Hmmmm...I'm not sure I'm going to agree with everything you've pointed out here just yet. The debris floating in and around the shuttle while in orbit pretty much had to come out of the shuttle one way or another. A careless worker on the ground or perhaps a careless astronaut might have left something in there unsecured...that when the bay doors opened decided to float on out...and maintain the speed of the shuttle which I seem to recall being around 35,000 mph. Hey, when they stop leaving surgical instruments and sponges inside of patients...I'll get up in the stirups over this.
What I'm wondering almost out loud this evening is what is the utility of an International Space Station in the first place? If someone told me that we were intending to use it as a launch platform for future missions...I guess I'd have a little more incentive to get behind the program...but as best as I can tell, isn't this thing just a little bit like the Soviet Mir and Salyut programs, but on steroids?
Since I was in kindergarten when Apollo 1 burned on the launchpad...and nearly 7 when Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon in 1969, I was hoping we'd be just a little further down the road on the way to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe by now. What we're doing these days is just extended vacations like the Mercury astronauts did when I was a little guy. While I'm sure there's SOME scientific value in having the space station up there...I guess I'd like to see a plan for a manned flight to Mars before I assume room temperature.
See you on the high ground...
MajorDad1984
Commenting by HaloScan
