“Embrace the end of human spaceflight!”

“let us sit upon the ground. And tell sad stories of the death of kings” – Richard II, Act III, Scene 2 The nearly simultaneous 50th anniversary of the beginning of human spaceflight and the forthcoming end of the Space Shuttle program has philosophical members of the chattering classes making the rounds to thumb their [...]

Yuri's Night in Space, 2011: Party on, dudes!
“let us sit upon the ground. And tell sad stories of the death of kings” – Richard II, Act III, Scene 2

The nearly simultaneous 50th anniversary of the beginning of human spaceflight and the forthcoming end of the Space Shuttle program has philosophical members of the chattering classes making the rounds to thumb their noses or hawk their wares, waxing poetic over historical ironies, wasted opportunities and dollars, and damn near exhausting Roget’s Thesaurus searching for words to express their innermost profound thoughts about space exploration.
Case in point: in a vacuous piece at Salon.com, Michael Lind invites us to “embrace” the end of human spaceflight. It was all just a ghastly mistake, don’t you see? Anyway, robots can do all the science and there’s no need to extend humanity into space because ...