August 9, 2005, Fly the Friendly Skies (II)
The world presumably breathed a great sigh of relief upon the safe return and landing of the space shuttle Discovery at California's Edwards Air Force Base this morning. Obviously, the same problems on take-off that plagued the Columbia were a cause of grave concern; they will have to be looked at.
And indeed, our entire commitment to a manned space program will also have to be looked at: we can get far greater bang for our buck in term of scientific value and sheer cost-effectiveness through unmanned probes, like the Mars rovers, or the Pioneer out there somewhere that some genius is thinking about no longer funding, despite its having achieved the farthest distance of any Earth-launched object...
The manned program is about sizzle and publicity: to be honest, its why people like NASCAR: not for the boring rote of a mission gone well, but for the exhileration of the terror of knowing that somebody might just die in a fiery crash. That's really not a good reason to have a multi-billion dollar government program. Especially one to keep as spurious and stupid an idea as the international space station serviced, via the best 1970's era technology we have (a/k/a the shuttle program).
Some poetic irony, perhaps, that this demonstration of the... tenuousness... of our mastery of technology takes place on the 60th anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing... The fact is, nuclear weapons technology allowed us to finally end what had been (and remains, actually) the most horrific war in human history... but opened up an era where, for decades, we were threatened with total obliteration by that very same technology, and where we face the potential of rogue states or stateless rogues using the same technology against us...
Just as successfully launching and returning a space shuttle is a dangerous and complicated business, so is making our way in this world without getting ourselves... well, you know... Simple answers (evil-doers... global struggles against forces of darkness and chaos... you're with us or against us...) may sound great to simple (as in stupid) people... but they are not good answers, nor more importantly are they the CORRECT answers. The fact is, operating in this complicated planet probably IS rocket science... are we up to it? God help us if we're not...
Comments
I mostly agree, but speaking of simple answers let's not forget the circumstances in which the bombs were dropped ("The fact is, nuclear weapons technology allowed us to finally end [W W 2]") At the time the A-bombs were dropped, Japan was already defeated, and the argument that the bombs spared US troops from a bloody endgame doesn't really work: the Soviets had just begun to invade and could have achieved the unconditional surrender the allies wanted. In fact, the US didn't want the Soviets to participate in the rebuilding (have economic influence), and also wanted a chance to test the fruits of a $2 billion program. The US had a lot in mind besides "peace."
Posted by nick at August 9, 2005 11:24 PM