SpaceX successfully launched their Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. With all due respect to Burt Rutan and the folks at Scaled Composites, this is a much more significant event, as putting a craft into orbit and successfully recovering it is a much more difficult task than a sub-orbital hop.
What is interesting to me is that the next flight is scheduled for 12 April 2011, which will be the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned flight and the thirtieth anniversary of the first flight of the space shuttle.
It's hard to believe that it's been thirty years for the shuttle. Many of my coworkers weren't even born when it first flew, yet for me it seems to be only a moment. What's even harder (and more painful) to believe is that it only took twenty years to go from Vostok 1 to Columbia, but that the last thirty years has taken us from Columbia to soon to be nothing at all.
The darkness of space is nothing more than the veil of willful ignorance. How many of today's engineers and scientists were inspired by watching those early launches? What will inspire the builders of the future?
For Elon Musk and his crew, I congratulate and thank you. In your honor, I think that I'll break open my copy of Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon.
Godspeed, Falcon.
11 December 2010
Tradition
I think that most sporting traditions are over-hyped. You hear all the time about how the rivalry between team X and team Y is one of the greatest in sports and then the teams switch conferences and it's no longer so important. Alternately, one team could go into the tank for a decade, which puts a damper on the enthusiasm. Finally, (and let's face it) sports is a business and business does what business must.
One of the few sporting traditions that I truly support is the Army-Navy football game. This isn't because of the great players or the quality of play; for the most part neither school attracts the best players and neither is likely to challenge for whatever passes as the national championship. Nor is it because of the importance of the game; nothing of any real meaning will be decided on the field.
Instead, it is a great tradition precisely because it is a trivial event. When the United States is at war, many of the young men on the field will face opponents for whom the stakes are literally life and death very soon. They will have the opportunity to make critical decisions that could alter the fate of nations and they will be commanding dozens and then hundreds of other young men and women. But for one day each winter, all of this lies far ahead of them and all that matters for the hundred or so men on each team and the few thousand of their fellows in the stands is winning a football game.
How could any sporting event have a greater tradition than that?
One of the few sporting traditions that I truly support is the Army-Navy football game. This isn't because of the great players or the quality of play; for the most part neither school attracts the best players and neither is likely to challenge for whatever passes as the national championship. Nor is it because of the importance of the game; nothing of any real meaning will be decided on the field.
Instead, it is a great tradition precisely because it is a trivial event. When the United States is at war, many of the young men on the field will face opponents for whom the stakes are literally life and death very soon. They will have the opportunity to make critical decisions that could alter the fate of nations and they will be commanding dozens and then hundreds of other young men and women. But for one day each winter, all of this lies far ahead of them and all that matters for the hundred or so men on each team and the few thousand of their fellows in the stands is winning a football game.
How could any sporting event have a greater tradition than that?
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