As an astrophysicist, I am disappointed that the STS program is coming to a close in its current incarnation. Manned spaceflight has been an invaluable source of data gathering and telescope maintenance.
As an educator and an American, my heart sinks to think that when Atlantis returns home, our government has no future plans to fund shuttle missions. It is a disappointing defect of our national recession and a clear shift in national priorities. How can we "win the future" if the pie-in-the-sky career choice of "astronaut" is taken off the table? (It was this particular carrot on a stick, in concert with Carl Sagan's rhetoric, that brought me into this line of work.) How diminishing. How emblematic of the course of our country that we have to look to private industry to take up the torch of space flight. Still, it doesn't do much good to lament change: change is endemic to our national identity and science itself.
On the most personal note, though, my feeling is crystallized by conversations I've had with the Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History and with my own father, an electrical engineer and business owner. They watched their decidedly-non-flat-screen TVs with their families as young men, as an impressive team of American scientists and explorers took one small step and one giant leap in a single inspirational moment. I wonder if I will ever get to take part in a scientific moment so inspirational, but I still hope.
On The Space Shuttle: Goodbye To A Slacker Space Program
As an astrophysicist, I am disappointed that the STS program is coming to a close in its current incarnation. Manned spaceflight has been an invaluable source of data gathering and telescope maintenance.
As an educator and an American, my heart sinks to think that when Atlantis returns home, our government has no future plans to fund shuttle missions. It is a disappointing defect of our national recession and a clear shift in national priorities. How can we "win the future" if the pie-in-the-sky career choice of "astronaut" is taken off the table? (It was this particular carrot on a stick, in concert with Carl Sagan's rhetoric, that brought me into this line of work.) How diminishing. How emblematic of the course of our country that we have to look to private industry to take up the torch of space flight. Still, it doesn't do much good to lament change: change is endemic to our national identity and science itself.
On the most personal note, though, my feeling is crystallized by conversations I've had with the Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History and with my own father, an electrical engineer and business owner. They watched their decidedly-non-flat-screen TVs with their families as young men, as an impressive team of American scientists and explorers took one small step and one giant leap in a single inspirational moment. I wonder if I will ever get to take part in a scientific moment so inspirational, but I still hope.