Atlantis.

[kv0925]

Just one from this past weekend. This is the Space Shuttle orbiter Atlantis, retired to her very cool new home at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex. After a first introductory movie about the development of the Space Shuttle program, you walk into a room where a second film about Atlantis' exploits is projected on a screen in front of you, then a curtain goes up behind the screen so it becomes a scrim, and you find yourself looking at the orbiter through a projected field of stars and it looks like it's hanging there in space. It's really a very nice effect, glad I knew to expect it so I could grab a shot. Not a bad job eyeballing the manual settings, too, if I do say so myself!

Comments

[cp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a pretty neat place--at least, it is if you have any interest at all in space travel and exploration! It almost makes me sad, though, to think that historically we've spent so much more money as a nation killing people than we have in exploring even our little corner of the cosmos, you know?

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

It IS sad.

I think it was Neil DeGrasse Tyson who said that the only way to rekindle the space program is to have another Cold War. I found that rather disheartening, particularly since I have a lot of friends who work for JPL. There is so much potential, yet no money goes toward it or to education. Plenty to spend on war here though, and that is just tragic.

/rant.

[cp.livejournal.com]

Oh, rant away, I could not agree more. And what really burns me up is that there is absolutely LOTS of room for profit in all the industries and endeavors we SHOULD be pursuing, you know? The space program is a perfect example--directly or indirectly, it has produced or enhanced so much of the technology we take for granted these days, and upon which corporations have massively capitalized. I suspect the same could be said for environmentally-friendly technology and power and vehicles and homes and you-name-it--we could be keeping the planet habitable for humans AND stimulating our economy, if we would just spend even a fraction of our military and so-called Homeland Security budgets on hard science and R&D and subsidizing the development and adoption of those technologies. Hell, we could even become a world leader in technological advancement and manufacturing again. But the old guard of our economy still want to make their money with oil and guns since that's worked so well for them in the past century. Our only hope is that the next generation feels differently--or that the planet finally gets angry enough to MAKE us listen and silence the people who still place profit above.. well, everything.

Now THAT is a rant. ;)