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Astronauts Face Bleak Odds For Spaceflight
Abhishek writes "According to a Space.com report, Astronauts at NASA fear that they won't be able to fly until 2015 and that, for some, would be too late. The space shuttles that NASA have are almost at the end of their lifetimes and any shuttle can take years to be built. Though almost everybody is involved in some way or another in looking after a shuttle, only a lucky few actually gets the chance for a ride."
What do they do every day? They are unlikely to be training for a specific mission at the moment with no shuttle...
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...is that there isn't much need for Astronauts in our new service-based economy, so they're gonna have a hell of a time finding a new job.
Hey NASA, I suggest you contact this guy named Burt Rutan. Apparently he's pretty good at putting together elegant solutions for a relatively low cost.
WURD!!
Don't mistake my sarcasm for flamebait, but does this then mean that ex-commies will have to ferry our capitalist asses to space?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
OK, more seriously, I think the era of NASA is in decline and the era of private spacecraft is in ascent. Some of those astronauts may yet fly, but they might have to retire from NASA to do it.
It's amazing how far we've come in the past 36 years. We were once going to the moon, now we can't even go to space! We need to get up there, no matter how we get there. Be it spaceshipone, or the shuttles, or something new. What NASA really needs to do is stop canceling all the good ideas for vehicles. They'll let the planning and testing go on for 8+ years and then nothing comes out of it.
They need to move to the private sector where there are still some with the balls to boldly go...
Nasa is defunct and crippled, if it were a pet we'd put it out of its misery!
Couldnt armadillo aero and virgin galactic use these guys? The pay has GOT to be better than NASA!!!
There goes my hopes of being the first man on Mars! I honestly think it'll be 50 years before we put a man on the red planet.. which really blows. Well, NASA won't make it happen until we axe the whole organization and rebuild it with young whipper-snappers ala the '60s. Hopefully Zubrin can convince a commercial outfit to go there.. perhaps Scaled Composites?
What is your penile percentile?
... astronauts serve other duties at NASA.
They help with planning and ground support for other missions, help with long-term planning, and serve other tasks often depending on their pre-astronaut background.
Currently, there are some working on the Crew Exploration Vehicle and Moon/Mars plans.
It's our money they spend, and it's not meant for their personal pleasure.
That's shocking! I figured everyone at NASA took turns hopping on board and rocketing off to Saturn and back on weekends. /sarcasm
Is it REALLY part of the story that only a blessed few get to ride in the shuttle?
stuff |
They should apply to the privatized space flight companies. I'm betting they'll have a better chance to to get into space with them than NASA.
The space program doesn't exist for their personal egos. There are a heck of a lot of things I'd like to do but will never get the chance, and it doesn't merit a /. story.
Didn't NASA realized that their shuttles were becoming obsolete? Shouldn't they already be building to next shuttle in order to avoid 15-year downtimes?
With all their paid training they've received, they're perfect for landing jobs in the private sector. In the last year, we've seen a huge initiative for private ventures to go into space. Who better to be the vehicles' operators than existing astronauts? Throw in some stock options, and I think they'd do quite well for themselves. Richard Branson wouldn't hesitate to hire them, not just for their experience but also for the PR value it would have.
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If you could get ten cents on the dollar for the $90 billion International Space Station you could keep manned space flight going for some time.
Why does this make me want to cry instead of laugh?
Why is that?
The first shuttle was built in the 70s using decades old know-how. Why has it taken so long to produce its successor?
Is it the technological challenge, or is it just politics that keeps the manned space exploration down?
The owls are not what they seem
to GO BOLDLY!
Dammit, Jim!
1. scrap current plans
2. buy Soyuz rockets from the Russians
3. invest the billions you save out on other projects like lunar colonies, exploration drones and advanced propulsion systems.
For many of you the goals of going into space has been a dream since childhood. Well, unfortunately, you're fired. Go get a real job. These Lego mindstorms make better astronaughts than your sorry asses. If your dream had been to be a media mogul, you might have earned enough doe to catch a flight on Branson's Virgin Rocket. But on NASA severance pay, you won't be able to afford the rent on your trailer home.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The current design is proven, it's not like they'd have to go through the whole design process/testing again.
Just order the same parts, new, and put them all together.
The postponement could be due to past fatalities that occurred, including the 2003 incident. Maybe NASA has to develop a new machine for flight.
m
1 February 2003; Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107), over northeast Texas: Columbia was in the re-entry phase of flight after a 16-day mission and its intended destination was the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Communications with the shuttle were lost at about 9 a.m. local time. At the time of the most catastrophic phase of the breakup, the spacecraft was at an altitude of about 203,000 feet (approx. 39 mi. or 63 km) and was traveling at about mach 18 (roughly 12,500 mph or 20,000 kph). While most of the debris landed in northeast Texas and western Louisiana, especially the area around the town of Nacagdoches (Knack-a-doe-chess), the breakup very likely began further west, possibly before the spacecraft passed over California. All seven astronauts on board the spacecraft were killed. The crew members were:
Michael Anderson (STS-89), David Brown,
Kalpana Chawla (STS-87), Laurel Clark,
Rick Husband (STS-96), William McCool, and Ilan Ramon.
http://www.airsafe.com/events/space/astrofat.ht
When my fourth grade teacher asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I told her, "I want to be an ASTRONAUT Mrs. King". She told me I could do it, if I apply myself. Never before have I been as grateful for chronic drug abuse and not living up to my potential as I am today. It's not like the title says, "Network Tech's Face Bleak Odds for Hooking up Patch Cables"
Maybe they could jump ship and try for one of the proposed manned space programs in other countries. The pilots and engineers shouldn't have a problem finding jobs in the private sector as it begins to take off (no pun intended) since there will be a need for people who know how to get a hunk of metal moving at 7km/s on the ground in once piece. The scientists and other mission personal would have trouble finding spots in the private sector unless it becomes profitable. This would require something like feasible zero-gee engineering that NASA has always been looking at. Maybe one of the big biotech or chemical companies would pay for a science team to spend some time in orbit to do some material engineering research. However, it would be harder to get private science crews into space who can't show short term profits. This would probably require a government for funding.
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I'm a much bigger fanboy for robotic space exploration, and not much of an advocate of the shuttle program. (Nixon basically pimped the shuttle by exaggerating how cost effective it could be, in a spectacular example of how much government largesse the 'Publicans are capable of when the military industrial complex stands to benefit. IMHO, of course.) That doesn't keep me from sympathizing with astronauts who are, by all accounts, pretty impressive people.
Putting yourself in other people's shoes isn't a weakness.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
But they were both canceled.
I wonder if the two dead crews would consider themselves lucky?
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
If Rutan had NASA's budget, the question would not be ``Will they get into orbit?'', but ``Which planet will they orbit next?''.
See what I've been reading.
I think that they couldn't do things that are risky because of the political effects when there are fatalities. The sad part is that they do lots of research into launch vehicles but never get the funding to build and fly the 'prototypes'. Okay, so anything that has been in planning for a few years will look old hat by the time you build it, but test flying the things and eventually remote piloted destruction testing has got to yield useful data.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Excerpt from RedNova
"The space shuttles that NASA have are almost at the end of their lifetimes "
This isn't quite right. The remaining shuttle fleet isn't even to the halfway point of its life expectancy. In other words, the flight-hours remaining on the airframe is greater than 50%.
Yes, we could use a more advanced vehicle, with less risk and more efficiency. But let's not go spreading rumors - the shuttle fleet is actually not old, the design is.
kulakovich
I would start a company to created basic space capsules (3 and 6 man) that could be strapped on anybody's rocket. Then sell them to the US, Europe, Japan, China, and India.
Seems everyone wants one and only russian has one.
Odds are the Bigelow space prize will be won well before 2015. That means a private space shuttle will be available for purchase. The best thing nasa can do is focus on scientific missions and provide a market for the contestant in that prize-instead of trying to compete against them.
... in Japan, China, and possibly openings soon in the European Union and India...
A lot of the original tooling is probably gone. And each one is more or less a custom job, not an assembly line duplicate.
Did NASA outsource to India?
( there go my karma points )
In keeping with "Bush's" "downsizing" of the government they could and probably should move to private industry. Having an astronaut on staff would be a big leap in credibility for most budding spacecraft makers.
"We still have the technology to go to the moon, and I would even hazard to guess the technology is there to go to Mars as well, but the money is not there."
I would argue to you that we have no WILL to go back to the Moon...or Mars...or anywhere else that requires putting men any farther than low orbit.
We know that no one else is likely going to another planet soon, so we go "What's the rush? Why spend the money now? It's not like anyone else is going". Doing it for science, and frankly, for history and adventure's sake alone doesn't seem to motivate us.
But let China start a manned Lunar or Martian mission; oh boy, watch how fast we send people back up then.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
maybe they should just enter this!
That green slime had it coming.
Somebody has to staff the Macdonalds and Burger Kings around there. You think someone earning minimum wage could afford to live close enough to do that?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This is how the procurement works, and no doubt the new craft will have some "anti-terrorism" purpose as well (to get extra budget).
a) We could just go for a low cost solution that does the job, like the russians
b) But this would mean that we couldn't give large subsidies to the R&D programmes at folks like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
c) And it might not even be more expensive than what those pesky Europeans are doing with Ariane.
So the end result is a massive white elephant of a programme that aims at huge complex problems and will either fail, delivery 1/10th what was predicted or just massively over-run.
But this is the BEST option for the Pentagon and NASA is the massive, multi-year project on which they can all retire to the contractors who are building it.
Is it any suprise that the US still doesn't have a modern integrated Air Traffic Control system ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
They'll learn chinese and go work overseas?
I thought this was an odd article, my thinking that an "astronaut" who's never been to space would be an "astronaut wannabe", "astronaut in training" or the more pejorative: "space cadet". According to Websters just being "trained" makes you an astronaut.
" a person who travels beyond the earth's atmosphere; also : a trainee for spaceflight"
Gotta suck when you tell people you're an astronaut and people's first question is "When did you go up?". They probably have the Websters definition loophole printed on the back of their business cards.
Yes, I'm sure you'd be saying "Thank God for space debris" if you were one of the family members of the crew who died. It certainly was convenient for them to die to save you some money.
Oh, wait, did it save you money? Let's look at this... $600,000,000 to launch (I'll take your number because I'm too lazy to look it up). There are about 100,000,000 taxpayers in this country, so assuming two launches per year, you have saved yourself $12/year. Go buy that new car you've been lusting over with that. 12 fucking dollars, man, and you are bitching! Maybe buying two subs from Subway is more important than a bunch of scientific research, but we won't debate that. The annual budget of NASA is 16 billion, which comes out to $160/year/taxpayer for EVERYTHING they do (satellites, mars missions, aerodynamics research, plasma physics, etc). The WEEKLY budget of the Iraq war is 5 billion, and that is just the Iraq war not all of the defense dept.
Even if you'd rather save the $12/year to not launch, did you even think what it costs to research the failure and fix the issues? The return to flight costs were around 1.2 billion (that included all the research into the accident and all the new testing and procedure development). They haven't launched in two years and only had three launches planned in that time, so you saved all of $3/year. Woooooo!
And astronauts have real jobs when they aren't flying. Some are doctors, some are plasma physicists, some are just normal engineers doing research. They aren't always training for a new mission; they are using their single paycheck to do a normal engineering job until it is time to train and fly.
IANAL, but I play one on
Given that airlines are too cash strapped to put in RFID equipnent to track lost luggage, how many of them are going to pony up the cash to head off into space?
Then insurance costs alone will bust 'em.
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My point is they get so mired down in doing everything "by the book" and overspecing everthing 3000% that they actually DECREASE safety by making things overly complex and adding new failure modes that wouldn't exist in a simpler system.
TODO: Something witty here...
Whell... At least now I can catch up on my childhood dream of being a space fighter pilot. Time to train...
I bet the makers of Tang, are pissed...
e.
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"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."--Feynman
Seriously, if we outsource the building of a new shuttle to India or China, then it might get done quicker and cheaper. Wouldn't it be faster to have 10 engineers form India working on a new shuttle than only 1 engineer in the USA? We could build a new shuttle 10 times the speed it would take to build one in the US!
And with this flying money pit, fewer still are lucky enough to survive the experience.
Disappointment is all around us. Careers fall apart as times change, and lots of good, hardworking people in this country have businesses that fail and watch their dreams die. I'm not particularly sympathetic to the astronauts when it happens to them.
Welcome back to planet earth, you know?
I'd tell ya, but then I'd have to kill ya.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Perhaps they had an even better info-warfare system sabatoging our programs without us even noticing.
That and pork barrel politics.
New funds that could be devoted to developing new launch and propulsion technologies are instead squandered on programs like the space shuttle and the International Space Station. Most of NASA's budget goes to support these projects, which have little, if any, payoff in terms of furthering a real, sustainable human presence in space.
Unfortunately these programs are here to stay, mainly due to the backing of powerful legislators who support space/defense contractors in their district, and by you, the average slashdot reader, who also misguidingly support these projects because of the percieved coolness.
Every dollar spent on the space shuttle is a dollar that should have been spent on a shuttle replacement, a replacement that would be a real space vehicle, not some dog and pony show that we have now. Real scientists for years have been calling for the termination of both of these programs, to no avail.
If it were not for the loss of life, I would pray that the next shuttle mission ends in disaster, and a catastrophic accident happens to the ISS.
Its kind of a ironic, in a few years (likely before 2015) joe schmoe will be able to buy a ticket to space thanks to the ground breaking success of spaceship one.
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Yeah, we all know how many new spacecraft they've developed in the last two decades (0). And when was the last time they landed someone on the moon (never)? Very insightful.
Deke Slayton, one of the Mercury Seven and the longtime head of the astronaut corps (i.e., the guy with the final say on flight crew assignments), pushed hard to use an airliner-style crew system for the shuttle. That is, have a small group of pilots and mission specialists that would fly repeatedly together, with one-off payload specialists handling mission-specific duties. He'd seen how frustrating life was for the later '60s astronaut classes that only saw a few members fly, and sometimes not for decades. And this was back when NASA genuinely believed each shuttle would spend as little as two weeks before launching again.
Instead, we got the worst of both words: A launch schedule in which four shuttles did at most a dozen launches a year together, little likelihood of even that annual figure in the three remaining shuttles' lifetimes, and an astronaut corps that numbers in the hundreds with new inductees coming in every two years. That's just crazy.
This entire premise is retarded! I could not believe for one second that the world would stand by and not do everything possible to launch by May. If for no other reason there is a lot more money and pride in the construction of the ISS and the US NASA space shuttles are the only medium for continuing the construction project.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
. . . the robots are the future.
Teach them well and let them lead the way.
http://theonion.com
Are you sympathetic to those people whose businesses fail? Are you sympathetic to those whose careers fall even though they are good, hardwordking people?
If so, why do you hold such contempt for astronauts? Are they not good, hardworking people deserving of your sympathy?
If not, do you ever feel sympathy for other human beings? Why is it that callous cynicism is so popular these days? It's sad.
Taft
"This *is* a space program isn't it? I mean, when you have a manned space program there will be times when people go into SPACE, right?"
"I hate that man..."
Both Japan and China have expressed their intentions to be on the moon in the immediate future. And they'll do it, because for them, its national pride - not low ball Billshut.
Dan Goldin killed NASA. His legacy of "cheaper, better, faster" led to more FAILURES in space exploration and research than any other administrator.
Seriously... Goldin, master of slash and burn, was the same guy that made wonderous technology decisions too (like get those Unix and Mac boxes outta here.) And the "Test it? Why the heck are we testing it? I don't pay you monkies to design and build broken sh*t."
If you are an astronaught and are reading this note - go find Dan and kick him in the balls. You'll feel better.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
One wrote a book, "The Making of an Ex-Astronaut".
When somebody mentions the shuttle program ending, I never miss a chance to plug nuclear rockets. I know it's the "N" word, but read this fascinating article detailing a design for a fully reusable, non-polluting rocket ship based on the Saturn-V form factor. Powered by Gas Core Nuclear Reactor engines emitting only non-radioactive hydrogen, the ship would be capable of carrying 1000 Tons of cargo into orbit and returning an equal amount of cargo to a powered landing. For comparison the shuttle's cargo capacity is less than 30 tons.
On average, people in the bottom 20% pay about the same as people in the top 20%. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2001 that taxes at all levels of government consumed 19% of the income of people in the top 20% on average, and 18% of the income of people in the bottom 20% on average. It's almost the same, with taxpayers within either group differing more than 1%.
While there's one table in the thousands of pages of the US tax code that lists a progressive series of rates, considering only one page ignores revenue classifications (capital gains and dividends are taxed at lower rates), the regressive social security income tax, deductions, and the existence of non-federal taxes like generally flat state income taxes and regressive sales taxes.
Something that's been bandied about for years by SF authors. And, no, I'm not talking a "beanstalk" using the Clarke belt, but, rather, a catapult. Yes, a miles-long one, preferably near the equator (factoring in the Earth's spin would help a fair bit). A huge engineering feat, to be sure, but virtually nothing compared to 25K+ miles worth of nanotube magic rope required for a beanstalk. That, and the fact that a beanstalk requires equilibrium, something that most people conveniently forget to mention. A catapult is "fire and forget." It probably wouldn't -- couldn't -- be the sole source of propulsion to gain orbit; air would offer too much initial resistance. But it could get you high up enough, and fast enough, to get your scramjets working just fine.
Now that would be an interesting form of democracy. You vote for politicians to come up with different programs, and then each person gets to vote for where their tax dollars go: a bit like allocating where your 401K money gets invested. The gun nuts can have their tax dollars go to the military, the geeks can have their tax dollars go towards NASA, and the hippies can have their tax dollars go towards environmental protection.
I imagined that there would be a lot of boring, yet essential for a smoothly running country, items that would be almost ignored under such a system.
I heard Burt Rutan built a spaceship capable of outperfoming the shuttle using change stolen from the vending machines at JPL. Oh wait, that's really the truth.
Astronull.
Why pay $10 to research a cure for Microsoft, when Linus Torvalds is researching a cure for free?
In the last 1960s, Al Bean had been assigned to the Apollo Applications project. He didn't expect to get into space for years, if ever. As it happened, his friend Pete Conrad needed someone to be LMP for Apollo 12, and knew Al was good and was working on long-term stuff that could wait. Al became the LMP for the flight, his first in space, and the 4th man to walk on the moon.
Everyone in the Astronaut training program is looking for their chance to jump the line and get wings, and you never know how might turn out to be the one to flip the critical switch for SCE to AUX and save the mission.
Bean later flew in space again as a Commander on the Apollo Applications mission that became Skylab.
The Apple Store in Palo Alto has plenty of Shuttles. I just saw them on the counter. Oh wait, you mean this isn't YA/.AAA (Yet Another /. Article About Apple)?
Hey, I'm sympathetic to everyone. I'm just pointing out that these astronauts are just going through what a lot of other people in this country have gone through WITHOUT EVER ATTRACTING ANY NOTICE AT ALL.
They sure can have my sympathy, but they're going to have to stand in line. I'm currently up to the guys who's jobs have been outsourced overseas, but I'll work up to the astronauts real soon.
I can sympathise, the loss of pride probably feels like it did for us with the whole concorde thing. Just don't sell them for one dollar to some virgin guy, and don't start charging millionares to ride in them.. erm nm.
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NASA needs to take whatever hit it has to, and build a new shuttle. If they can't find the budget, then it's because we have other important social issues to address before we start back into space.
I know it's a tough choice. It's always a tough choice, because everything is a god damn battle. I had to run a busload of nuns off a cliff, this morning, just to get the copier for 15min. Two. Two busloads of nuns (there's this really prude, heavy-set chick I work with).
Let it go. It's not forever and ever, just for a decade or so. When everyone is ready to get another shuttle together, have three or four plans made out. Build the two that have the most similiar consumables, and see which one is the best.
Oil will hit $100/bbl decades sooner than orbital solar arrays are launched for terrestial power.
While there has been much speculation and back-of-the-envelope calculations, little of the needed research on power transmission back down to earth has actually been done.
Not to mention the cost and associated research needed for building, launching, deploying, and maintaining such wonder-structures.
Considering how little of America's electricity in currently generated by oil - $100/bbl crude will have a much larger impact on the use of biodiesel than solar.
Who needs NASA anyways.. give that money to Paul Allen and I'll have a place in the moon by time i retire. We dont need orbital geeks
What with the coming militarization of space we won't need people in space anyway so there's no mission, is there?
Inertia I = integral r^2 dm
Yeah, right.
Provided you live in Japan, China, or the EU.
It's only here in the third-world nation of the USA that it's a problem.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Great; more off-shoring.
At this rate in 15 years it will be Off-Earthing!
We need to start modding people down for having these damn "free Ipod" signatures! This guy is way too excessive.
The DaVinci project (one of the Ansari competitors) are going to hoist their rocket out of the thick part of the atmosphere via balloon.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
The answer is: Yes, we're supposed to feel some sympathy for people who spend their lives training for an extraordinary and meaningful experience, but who may not see their dream fulfilled.
Bah. They can return to being a test pilot or something if they want excitment. At least they've got a job and can eat.
I wonder how sorry they feel for me for spending years in college back in the mid 90's only to be sitting at a crappy cube with no view and working on crappy projects with crappy bosses and TPS reports. I can fully relate to "same shit, different day" and can even extend it to "same shit, different company." At least I've got a job, and can eat.
Here is a tip. Draw as much self worth out of your job as you want, but have a backup plan in case it doesn't work out like a story book. Make sure you've got a family or at least someone to love, so you're life won't be a total pile of shit just because your career didn't work out perfectly.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
NASA is a dinosaur, let it die., they cant do anything right and every thing they do costs 100 times more than it would in the private sector. why not get rid of nasa entirely, and simply say, i need x payloads delivered into z orbits with y% safety factor. the cheapest company to bid for it gets the contract, and at that point shoot any government employee that tries to interfere with private enterprise. if we operated in this manor we would colonize the moon by 2010
NASA has completly blown the chances for any average person to go into space (Space Ship One can take people in space for 20 million... imagine what could have happened if NASA actually invested billions into low cost civilian access to space, instead of providing corporate welfare to large aerospace companies).
So a few elite government employees will not be able to make it into space? Well, welcome to the world of the rest of us!
You can mark this a Troll, but this is not. Why should we feel bad about the ambitions of government employees that are supposed to be serving us? Especially when they have taken so much of our money, and failed us so badly?
Hey, the whole space program was a Democrat boondoggle(Kennedy-Johnson).
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
- From where I sit the Future is anything but bleak.
I already solved the LOOMING ASTEROID AND ICBM CRISES -http://tinyurl.com/45q26 and put it online for all the WORLD to read. A full discussion of my engine -within the limits of confidentiality- are here: http://tinyurl.com/4mlo4 Proper preference is being given to America's companies. Just don't wait too long. I have other fish to fry besides this.Chemical propulsion engines are not efficient enough for solar system exploration. They may be good for puting sattelites on the orbit, but certanly not usable for manned exploration of the solar system. Flying nuclear reactor with hydrogen used as reactive body is dangerous. But still it is possible to assemble it on orbit and start it from there (or from moon). In my opinion a greater obstacle, besides engineering efforts, is the radiation emitted by Sun. It will probably make it very hard to maintain chain reaction bellow critical point. Shielding with lead probably will solve that, though.
History's more complex than the stuff we're fed on the evening news. Kennedy's hardly my favorite president -- I think his recklessness with the Bay of Pigs was just about as stupid as Bush II's Iraq blunder, and let's hope Iraq doesn't lead to something on the scale of the Missile Crisis -- but he chose the space program shrewdly, partly because it was a good crossover issue hand-in-hand with his "missile gap" militarism.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Here's a tip back: Putting yourself in other people's shoes isn't a waste or a nuisance, it's a strength.
I'm never going to go on the Lewis and Clark expedition, but having some sympathy for Meriwether Lewis, or understanding the guy a little, isn't going to make my life any poorer. Not even at this distance in time.
Spending energy resenting astronauts for wanting to do something amazing, though -- now that'll only leave you diminished.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Okay. I'm not sure why that means we shouldn't sympathize.
We sympathize with amputees coming back from Iraq, don't we? They knew they were joining the military. (If they joined under Bush II, they sure should've known what that meant, too.) Somehow putting myself in other people's shoes has never seemed like a waste of energy -- whereas resenting people who aspire to something seems like it'll only diminish everyone involved.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.