New Horizons mission to Pluto

[Fairlight]

Is it just me, or did John Esak say:
> :-)
> I know I wish I was... and I'm dead serious...
> 
> Funny thing is... I know there are lots of folks on this list who wish I
> were on it, too. :-) :-)

Ach, it's not ambitious enough!  Give me the first ship to Alpha Centauri
and I'd go in a heartbeat.

In all reality though, we'll be lucky if a living person ever sets foot on
Mars.  We just came to an arrangement to pay something like 21 or 24
million dollars per person to get our people each way on the Russian Soyuz
because the public and the people purporting to represent them have
apparently forgotten that space travel is -inherently- hazardous, and will
NEVER be as safe as driving in your car.  And they refuse to listen to the
experienced people that are perfectly willing to take the risks.  :(

NASA has gotten a 10% or so budget cut more budgets in a row than I care
to count, and we're down to chintzy low-tech "solutions" like packing
a probe in a ball and letting it -bounce- onto the surface rather than
landing properly.  So improper was one landing of this type that they
either couldn't right the craft, or had extreme difficulty finally managing
it.  I forget which.  Don't start me on the Hubble.

Point is, they've neutered the program.  :(  I'd be surprised if more than
one more shuttle goes up, if they detect even a stray molecule near the
thing when it launches.  Pity is, they just finished (or are finishing) the
refit of the last of the old ones, which included the "glass bridge" HUD
setup that the others already have.

They have nothing ready to take the fleet's place, and the fleet is
supposed to be retired a good 5-10 years before I figure they'll have
anything ready that doesn't look like it was made 35-40 years ago.

It's just depressing as hell.

mark->