We Are Go For Lunch

Photo ripped off the web, the credit is on it -- a neat shot of the International Space Station flying with the moon in the background.

It's been a momentous couple of days for the space program, and it has my full attention. Of course, there's lots of coverage focused on the fact two Canadians will be in orbit together -- that's a cool bit of trivia, at least. More impressive is the fact so many people will be aboard the ISS together, 13 of them. Just imagine the piles of dirty dishes and dead soldiers, floating all over the joint.

With the help of NASA's awesome website, we popped outside last night just in time to watch the station pass over our house at about quarter to midnight. It was a pretty special sight, especially for us on the first anniversary of our Denman 'wedding' last summer. See, we were mulling over the idea of a move to this island in May '08 after first discovering the house we eventually bought. We were seeing all sorts of signs suggesting it was the right path for us (you know how one often looks for such indicators when one's subconscious knows what's best for one -- I'm sure that's what was going on there). The ISS flew overhead two nights in a row that May, along with plenty of shooting stars. So seeing it again last night, streaking brilliantly at 8km/second, brought us back to that vital and exciting time.

I've got NASA TV on in the background here, and Endeavour has just completed its docking with the station. So we're pretty close to the first ever game of zero-gravity ball hockey. I hope Julie puts one of those American flyboys right through the bulkhead!

The 40th anniversary of the first moon landing is coming up in a few days. Some will say that was the moment that true space exploration was snuffed out for good. The argument being, by putting so much money and effort into putting humans up there, the unmanned aspects which have far more exploration potential were set way back. It was after all a 'race' -- a military effort by the superpowers to beat the enemy to that highly visible and symbolic milestone. Once the race was over, that was that. As great as the achievements of both nations in those days were, that spirit of endeavor did not last long at all once the footprints were set.

I'm not sure where I stand on that, really. I guess I wish the manned effort had continued. I remember clearly a certain portion of Grade Two science that was having us all envision ourselves as moon colonists, what it would be like -- it gave a sense of hope that it would eventually happen, and most certainly helped foster my life-long interest in the subject. Now we're talking of a first manned Mars mission perhaps by 2030. Not exactly setting the solar system on fire, are we?

The world spends $1.2 trillion on military efforts every year -- it's on the rise, and we know many of these objectives aren't exactly right-headed. So many problems could be addressed with just a fraction of that money, and I would also like to see funding for space exploration go way up. Manned or not, we ought to be at least sniffing around a bit more than we are.