I was sleeping at my friend’s house in West Hills (about 60 miles from Edwards AFB) last night with the windows open when I was woken by the sound of double thunderclaps shaking the windows. It took me about two seconds to recognize the sound for what it was: the Shuttle’s double sonic boom as it went from mach 2 to mach 1. I breathed a sigh of relief, looked at the clockâ€â€Â5:08â€â€Âand went back to sleep.
Congratulations to the crew and to all who made this possible.
That said, now is the time to turn the shuttle into a museum piece and start joint ventures with NASA and private launch firms to design and build the next generation of manned earth to orbit vehicles. The Shuttle program has long outlived its practical usefulness and relies on 80’s technology. In the mean time the Delta IV and Atlas V could be used as a stopgap solution for payload delivery and possibly crew transportation. The Russians could also help and I hear they can use the money.
Although the Shuttle is an unprecedented engineering marvel it was fraught with compromise and budget cuts from its inception and it’s time to stop throwing bad money after good.
Update: I’ve added a couple of interesting links.
