As long as I am marking these sad anniversaries, I should note that, three years ago today, we lost the orbiter Columbia along with astronauts Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, Laurel Clark.

This tragedy brought into focus, I think, the follow of putting all of our manned exploration eggs in one reusable basket, especially one that was largely a compromise design based on forty-year-old technology. The shuttle program has never delivered on its original promises and NASA seems unable to take a step backward (expendable vehicles) to go forward.

Hopefully, the legacy of their loss will be a committment to new ideas. Otherwise, the 21st century may be remembered as the time the United States conceded its leadership in outer space.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 at 11:24 am and is filed under Commentary. Keywords: Not Movie Related. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Paul never told you what happened to your father.