The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
A successful launch for Discovery
Jul. 4, 2006 | 12:04 PDT | 19:04 UTC
Happy fourth of July! It's so far, so good for Discovery, on its way to a rendezvous with the International Space Station. I watched the launch on NASA TV, enjoying the spectacular views from the camera mounted to the shuttle's external tank. A. J. S. Rayl posted an update on the shuttle earlier this morning and wrapped up the launch just now. No more from us until tomorrow -- it's a holiday here, after all!
I am delighted that the launch seems to be going routinely, and full of respect for a team of astronauts who may have faced this launch more apprehensively than usual. That's only in part because of the technical concerns that Rayl writes about in her article -- I think if I were one of those astronauts I would be very worried about the possibility of a legacy of being one of the last shuttle astronauts at the end of a program with one too many failures. But so far it does not look like that will happen, and hopefully they'll get their 13-day mission.
Still, I can't help but be a little ambivalent as I reflect on the apparent resumption of the shuttle program. Unlike many fans of robotic space exploration I do believe that human spaceflight is important, and I look forward to a day when our astronauts will get out of low Earth orbit again. However, I also believe that our robotic missions don't get enough respect in the public eye by comparison to the human spaceflight program. Human spaceflight is suffering kind of a bad stretch right now, as the shuttles age, the ISS unfinished and overbudget, and the vision and adventure of the Apollo days a distant memory for some and ancient history for most (including me); and that bad stretch is what gets covered in the press. But robotic missions are doing so much right now -- just look at the list of active planetary missions. MESSENGER. Venus Express. SMART-1. Rosetta. Hayabusa. Mars Global Surveyor. 2001 Mars Odyssey. Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. New Horizons. Cassini. Voyager 1 and 2. I understand why the human program gets more play in the press; most people just relate much more easily to stories about human adventurers than robotic adventurers. As for me, though, I identify with those robots, and am inspired and filled with pride by their accomplishments.
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