Thursday, July 21, 2011

The End



It's Over. The manned space program called the Space Shuttle has ended. Something that meant so much to generations of Americans has ended, and there is nothing comparable to take its place.

It's hard to express how frustrating that is for so many people who looked to the Space Program as a means to further all our horizons. Now that it is over -- well, let's be honest, manned space flight has been outsourced to Russia or commercialized as a thrill ride taking off from New Mexico -- what will expand our horizons now?

I don't have an answer, but the missions that might have been will be missed.

Farewell Atlantis Landing:



Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954): (probably the first space show I saw on teevee)



And a version of the grand docking scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, cobbled together from fragments of 1950's science fiction movies (including sequences of Willy Ley's famous rotating space wheel) set to the music of Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz. (Can't embed the actual scene from the Kubrick movie, but if you have a copy of it, go watch it.) What happened to the Future?



A link to Kubrick's master scene:

http://youtu.be/U8Q3X5Gw5I4


What ever happened to Pan Am Grip Shoes? What ever happened to Pan Am??!

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