The nonsensical ponderings of Eric Frisch...

Well, once again the space shuttle Discovery has carried several of our own into the skies for a couple of weeks.  I know, I'm a couple of days late (the shuttle launched on the 4th), but it came to my mind just now and I decided it was worth writing about.

It doesn't surprise me that humanity is so fascinated with space travel.  After all, other than the very deepest depths of the oceans, we've pretty much been everywhere we could go on our own planet... must be time to check out other one's right?  I think it's a natural human instinct: the desire to explore, to discover, to uncover new surprises.  Space is the logical place to go at this point.  Even so, the risks associated with space travel are so frightening...  The shuttle launch had to be delayed twice because of rainy weather.  It takes absolutely perfect conditions to launch.  They almost didn't launch it on Tuesday either, because of a small piece of foam that had fallen off of the external fuel tank.  It still amazes me that a tiny 3 inch piece of foam can be such a hazard for a machine that can handle reentry into the Earth's atmosphere!  Currently the astronauts are on the International Space Station, bringing supplies and leaving one of their crew there to work on the station for a period of time.

I'm not opposed to the idea of space travel... but I won't deny that it scares the heck out of me.  Pray for our astronauts, they truly have one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs on Earth (or, in this case, off of it!)