Nisstyre's Corner

This is going to be one of those quick rants, because something I wanted to talk about came over my mind. This is about the Space Program, mainly the two major accidents we've had in the past 30 years. Challenger and Columbia. Main reason I'm talking about it because there is this random movie on tv, not really a movie, its like one of those documentaries that say nothing, its just music and shots of different things. It had been pictures of cities, high speed of the traffic, train terminals and people living. Right now its this deep voice chanting with organ music in the background, and the video is Challenger, actually since I started typing this its been a slow motion close up of a piece of the rocket falling back to earth. And now its faded into some ancient painting of something. Oh yeah, its on Sundance the Indy Film channel, so of course its fucked up. Its call Koyaanisqatsi.

The main comment is how I tend to dislike the term of "Hero" being used about these accidents, but mainly its about Columbia, the recent one. The reason I don't like the term of "hero" for these people is because the job is dangerous to begin with, these people know that everytime they attempt to go to space, something could go wrong, something could easily explode and kill them. Sadly the trips we make are kind of pointless, like in the Simpsons when Homer went to space, it was to conduct a study to test the effect of no gravity on tiny screws, and they're right. Now a days we are going up there for stupid reasons, probably because its easy to do, but still these people are not heros, they deserve props and respect for what they do, but to call them great heros just is not right. Maybe we're just trapped in the past about it. Neil Armstrong is a hero, and all those guys who made the first flights into space. They had balls, as much science as we have, everytime those guys tried something, it could have easily gone wrong. Now a days we know what space is, we know what is needed and not. We know the moon is not made of cheese, and so far we know there are not black martians wearing roman gear on Mars (Melvin the Alien).

But I cannot concider those who died a few years back on re-entry any kind of hero, brave for even going into space of course, but no, no hero. For christ sakes they are driving a 30 year old vehicle, well maintained and all, but still 30 freakin years old. Would you take your 74 Duster cross country, no. They died because a chunk of their own craft fell off. Brave yes, Hero no.

Challenger I will allow them to be called Heros, they were brave and space will still pretty young at the time, the vehicles were newer, and they died because some moron on the ground didn't obey the rules and said launch the ship anyways. They died because it was 34'F out, and due to the temps the gasket around the fuel had shrunk, the basics of any engineers, when hot, things expand, when cold they shrink. Fuck, if you have a set of balls you know that without having a hundred thousand dollar degree. Their deaths could have been avoided, and thus they can be heros.

Of course I could go on about Bush and his "lets conquer space by taking the moon and landing someone on mars for the aliens to eat" speech he made a few years ago, actually I think a year after Columbia. Currently the status of our country, I say lets not spend billions on going to the moon or mars. We've danced on the moon, and we're probing Mars, good enough. Lets slowly invest in some new vehicles, a better and faster spaceship that isn't so proned to exploding. We need to stop reaching further and further into space, and heh, look more down to earth. We need to find a way to go to space that is cheap, with better vehicles. Ships that can go further, not the enterprise but there has to be an easier and quicker way into space. Don't we have the technology, come on, it was fucking amazing to see "The Shat" speaking into his communicator back in the 60s. Now Grandma is talking into her cell phone and grinding in parking lots (sorry, one of those "Where you At" commerical that should have never been made). If going into space was a common thing, I would go on out, hopefully to a better planet.

All I can say is I wish I could see that in my life, but I doubt it, and if I do I'll probably be old and crippled, calling it witch craft and widdling a duck from a log. Unless of course we have cloning, then I'll have myself a fresh new body. Anyways, the rant has died, so that's my mama!