One successfully completed spacewalk down, one to go. Here’s my question - when did flying the space shuttle become the aerospace equivalent of driving a 1983 Ford Escort? I mean with all the en-route repairs, it’s starting to seem very similar to all the various slapdash repairs I used to have to make on my car anytime I took it on a drive. Adding oil, removing rusted out heat shields from the exhaust system, fixing flat tires…it never stopped. But the thing still kept on running.
But I remember being younger and thinking that the shuttle must be the most technologically advanced piece of machinery ever built, and that after every mission they must replace every part that is even remotely close to breaking or failing. I mean, it goes into space – and I’d seen Spacecamp, so I knew everything that was involved with the machine and how it runs (“Thermal curtain failure = Max in space!”).
I guess that the space shuttle is no different from my dad’s 1987 Civic, which started out life as “the car we couldn’t eat or drink in”. It was washed and waxed in the driveway every week, vacuumed regularly, and treated to various upholstery and vinyl protectants to ensure the long life of the car and prolong the “new car smell”. But, over time as the car (and dad) got older things started to slip. Until by the time I was old enough to drive it had become “the car that we’ll teach Jason to drive a stick shift in”. It still ran well until its death due to a broken axle in the late 1990’s.
Thus it’s kind of sad for me to see the space shuttle relegated to the same level as my dad’s Civic. I’m not worried about it yet however. I won’t start worrying until they have replaced one of the windows with a garbage bag or covered one of the OMS thrusters with red cellophane. At that point maybe I’ll refuse when NASA calls me to accept my offer to become the first child astronaut that I sent them in 1985.
But I remember being younger and thinking that the shuttle must be the most technologically advanced piece of machinery ever built, and that after every mission they must replace every part that is even remotely close to breaking or failing. I mean, it goes into space – and I’d seen Spacecamp, so I knew everything that was involved with the machine and how it runs (“Thermal curtain failure = Max in space!”).
I guess that the space shuttle is no different from my dad’s 1987 Civic, which started out life as “the car we couldn’t eat or drink in”. It was washed and waxed in the driveway every week, vacuumed regularly, and treated to various upholstery and vinyl protectants to ensure the long life of the car and prolong the “new car smell”. But, over time as the car (and dad) got older things started to slip. Until by the time I was old enough to drive it had become “the car that we’ll teach Jason to drive a stick shift in”. It still ran well until its death due to a broken axle in the late 1990’s.
Thus it’s kind of sad for me to see the space shuttle relegated to the same level as my dad’s Civic. I’m not worried about it yet however. I won’t start worrying until they have replaced one of the windows with a garbage bag or covered one of the OMS thrusters with red cellophane. At that point maybe I’ll refuse when NASA calls me to accept my offer to become the first child astronaut that I sent them in 1985.
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