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Random Ramjet Ramblings

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The Artemis I mission occurred 50 years after Apollo 17. What will it take to not have this happen again?

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-THE TRENCH-

The space exploration advocacy website of Roger Balettie, former Flight Dynamics Officer in NASA’s Space Shuttle Mission Control Center.

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FLIGHT DYNAMICS OFFICER

The Flight Dynamics Officer (FDO, pronounced “fido”) is a Flight Controller in the Mission Control Center responsible for the overall trajectory, or flight path, of the Space Shuttle and all related payloads or other space-bound vehicles associated with the Shuttle.

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MISSION CONTROL

"Houston… Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Since 1965, the Mission Control Center (MCC) has been the nerve center for America’s manned space program.

-THE TRENCH- blog

Space- and NASA-based blog entries.

Last 3 blog posts:
50 Years

50 Years

The Artemis I mission occurred 50 years after Apollo 17. What will it take to not have this happen again?

Countdown

Countdown

It’s been 40 years since the launch of STS-1, and the excitement of that day never faded.

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

by Feb 22, 2013

I came across this video…  and between the visuals and Will Geer reading an abridged version of Walt Whitman’s classic poem “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”, it really struck a solid chord with me.

 

 

One passage, in particular, stood out:

Pioneers! O pioneers!

 

Has the night descended?

 

Did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?

 

Not for us the tame enjoyment,

 

Pioneers! O pioneers!

 

Has the night descended?  Have we stopped our manned exploration of space?

One might say we’ve actually stopped since the last Apollo mission in 1972…  others might point to the end of the Space Shuttle Program with no viable follow-on… and others might point out that we are VERY MUCH still exploring through various programs today (ISS is still operational, SpaceX and other commercial ventures are starting to hit their strides, etc) that are paving the way to the future.

I think that, looking at the current state of manned spaceflight in the US at the moment, we are definitely teetering on a knife’s edge.

Which way will we fall?  How will we land?

Pioneers, O pioneers?

 

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