Discovery Lands

It is a sad day for US Space Travel. Space Shuttle Discovery has taken her last flight, this one from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral to Dulles Airport near Washington, DC where she will be on display for all to see from now on.

I was there when she took off for the heavens on February 24, 2011, her last mission. I can not tell you how it felt to see her aim for the stars. Here's a photo I took.




And here's a video.


I was about 3 miles away. Notice the communicator from NASA when he says "The shuttle has cleared the tower"...at that point in every mission public comment on the mission switched to Mission Control Houston and the next comment was from officials there.

Fly Fly Fly

Yesterday the USA recognized a monumental achievement.

John Glenn's orbital missions.

Since then we went to the moon, and built reusable spacecraft. One year ago this week I took this picture, the last flight of Space Shuttle Discovery prior to her retirement. Now, the USA has none of it's own manned spaceflight programs. If we want to go we have to hitch a ride with the Russians.






Here's the next step...and hopefully it's going to happen at Spaceport America in New Mexico sometime in the next 18 months.


There may be one small challenge, in New Mexico the greedy trial lawyers - the folks who make all of the money when someone sues on behalf of a client to has been "wronged" by an evil deed - have defeated proposals to provide some protection to the manufacturer of some parts of the flight equipment - as I understand it.

Meanwhile, some other states competing with New Mexico for future private space travel have agreed to the limited liability protection. They could take business away from New Mexico, and that would be a shame - just because some greedy trial lawyers - are hoping something goes wrong so they can sue the deep pockets, win the lawsuit, and then make enough from the settlement to buy their own private plane.

Blast Off!

Rodger photo
Where I watched Discovery Launch on February 24, 2011

"... the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward…"

President John F. Kennedy, 1962.

The President was speaking at Rice University as he traveled the country drumming up political support for the manned space program and his dream of sending an American to the moon, and bringing him safely back.

Mission Accomplished!

No longer do we have the great aspirations brought on by a worldwide challenges such as the space race initiated by the Russians who put man into space before US.

February 20th I watched from 3 miles away as Space Shuttle Discovery reached for the heavens. It was great, and I was proud to see it fly.

It is a sad day to see the USA’s manned space program come to a close with the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Now, we’ll be relying on some other country to send our astronauts into space.

That is not good – we’re better than that.

And to those who say we can’t afford a space program, I would say, "Oh yes we can!"

There are those who said we couldn’t afford NASA back in the 1960’s, but we did it.

We can’t afford to fight foreign wars, but we do it.

Just do it!