Celebrating American Ingenuity
George Savage ·
September 22, 2012 at 4:19am
This morning I was pulling out of my office parking lot on the San Francisco Peninsula, intent on getting to a meeting on the other side of the bay, when I slammed on the brakes, mesmerized as a stunning example of American ingenuity literally (H/T Joe Biden) paraded past my windshield at low altitude, a lone F-16 in trail.
Endeavour is entering retirement and the space shuttle program is no more, but we should always remember that, as Paul Ryan likes to say, "We can do this."
Let's do it again.
After we correct course on November 6th.
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Comments:
Mar '11
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
Great photo. Was also set to camp out yesterday morning by the GG Bridge but the one-day delay and work this morning put a crimp in things.
Wait until October and it starts making it's way through the streets of LA. It'll be a long slow parade, albeit without the marching bands, cheerleaders, and those small shriner cars zipping around.
Four independent carriers connected together controlled by a man walking alongside moving a small joystick.
May '10
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
At home in Oakland this morning, I heard the jet going over and knew what it was. I went to the window and watched Endeavour and its escort fly low and slow over Highland Hospital, right in front of me. A thrilling moment of national pride at what we were once able to do, mixed with a niggling sense of loss and consternation that manned spaceflight made in the USA is no more, at least for now.
May '12
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
I'm more a fan of SpaceX and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y6ZMscMp8UM
That and the makeshift adapter the ground crew of Apollo 13 had to cobble together after the oxygen tank blew out and the crew of three had to retreat to a lander designed for 2.
I like the Space Shuttle and all, but, well it just doesn't appeal to me the way a home-made balloon sent up by a family to the upper stratosphere to take pictures of the trip (and the cooler adapted to ensure the camera and iPhone landed back on Earth safely) does.
Sorry.
Aug '12
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
After seeing the same thing done in DC in July, I can only feel this is a parading of Americas past by our government. There is no replacement is this administration for the shuttle, and NASA has become a Muslim outreach beurocracy. So you can see this act in two ways; one the O administration is saying this is the end of American arrogance, another can say that this is the end of the governement research into space exploration and time for the next step.
I'm happy to see that private industry is the future of space exploration, with companies going sub-orbital for a price. I can only hope the a new administration and governement will get out of the way and allow it to happen.
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
Here's what it looked like over Venice Beach, CA (h/t Stanley Kubrick).
Jan '11
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
Endeavor's flight over my daughter's school was a moment of joy. Children applauded, cheered and grinned in delight and it just wasn't because of noon dismissal. I'm hoping Endeavor, Space X, Virgin Galactic, etc. inspire them as Apollo inspired me when I was a little girl. Maybe the flight was a parade of the past, but I'm betting against it. I saw those children.
Jun '11
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
The shuttles are the legacy of a program that became a welfare program for engineers and technicians. Too much money wasted on a fancy orbiter meant too little spent on exploration by man or machine.
I'm glad they were built, but I'm not sad to see them go.
Edited on September 22, 2012 at 1:15pmMay '12
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
I think SpaceX et alia will inspire children. Because they were started by people on their own looking to prosper off the endeavors, not a government trying to catch up with the Russians.
Apr '12
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
Tax money well spent? It certainly made me think America was the place to go if you wanted to be an engineer. The way Americans shared their space program with the world was exceptional.
If Obama is needing a reminder of American exceptionalism, sharing NASA and its work with the world was just one of the many on my very long list. Has any other country been as open and joyful about their space work? No. Has any other country inspired young people to find joy in space?
My younger son has been working all week on a computer simulation to build a rocket ship. He had to catapult the space ship around the earth, made it to the moon and back. This computer program is American and he has been researching the original moon landings and how the rockets were designed. All of that is posted on the Internet, also American and shared with the world.
Sep '11
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
While the shuttle is impressive, you're looking at what? A thirty-year-old shuttle design mounted on top of a forty-year-old airplane design?
Far more pervasive in its influence on the entire world is a far more innovative technology: GPS. And the most transformative of all, of course, the Internet Protocol.
May '10
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
In Mountain View, where I watched it, George, it was escorted by an F-15. In my opinion, a handsomer airplane.
John Murdoch is right. The US Department of Defense's NAVSTAR Global Positioning System is the greatest technological achievement of the last several centuries in terms of elegance, sophistication, a technical function. It is unbelievably impressive, and there is more to know about GPS than any one man can learn in a lifetime. But it's hard to top the IP in influence.
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
Mark Wilson: In Mountain View, where I watched it, George, it was escorted by an F-15. In my opinion, a handsomer airplane.
John Murdoch is right. The US Department of Defense's NAVSTAR Global Positioning System is the greatest technological achievement of the last several centuries in terms of elegance, sophistication, a technical function. It is unbelievably impressive, and there is more to know about GPS than any one man can learn in a lifetime. But it's hard to top the IP in influence. · 7 minutes ago
Mark, it's hard to believe I could confuse an F-15 for an F-16--I once walked around one of each side-by-side in the same hangar and the size difference alone is striking--but anything is possible, especially when taken by surprise with Endeavour overhead.
I agree that GPS is a much bigger deal from a change-the-world perspective. But can we agree that there is something suitably audacious about the shuttle that captures the imagination and just shouts AMERICAN?
Edited on September 22, 2012 at 8:52pmMay '10
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
George, I respect your opinion, and I know and love the kind of audacity you're talking about, but I have never been excited about the space shuttle. Maybe it's because for someone born in 1983, the shuttle seemed a little dated by the time I was old enough to appreciate it. And during my lifetime it has only represented technological stagnation. The shuttle program, with its upper limit at LEO, seemed like a step backward from the more audacious escape missions that took men to the moon before it. I admit my reaction to it is mostly emotional, and I definitely don't fault anyone for admiring the shuttle program.
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
Great point. We should have replaced the shuttle with something better a long while back.
I am counting on President Romney to turn the economy around and put the brewing debt crisis on a glide-path to resolution, then we can get back into the manned space business in a big way.
May '12
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
It won't be under President Romney, and not even under President Ryan, but the day will come when a company reaches out for that solid gold asteroid - and not for the bullion but for the most malleable and electronically conductive material capable of forming the visor for an astronaut's helmet.
A company. Not a government.
George Savage
Great point. We should have replaced the shuttle with something better a long while back.
I am counting on President Romney to turn the economy around and put the brewing debt crisis on a glide-path to resolution, then we can get back into the manned space business in a big way. · 29 minutes ago
Jan '12
Re: Celebrating American Ingenuity
The future is robotic for a hundred years or more.