Back to the Future

When I was a kid, space travel was the future, the stuff of science fiction. No, I'm not THAT old. I don't pre-date Sputnik. But when I was little, man was just taking his first steps in space, orbiting, leaving the capsule, docking. By the time I was ten, Neil Armstrong was stepping out on the moon...which many scientists had confidently assured us not too many years earlier was absolutely impossible.

The space shuttle Disvovery launched successfully this morning, as shown in this AP photo. I wish this crew, and all future space explorers, the best of luck.

The truth is, I'm never really surprised when a space mission goes badly, even disastrously wrong like the shuttle disasters. Space travel is inherently very, very dangerous. The machinery, the mission planning, is very, very complex. I'm actually surprised at how many missions don't end in disaster.