These are interesting times for NASA’s crewed spaceflight program.
Let’s start with the calendar. Today’s the seventh anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia during re-entry. Last Thursday, January 28th, was the anniversary of the 1986 loss of the space shuttle Challenger in a launch explosion. And the 27th was the anniversary of the 1967 Apollo 1 on-pad fire that killed its astronauts during a pre-launch test. This picture is of the base of the launch pad (pad 34) that was the site of the Apollo 1 fire.
So it’s more than a bit ironic that the U.S. crewed space program may get closed out (or at least, radically reshaped) today — by a turn of events far more prosaic than a catastrophic accident. Stay tuned…
Possibly related posts (auto-generated list):
- Remembrance
- The scientific tourist #21 — Little Joe II
- The scientific tourist #68 — the way out
- The scientific tourist #60 — Shepard's ride
- The scientific tourist #30 — Apollo 18
