The end of US manned spaceflight

is currently scheduled for November. Here's a bit of fiction to commemorate this historic occasion:

* * * * *


In 2058 the first manned mission to Mars ended in tragedy when the lightsail failed to deploy for the return trip to Earth. Attempts to free it failed, and damaged it beyond repair, stranding the 6 "Arenauts" in orbit around Mars. With no way to return to the surface or to Earth, each sent a final message home, then they bled off the cabin pressure, choosing the relatively gentle death of hypoxia over dehydration, starvation, or hypothermia . Citing the costs and dangers of interplanetary travel, further missions to Mars were canceled.

In 2069, funding for the second International Space Station was eliminated due to "excessive costs with no tangible return", and it was deorbited in 2071. Plans for ISS III never even got into the actual design stage.

Unmanned launchers had replaced manned vehicles for putting satellites in orbit back in the 2010s, and tele-operated robots soon replaced astronauts for satellite repair and retrieval.

By 2080, the era of manned spaceflight was over. Dwindling resources and increasing population pressure prevented Man from ever returning to space.

Almost a thousand years later, a disturbance outside the orbit of Neptune went undetected. No tracking station still operated to detect the burst of energy, and none of the great telescopes remained operational to track the giant object that fell inward past the outer planets. With careful use of gravity slingshotting and an immense lightsail, it orbited each of the inner planets in turn.

Some of the people living a feudal existence on the third planet noted a strange star that shifted across the heavens, and were enthralled by this promise of a new beginning, or terrified by this omen of disaster.

The probe orbited each rocky planet in turn, then worked its way back out to the outer system. Once it was far enough from the sun's mass, it folded the lightsail and transited back to highspace, that strange realm where neither Einstein nor Newton held sway, and transmitted its report to its builders, a quarter of the way around the galactic disk:

System 430307 survey completed. Third planet has intelligent life, formerly of a high technological level but now decayed to natural energy only. No distinguishing characteristics. Survey team not recommended. Awaiting instructions.

The reply came a few seconds later:

Report received. Recommendation filed. Continue to next system.

Return of the Coolth

After a month without Air Conditioning, I finally have it again. In the town I live in, A/C is not a luxury.

It's so nice to see the indoor temp actually below 85 during the day again.

I gonna go not sweat for a while.

Simple Pleasures

When you live alone, you learn to appreciate some of the simpler pleasures in life:

The first sip of a perfect cup of coffee.

A single piece of quality chocolate, melting slowly on the tongue.
The purring of a cat.

A row of half-a-dozen freshly ironed shirts all hanging on the clothes rod.
 
Cool water after an unpleasant, sweaty task.

Sometimes

Sometimes I wake and expect to see you laying next to me.

Sometimes I hear you moving around in another room.

Sometimes I hear your voice just before I fall asleep.

You left this world two years ago.

But sometimes, you haven't left at all.

The end of US manned space flight.

Three more shuttle flights, and then no more US manned space flight. At least when the moon flights ended, the shuttle was on the drawing boards, and NASA had the budget.

Now? Neither.

Obama axed the Orion lifter project right out of NASA's budget, a program that used as much already developed technology as it could to reduce costs and save time.

And now he wants NASA to focus on getting to Mars, and developing "new and innovative" technology to get there. But does he say where the money will come from?

Nope.

So I still predict that when they stop flying the shuttle, that will be the end of US manned spaceflight. Forever.

Sure, private enterprise is supposed to pick up the slack, but "Three astronauts from Virgin Records have landed on Mars" just doesn't have the same ring as "Three astronauts from the United States have landed on Mars".

Upcoming movies

From the trailers at Clash:

Robin Hood: might see it in the theatre, but more likely to rent. They did not have "landing craft" type boats in the Middle Ages! Period! But other than that, it looks watchable.

The Losers: I'll rent it. It looks entertaining.

I'm not surprised, unfortunately.

Well, the new budget for NASA axes both the plan to return to the Moon by 2020, and the Ares rocket, the planned replacement for the Space Shuttles, which are scheduled to be retired this year.

My two bits is that they will extend the Shuttles usage until we have another disaster of some kind, and then stop flying them.

And that will be the end of the US's manned space program. We're already so deeply into financial mismanagement at all levels that nothing like the space program could possibly get started, and I don't think we'll ever see it even restart.

And that popping noise you heard? That was another dream getting busted.