where we can barely get 200 miles above the surface of the planet with rickety technology we will now retire not having any replacement in hand. Needless to say, NASA did not disappoint: five minutes before blast-off they cancelled the launch leaving tens of thousands of us stranded on the beach out in the cold (literally). It succeeded as metaphor, if nothing else.
It took over five hours for traffic to clear out enough to drive home. I took back roads pretty much the whole way, around the north of Lake Okeechobee, a pleasant, flat drive through subtropical forest, farm fields and cattle pastures with occasional clumps of small identical standardized 1940s-era plastered-cinder-block ranch houses each with a broken front window, kitchen appliance in the front yard, and late model vehicle (SUV or truck) in the dirt driveway. Probably built for migrant labor originally, there'd be a half-dozen of them at one spot and then miles before the next bunch. Nothing that could be called a town for forty miles in any direction.
Speaking of the ragged edge of civilization, my eldest nephew called the other day. He's being sent to Iraq. To guard prisoners. Which is perfect military logic because not only is he in the Navy, he spent the first half of his career in Hawaii as a nuclear tech on a submarine and the second half in Charelston, SC teaching nuke tech. I say we send all of our people with nuclear skills and knowledge to Middle Eastern war zones. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, he starts 90 days of either Army or Marine combat training next month and then Baghdad for nine months. The younger nephew is probably jealous. He's been to the Gulf a couple of times but never been off his ship (that I know of).
Speaking of vultures, it's a little unnerving to be walking along, noting the occasional hawk/vulture float overhead and disappear, wonder where they disappear to, turn around and realize you're being followed by two dozen of the things. A couple days ago I looked straight up after losing track of a couple of them and found myself at the bottom of a swirling vortex of raptors/scavengers at least 500 feet high. Must have been thirty of them. Toto at the base of a bird tornado. Now I know how Tippi Hedren felt.
Speaking of big ungainly birds, I drove up to the mythical town of Cocoa Beach (geezer reference) to watch the last night-time launch of the space shuttle. Ever since the moon landings we have been slowly cutting back our goals, dreams and capabilities with regard to manned space flight to the point where we can barely get 200 miles above the surface of the planet with rickety technology we will now retire not having any replacement in hand. Needless to say, NASA did not disappoint: five minutes before blast-off they cancelled the launch leaving tens of thousands of us stranded on the beach out in the cold (literally). It succeeded as metaphor, if nothing else.
It took over five hours for traffic to clear out enough to drive home. I took back roads pretty much the whole way, around the north of Lake Okeechobee, a pleasant, flat drive through subtropical forest, farm fields and cattle pastures with occasional clumps of small identical standardized 1940s-era plastered-cinder-block ranch houses each with a broken front window, kitchen appliance in the front yard, and late model vehicle (SUV or truck) in the dirt driveway. Probably built for migrant labor originally, there'd be a half-dozen of them at one spot and then miles before the next bunch. Nothing that could be called a town for forty miles in any direction.
Speaking of the ragged edge of civilization, my eldest nephew called the other day. He's being sent to Iraq. To guard prisoners. Which is perfect military logic because not only is he in the Navy, he spent the first half of his career in Hawaii as a nuclear tech on a submarine and the second half in Charelston, SC teaching nuke tech. I say we send all of our people with nuclear skills and knowledge to Middle Eastern war zones. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, he starts 90 days of either Army or Marine combat training next month and then Baghdad for nine months. The younger nephew is probably jealous. He's been to the Gulf a couple of times but never been off his ship (that I know of).
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