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The Mariners' Museum ~ Newport News, Virginia

We also enjoyed the Tennessee Aquarium.

The real news is that this made it into the news. Not because it isn't news worthy but because it only makes sense to maintain a shroud of ignorance once you have actually cracked a channel of communication thus instilling your enemies with a false sense of security.
 
For instance during World War II, even after the allies had broken a German code or devised a method to figure out that day's cipher string, they would still go about their routine of acting like they didn't know what the Germans were going to do. Meaning that if a cargo ship was headed towards a line of submarines, they might find it best to sacrifice that cargo ship at the possibility of saving a warship later in the day.

f they responded directly to communications, the Germans would continue to change the code or investigate ways to improve their encryption methods and upgrade Enigma.

First off, let me remind people that space is not the majority of NASAs budget. They do plenty of aeronautics, as well as materials research, energy research, weather, etc. But everyone thinks NASA == space shuttle.

To put things in perspective check out this url http://www.mariner.org/age/histexp.html. If it took us up to about the 1750's just to get boatrides across big oceans right (meaning that most if not all ppl died), and considering that this year marks the 100th anniversary of flight, I say keep on going.

You never know until you look. Also, the trickle down of technology into everyday life alone is worth the investment into NASA.

What would have happened if exploration had been written off as "too risky" after that? I guess those of us here in the New World (at least, those of us of European descent) are lucky that our ancestors were greedy enough to continue onwards despite those risks.

What would have happened if exploration had been written off as "too risky" after that? I guess those of us here in the New World (at least, those of European descent) are lucky that our ancestors were greedy enough to continue onwards despite those risks.

Its funny, but in your sarcasm you are actually right, there is indeed no evidence that points to Columbus or any of his three vessels landing on the north american continent.

Correct (mostly). Columbus mostly visited Hispaniola (what is now Haiti/Dominican Republic). On his fourth and last voyage he actually landed in what is now Mexico, so depending on how much nitpicking you want to do, you can argue that he did or didn't land on the North American continent. What is clear is that he did not discover the North American continent in 1492.

See this link.

Personally, I don't think this should qualify as circumnavigating the globe. Magellan's route almost 1500 years ago is a heck of a lot more impressive.

These kinds of feats just don't have the glamor they used to. Especially since his gondola is all tricked out with hi-tech stuff. The balloon even flies itself so that he can sleep. I understand that this is a very tough feat, particularly since this is his 5th attempt at it, but it just doesn't have that extra dimension that makes it very exciting (it isn't a first circumnavigation, because that was done in the 16th century; it doesn't demonstrate the possibilites of future transport or a smaller world; it doesn't have great political implications; nor is it a demonstration of new technologies and engineering). I doubt that 100,000 people will storm the landing zone in celebration if he does make it around.

There are also some interesting Enigma pages at uboat.net. Unfortunately, that site seems to be having some database problems at the moment.

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