Did you look? DId you see?

[learnteach]

http://gizmodo.com/5819368/watch-the-last-space-shuttle-flight-ever-updating-live?popular=true

Thoughts:

1985. That whaletennisshoebird has been hurled into space at supersonic speeds on shaky fireballs, bumped around in vacuum, and dropped into the trash of earth with a had landing at the end for 25 YEARS. Wow.

Houston control center: big screens, consoles, clutter, and flatscreens sitting on the desks. We're 25 years advanced in computer technology--look how far it's come. How far could control come if we built it today? The shuttle pushed advanced ceramics research, what could we do today with modern materials?

I was struck by how old some of the astronauts were.

The missions that are current for NASA are very much scientific and satellite based
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html
Some very fascinating ones.

I have a friend who promotes space tourism. There's 410 people who have put down deposits to Virgin Galactic, according to wikipedia. http://www.virgingalactic.com/ You can hear a lot more about this at any Yuri's Night Party and Moffet throws a good one.

A large amount of the next gen of work in space will be robotics (talk to Vytas) and especially telepresence with robotic behavioural backup. We won't see a lot of humans up there until some particularly pernicious biology problems are solved.

BTW, you can check out some of Vytas' thoughts--mostly on living in a cube--at
http://www.magicalrobot.org/BeingHuman/

Comments

[channel6.livejournal.com]

And don't forget--NASA is a LOT more than just manned spaceflight. A lot more. Scientists like Aaron are constantly pushing out the boundaries of what we know about other planets and space without ever leaving the Earth. It's just not as glamorous as manned flight. I'm fascinated by his research into martian soil and it's ability to still (or ever) support life, for instance. Always bugging him to know what he's working on at the moment.