Aug 7, 2011

Posted by in NASA, current, featured

Americans continue to fly in space

Burbank to fly, and other American astronauts will follow.

Yeah, I’m not too happy about it. The United States has no capability to send people into space. The Chinese can do it. The Russians can do it. But America can’t.

Nevertheless, Americans continue to fly in space. Current, two of our astronauts are aboard the International Space Station: Ron Garan (who happens to be of Russian descent) and Mike Fossum. More will follow.

The next American to fly will be Daniel Burbank. on Expedition 29. His launch (aboard a Soyuz in October) will be Burbank’s third trip into space. So, as disappointing as the situation of our space agency is, with budget woes and vague plans, we are not (yet) out of the business of sending people into space…even if they do have to hitch a ride.

 

  • Volker

    Yes, I am also not too thrilled about our sabbatical on manned space flight, but I am not too concerned about it either. Most people seem to have forgotten: between the last flight of an Apollo space ship in 1975 and the first flight of the shuttle in 1981, there were six years without a single American in space, and nobody thought anything bad about it.
    During those six years, the Soviet Union conducted 21 manned flights and hosted Cosmonauts from eight partner nations on board their almost permanently manned space stations. And still, I don’t remember anybody thinking of America “loosing the space race.”

    Another thing not to forget: Human space flights are just one part of space exploration. In the weeks since the last landing of the space shuttle, DAWN was inserted into an orbit around Vesta, EPOXI send amazing pictures of comet Hartle 2, OPPORTUNITY completed its 20th mile on the plains of Mars and JUNO was sent on its way to Jupiter. We are still a force to reckon with!