To kind of go where we’ve already been…

So yesterday was launch day…

No, not the new Harry Potter movie, STS127 Endeavour.

Since they’ve announced the retirement of the Space Shuttle missions, I’ve been paying more attention to them. I’ve always loved the idea of going into space but the shuttle launches became commonplace.  I remember as a kid I had a die-cast model of Columbia and I used to run around, flying that thing around the tree in the front yard.  I even remember rolling it on to its back because that’s how it looked on TV.  I used to watch the launch on TV and wondered what it would be like to watch it from the launch site in Florida.  Then we moved to Florida and I still haven’t seen a launch in person.  Always too busy, would have to take a day off work, can’t guarantee a launch date…  I’ve installed equipment and worked at the shuttle landing strip (X68) tower, but the closest I’ve ever come to being at a launch was watching it from Cocoa Beach.  I was working in the area the day before they planned a launch so I planned to finally go see it tomorrow.  Imagine how surprised I was when I was driving back to the hotel and saw it go up in my rear view mirror!  I thought it was scheduled for the next day!  I pulled over and watched it but I had missed my opportunity to be at the launch…

I heard a good story a while ago.  I don’t remember who it was, but it was a celebrity of some kind and they announced that they had calculated the speed of comedic timing.  Anyone who tells jokes knows that timing is the key.  Throw the punchline too early or think of a great comeback too late… and it’s just not funny.  This guy was in the VIP lounge with his family at NASA for one of the launches.  The smoke billows out and the shuttle goes up.  After a few seconds he turned his head to his friend and said, “Huh, I thought it would be lou…”  And before he can finish the word “louder” the deafening roar of the launch fills the room and almost knocks him on his ass.  Speed of light, speed of sound, distance from the launch pad to the viewing room…  Somewhere in there is the magic number for perfect comedic timing.  I always thought that story was funny.

Yesterday I went out into the back yard and waited to see it go up.  Normally you can see the bright spark of light from the engines and the distinct contrail arc across the sky.  With simple binoculars you can see the shuttle itself.  We’ve got a great, open view from the new house.  But the clouds didn’t cooperate yesterday and I didn’t get to see the shuttle.  I knew it was too late but for the next half hour I kept looking out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shuttle.  Nothing.  Teresa and Becca kept laughing at me because I looked like a little kid waiting to catch Santa Claus…

There have been a lot of people complaining about the budget we spend on NASA and how that money would be better spent on feeding the poor.  I can’t disagree, as long as that money ACTUALLY goes toward something of that nature.  You know as well as I do that if we completely scrapped the space program, some rich white guy would get even richer and the poor would still be hungry.  So, humanitarian arguments aside, lets get our ass to Mars!

The shuttle is ancient.  It needs to be retired and replaced.  The money they spend on repairing the old ships could be better spent on building new ones.  The design is from the mid-70′s.  What were you driving in the 70′s?  Do you still drive it?  Didn’t I hear that NASA had to find some of the old microprocessors on e-Bay because they were just too damn old and no one made them anymore?  Imagine launching a 1978 Ford Pinto with an 8-track player into space and you just might think of buying a new car.

And what do we get for our money?  Space flights!  Really, that’s still cool enough for me.  We’re flying around in space!  Is it a waste?  Well, probably, but we’re flying around in SPACE!!!  That’s too cool!  I’m happy with the ISS and I’m freaking STOKED that we’re talking about a moon base.  A MOON BASE!!!  Yeah, I know they may have canceled those plans but I haven’t allowed it into my head yet.  In my head we’re still going to have … a building … on the fricking … MOON!!!

Okay, and what then?  We have a building on the moon, what now?  Well, I don’t know.  Moon farming?  Moon cattle ranches?  The allure of establishing residency on the moon is captivating but ultimately, worthless.  If we could find a way to make it pay off, mine something exotic, plant/grow an abundance of food, use it as a low gravity location to build/launch bigger ships to take us further into the sandbox, then cool, build a moon base.  But if all we’re going to do is park a trailer on it and visit occasionally, then it really is a gigantic waste of resources.  But it would be so cool though…

Ohh!  I just got it!  Allow private industry to get into the space business.  Buy a small island, build and launch your own ships.  Why not?  At first it would be a race to get established.  Then it would be a tourism thing where rich people buy a seat on the next mission.  Now we’ve established apartments on the moon.  People will thrive, people will die.  Companies will be built and companies will go bankrupt…  Is there any difference between that and any other early technology?  International shipping becoming interplanetary shipping?  Space pirates!?  Man, all kind of cool shit could happen here!  Someone with the start-up capital and no fear of failure (because failure here could be catastrophic) could blaze a new path for us into the wild black yonder!  But I don’t see it happening.  Not until space gives us something we can profit from.  The moon has nothing but dirt and dust.  We haven’t found anything in the immediate neighborhood that gives us any reason to risk going after it.  No hidden oil deposits on Mars (Martian dinosaurs!), no diamond mines on the moon.  Until something like that pops up, the reward versus risk equation is heavily weighted on one side…

I still want us to explore space and to find new and exciting things but until someone actually comes up with a plan to do something useful in space I guess the only moon we’ll get is when the astronauts pull down their space suits and press their ass against the shuttle windows yelling, “Take this you Earthbound homeless bitches!  I’m in space while you’re starving to death tying to find a job!”  Yeah, Maybe we should solve a few of the problems here on the planet before we go out and infect the solar system with our “humanity”…

And since I mentioned it, a side note: I have not seen the new Harry Potter movie (I have not seen ANY of the Harry Potter movies).  So I can’t say anything good or bad about it.  Early reports are saying that it’s a good movie.  Fair enough, I hope it does well.  I’ve got a couple of friends that really like the books and movies so I honestly hope they all enjoy it.  I also hope they continue to do well enough that they keep putting out movies for years and years, giving me blog fodder to ignorantly bitch about…

I’m always ripping on HP but my only real exposure to the franchise is my attempt at reading the first book.  I got about a third of the way in and just set it down.  It wasn’t for me.  The bile and vitriol I hurl toward these books is based more on the fans than the actual books.  I understand “being a fan” of a something.  I am a Star Wars fan, I tolerate Star Trek fans, but something about the rabid Harry Potter fans just rubs me the wrong way.  When I was seven years old I used one of my mother’s laundry baskets and made a R2-D2 costume for Halloween.  The next year I went as a Jawa and I even had my dad rig up a battery and two LEDs for eyes.  But I was eight!  When I see a full grown adult dressed in a wizard robe I just don’t want to be part of the collective human race with this person…  BUT, I get the same feeling when I see an adult in Spock ears or a Stormtrooper uniform so really the problem is not Harry Potter, the problem is me.  I have forgotten how to play dress-up.  There’s some kind of Peter Pan lesson to be learned here but I’m not going to try and figure it out because I don’t WANT to be the fat guy at the mall dressed as a wizard…  (You can tell how old I am by the fact that I still think there’s a movie theater in Regency Square Mall)  Now, if they bring back midnight showings of RHPS, I might be the fat guy at the mall dressed in fishnets…  (JUST KIDDING!!!)