James Riswick
Assistant A&E Editor
NASA announced last week that it will be returning the shuttle program to operation in December, nearly three years since the Columbia broke up during re-entry. In the meantime, the International Space Station has been doing its best impression of the Mir – being supplied by ancient Russian space capsules and becoming cluttered with garbage. Not to mention construction on the ambitious ISS has all but stopped. What is designed to be an impressive orbital research station that is so big it will be the third brightest object in the night sky (the moon and Venus being one and two), is on the shelf while NASA decides how to repair itself and how to best suit President Bush’s agenda of focusing on the moon and Mars for exploration.
The completed ISS will still be an incredibly useful tool for research and exploration. Also, as a space station, one would think one of its primary purposes will be to serve as a station for shuttles and whatever orbiter or intra-solar system-exploration vehicles we will develop in the future. One would think that would keep launch safety and economic concerns down. Not to mention that damage, like that sustained by Columbia during lift-off, could be fixed while docked at the ISS. If serious, it could safely remain in orbit while its crew is returned home the old-fashioned-capsule way and another means of repair is formulated.
All of this is why it’s important to restart the shuttle program so that humanity’s ongoing mission to explore the stars continues forward. However, it’s also important that a more efficient, cheaper way of getting to the ISS and beyond is developed. The shuttle’s development began during the Nixon administration and the prototype shuttle, Enterprise, rolled out in 1977. The rocket propulsion dates back even further to the original Apollo and Saturn rockets. Needless to say, things have gotten a little out of date and it is time for something new. Unfortunately, as long as the United States is the chief developer and financier of space technologies, this could take a while, as long as a significant chunk of technological research and development goes into the military.
It’s sad that so much of this country’s technological development goes into military advancements instead of exploration. One has to wonder why more stealth fighters and high-tech naval vessels are needed to fight terrorists whose technological capabilities don’t extend too far beyond strapping a bomb to something. It’s sad that so many technological advancements come from instruments of death rather than from exploration or for the expressed purpose of bettering humanity.
The world is changing and more importantly to this topic, technology seems to be changing even quicker. For these reasons, NASA and the world’s space exploration programs need to be refocused, yet encouraged to continue their work. It shows that we can unite and literally reach for the stars together, rather than focus on all the petty things that divide us.
This includes seal hunts in Canada. I must admit, I was the one who told Joann Groff the baby-seal-walks-into-a-club joke that at least in part inspired her article last week about the seal hunt in Canada (for what it’s worth I heard the joke in Indiana). So although I agree that the slaughter of defenseless baby seals in my home and native land should stop, I thought Groff’s call to boycott Canada was a little unfair. There are plenty of things the American government turns a blind eye to as well — be it ecologically, politically or culturally — that would have Canadians boycotting their southern neighbors using the same logic.
These include things such as the administration trying to drill for oil in an Alaskan national park, or the Navy continuing to conduct ammunition tests in Puerto Rico despite nearby residents getting sick and dying because of them, or how about any of the nation’s livestock and poultry industries that treat animals with the same level of cruelty afforded to seals in the Arctic.
Instead of boycotting a country, wouldn’t it be better to boycott those products and companies such as Versace that use the seal fur? Why punish the Canadian public who are just as outraged over the seal hunt? Also, forget writing to your local senator — address your protests directly to Prime Minister Paul Martin or Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Geoff Regan as I plan on doing. Nobody in Ottawa wants to hear some whining from an arrogant, self-righteous bully in Washington — but if they heard the regular populace from both countries, that just might work.
And if it doesn’t, well I suppose Canada will be next after Iran on America’s hit list. I can just hear President Bush introducing Operation Seal Freedom: “Stop killing seals pronto, or we’ll level Toronto.”
2-3-2005