Last night

I was at a meeting of amateur astronomers which is held annually in advance of the local astronomy day. The featured speakers were Tony Freemantle and Mike Tolson, both reporters with the Houston Chronicle. Since this was a meeting of people with an interest in astronomy and space, their talk dealt with the series of articles they had written after the Columbia disaster. I didn't read these articles, so I have no way to critique what they did. But, I was struck by the deep pessimism that both these guys have for NASA and the so called NASA vision. At the same time I was confused by the inconsistent things they said. Tolson said he believed NASA had lost it's vision and there was no constituency for manned space flight; indeed no constituency for space exploration at all. On the other hand, Freemantle said they had polled the public and found that over 80% of the public supported manned space flight.

I personally take a dim view of much of the media's reporting nowadays. But in this case, it was not "investigative" reporting as such so they probably did the best job they could under the circumstances.

But even with the dim view they project for the future of space flight in this country, I do not believe the U.S. will ever give up the space program. NASA has accomplished astounding things and yes, there has been loss of life. Many are advocating that we give up manned space flight completely.

So here's a question: How many lives were lost in the exploration of our planet. The answer is in the thousands. If Columbus or Magellan had just stayed home, where would the world be today. The flame of human spirit may be sputtering but it will never be extinguished.