Call Me When The Shuttle Lands

Was it just me, or did the most exciting thing about the latest (and possibly last) space shuttle mission occur when we found out that it landed safely? That seems sad. That's equivalent to borrowing your cousin's crappy 1970's flatbed truck to pick up a new refrigerator from Sears and just hoping that it makes it back somewhere close to your home without breaking down. I consider myself a "shuttle guy." In 1986, I remember watching the Challenger disaster live on television. I also remember watching in shock as fiery pieces of the Columbia crashed back to Earth. People my age grew up with space shuttle missions including the Hubble launch, international space station repair, and...well, that's about it. Like a first round draft pick that never really reached its potential, the shuttle program's retirement seems bittersweet.

Outside of the astonishing pictures of the universe that the Hubble telescope produced, I can't think of much the space shuttle did that changed our lives. In fact, the shuttle acted more like a pizza delivery driver for the Hubble: you're excited to see him pull up, but he's quickly forgotten once you receive the pizza. Same goes for the space station. Other than constantly repairing it, what the hell did people do up there? You know, if the shuttle brought back a couple of scientists from the station, and they said, "We've devised an affordable solution to hair loss, discovered an endless energy source in vodka, and intercepted a radio wave broadcast of an ancient alien civilization's pornography;" then we would think that's pretty cool. But usually, our shuttle goes up there to fix the unisex toilet on the space station.

Plus the shuttle never offered any personalities. No Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldren came aboard to offer a history changing speech. I think the little robots popping wheelies on the Martian surface have more personality and spunk than the community college physics teachers that went up in the shuttle. Wouldn't we feel tempted to spend more money than the space programs one percent of the national budget if NASA sent some good comedians up to the heavens? Andrew Dice Clay hasn't done work years. Send him up to do a show. We'd be glued to CNN for the Diceman comparing the size of North America to his ex-wife's ass. Or how about the dudes from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy mixed with commentators from the 700 Club in a sci-fi type reality show. I don't know how much we'd find out about space, but I think we'd find out something important about ourselves.

Whatever our next endeavor explores, let's put some lasers on it and a guy with a heavy Scottish accent. Or have a race around the moon with the Chinese space program. We could gamble on that kind of thing with a percentage of the vig going to NASA funding. Monkeys on rocket ships seem passe' these days, been there, done that; so how about bald eagle and an all girl new wave flipping around in zero gravity? That'd be a big screw you to the Chinese, huh? I'm not sure how much we'd learn from that kind of experiment, but it wouldn't be any less than the space shuttle missions.

© Mark Lindquist