Hey is that water I see??? Ice??? Good ol Mars. Keep us guessing.Now about NASA and shuttles and repairs. Poor NASA is a political thing. The whole shebang is run by the goverment "committee". That means there will be grandstanding by people who don't really do anything except listen to lobbyists. Also the 'nervous nellies' in any program are going to continue to piss and moan about everything. Until private enterprise gets itself into space, this will continue-- with veiled threats to scrub the whole mission etc. Perhaps we need to repair --to the moon! Again. There is lots there to make useful, water (again with that!) god-awful many minerals -- a frontier strange and wonderful. An extended space station as we have now is crippled by the fact that human beings can only go so long without gravity. We are going to have to deal with that if we expect to get anywhere. Mars needs much exploration, by robots and man. For that matter robots on the moon too, doing the job of mining, exploration, pictures ---
And don't forget, we need to learn how to make nanotubes and buckyballs to utilize in space.
Hooray for the brave crew who patched up the Discovery! In spite of hand-wringing by publicity-minded nay-sayers, to save their little CYA campaign, the whole thing still can be successful. All the pessimism by such Cassandras are often blown out of proportion
It's okay, people. It's okay. Don't sweat it. We are going to have more casualties. We are going to have more accidents. Steady as she goes!
