| Is it me or do they launch the space shuttle these | | | | latest-breaking space news you won't read anywhere |
| days for the sole purpose of repairing what went | | | | else, such as this actual passage: |
| wrong on takeoff to avoid catastrophes upon | | | | "...the fifty-four-year-old astronomer claimed that not |
| re-entry? I support safety but nowadays the phrase | | | | only was Pluto still a planet but that it was inhabited |
| "Let's light this candle"--famously spoken week after | | | | by Irish sheepdogs." |
| week by Rabbi Mordechai Goldfarb of Congregation | | | | This is clearly news you will see nowhere else. |
| Beth Shalom in the Connecticut suburb of Old | | | | The shuttle program languished until February 1, 2003, |
| Saybrook--takes on a new meaning. | | | | when Cuban percussionist Ramón "Mongo" |
| The space program was all but dead after a | | | | SantamarÃa passed away unexpectedly. |
| successful series of moon missions in the '60s and | | | | Ironically, his music was playing at mission control that |
| '70s. Though that was the heyday of LSD, so | | | | day when Columbia burned up upon re-entry. NASA |
| whether or not man actually walked on the moon | | | | scientists determined that a hole formed on the |
| remains a mystery. One thing that we know for sure | | | | shuttle's wings, caused by a piece of foam that |
| is that Tom Hanks was THIS close to doing so, but | | | | peeled away from the fuel tank during the launch. |
| didn't (as illustrated in the Hollywood blockbuster film | | | | Since then, NASA has become the king of all |
| "Tom Hanks Never Walked on the Moon"). | | | | overprotective mommies when it comes to its space |
| Launched with much fanfare in the early 1980s, | | | | program. Upon launch, every shuttle's cargo bay is |
| presumably by engineers who hated '80s electronica | | | | stocked with heat-resistant tiles, a Costco-sized |
| music so badly that they couldn't even stay on the | | | | container of Tang and several cases of those diapers |
| same planet with it, the space shuttle program | | | | the crazy astronaut wore when she drove |
| represented the next revolution in space travel. The | | | | cross-country faster than a shuttle in order to "talk |
| orbiter was able to run missions repeatedly...unless, of | | | | to" someone who made whoopee with her imagined |
| course, someone forgot to tighten a screw | | | | astronaut boyfriend. |
| somewhere along the way. | | | | The tiles in the cargo bay are there to replace |
| Such was the unfortunate case with the space | | | | damage sustained upon takeoff. Meaning: The space |
| shuttle Challenger, which completed nine missions | | | | program has become the world's costliest |
| before disintegrating on January 28, 1986. This | | | | unnecessary repair shop. |
| disaster could have been avoided had the O-rings | | | | In the old days, astronauts lived on the edge. Staring |
| been shaped like actual O's, rather than rhombuses. | | | | death in the face, and in most cases dying doing so. |
| Seven lives, and a vehicle almost as cool as a | | | | But they earned the acclaim of the American people. |
| DeLorean, were lost as a result of a simple geometry | | | | Noted sci-fi author Larry Niven put it best in 2001 |
| problem. | | | | when he said, "Dinosaurs became extinct because |
| The Challenger disaster brought the space program | | | | they didn't have a space program. And if we become |
| to a grinding halt-until they built a space shuttle with a | | | | extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll |
| much cooler name. Thus was born the Endeavour, | | | | serve us right!" Which begs the question: Has he |
| which while an American spacecraft, was inexplicably | | | | been conscious for the past 40 years? |
| named by a Brit called Reginald Huggins, III--thereby | | | | Nevertheless, the space program forges ahead. The |
| explaining the randomly placed "U." | | | | space station won't build itself, diapered astronauts |
| Shuttle launches eventually became passé. | | | | need training for their next tile-replacement mission |
| Launch coverage moved from broadcast networks | | | | and sci-fi writers need to ignore reality and say |
| to the Weekly World News, which features the | | | | ridiculous things about why dinosaurs went extinct. |