I’m a big suck, or maybe I never got over being 12 years old. Nevertheless when I see the space shuttle lift off, I always get tears in my eyes, and inevitably sit on the edge of my couch shouting, yes shouting, “GO MAN, GO!” at the TV at the top of my lungs. Today of all days I rejoyce in “the rocket’s red glare”. Good luck and Godspeed Discovery.
*This post in memory of Smith, Scobee, Resnik, McNair, Onizuka, Jarvis, McAuliffe, Husband, Anderson, Clark, Brown, McCool, Chawla and Ramon.
Amen, brother. Preach it. The choir is ready to respond.
Heh. Good to see someone else who isn’t jaded about the modern miracles of technology.
I still sometimes squeal in delight that a little cellphone makes it poosible to talk to y fiance whenerver I am. I fantasized about a “thread to my loved ones” when I was a kid and now I have one ! 
Hate to break the happy mood, but… five pieces of debris fall off during launch?
We may need to break out the tasteless NASA jokes again.
Weirddave
And let’s remember the 3 American astronauts who died on January 27, 1967 - Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Rodger Chaffe.
Let’s not forget the cosmonauts while we’re at it. Though I’m having absolutely no luck right down finding names, I know the Russians have lost people as well.
That was a gorgeous launch. I wish I wish I wish we’d come up with a good Shuttle replacement and really go at this thing right, but it was good to see nonetheless.
Whiterabbit
The URL I posted lists cosmonaut fatalities as well.
It may be a morale boost for many to see the shuttle go up, but it’s one hell of a lot of money to spend to make people feel good.
If we’re gonna spend billions just to make people feel good, just think of how many blowjobs could be paid for with that money!
Indeed.
Meh. It’s a drop in the bucket. You try and balance the budget by cutting the NASAs of the world and you’l be at it a long, long time. At least we get something for the money, unlike useless social giveaways or blatent corporate welfare.
“Modern miracle of technology”? The damn thing’s nearly 30 years old, a 70’s embarrassment that never did what it was supposed to do - which was damn little - anyway. It’s like continually patching together an AMC Gremlin, sticking a GPS satnav in it, and sighing, “Ah, the romance of the open road.” Kill the fucking thing already.
I feel a sense of never-ending awe at every shuttle launch. As it was said in that otherwise-terrible meteor movie, “A billion moving parts, all made by the lowest bidder.” I’m still overwhelmed by the notion that we can send people into the skys on such astoundingly intricate machines, into such an incredibly alien environment and bring him back no worse for wear. And even more than that, we’ve done it quite a few times!
It’s amazing to me that we’ve been so successful and had so few fatalities considering the incredible risks invovled in such an undertaking. I’m amazed by the quality of NASA’s work.
As a person for whom mathematics have always been a dark mystery, I’m floored by the notion that we can calculate the movements of celestrial bodies so accurately that we can send a probe on a trip whivch will take years but know it will arrive at the exact right moment. Or, that we can manage to send up a ship at the exact right moment to avoid hitting the masses of space junk which pollute our orbit.
Yeah, I’m another one who cheers when I see a shuttle take off. As I watch that astonishingly massive object begin to rise from the launchpad, and it strikes me as impossible that such a huge thing could be lifted by any earthly power. But there it goes, launching perfectly straight upwards. I hope I never lose that sense of wonderment.
I didn’t check your link. Oops.
Meh. It’s like being awed by a DC3 in 1976.
You might want to reconsider that comment
From here
Over 71 years after it first flew, Dc-3s are still flying today
Speaking for myself, 4 years ago I was at the finish of the Volvo Ocean Race in Gothenburg Sweden. Some crazy Swede flew a fully restored DC-3 up and down the harbor 4 or 5 times at full throttle and about 500’ of altitude. It awed everyone in that crowd, I will tell you.
Yeah, there’s an old DC3 which does tourist flights over Auckland - you can see it overhead most weekends. I’m not denying the DC3 its place in aviation history, but aircraft development didn’t end with it, and it would been tragic if it had. Fixating on a dead-end 30 year old piece of technology because it makes a loud noise and clouds of smoke {with the added frisson of possibly blowing up for the delectation of spectators} is plain foolish. The US space programme should have been capable of so much more since the Shuttle was first flown: by now it ought to be celebrated as a glorious antique - like DC3’s are now - not vaunted as the pinnacle of mankind’s venture into space.
Just because I have it, and love it… I heard it was written by a WWII fighter pilot. Don’t know if that is true, or know the name.
High Flight
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.