Steemians, lend me your eyes! The final frontier may be explored after all.
When NASA shut down the Space Shuttle Program in 2011, I felt defeated somehow. No terror attack or natural disaster has had such a viscerally emotional effect on me, but that did. I felt like one of my greatest dreams for humanity had reached its choke-point, and would never be realized. I felt like it was a sign that we had simply given up.
Then Elon Musk broke into private sector space exploration with his company SpaceX. Although a fan of Tesla, Musk's charisma and power made me skeptical. His vision and ambition seemed either heroically Icarin or like the trademark of a nascent super-villain. I had little hope, little optimism, and assumed it must be the latter. Since then, he has largely won me over, though the pessimist in me is still waiting for him to pull the rug out from under me and reveal some hideously nefarious ulterior motive.
This is not my photograph but I wished to provide a little imagery for the sake of reading this post. I used the Wikipedia article for this image and to verify facts that I may have needed to clarify.
SpaceX flawlessly executed the CRS-8 Dragon Mission launch, successfully sending the Dragon spacecraft into a rendezvous path with the International Space Station, while simultaneously returning their Falcon 9 first stage rocket to a drone-ship called "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic ocean, where it can be recovered and reused. This is the first time that a rocket of this magnitude and sophistication has been returned for reuse, and that technology alone makes space exploration markedly more feasible. The entire process (minus the transit time of the Dragon capsule itself to the ISS) took approximately 15 minutes. 15 minutes that mark the apex of human achievement in the field of space aviation and exploration. I watched the launch, listened to the crowd of scientists and technicians cheering at the success of each stage of the mission, saw the Falcon 9 rocket gracefully touch down on a remote operated ship in the deep sea, watched the Merlin Vacuum Engine on the rear of the Dragon spacecraft glow, and watched the speed of the craft tick over into 10,000 km/h, the altitude climb past 200 kilometers. As someone that does not get too caught up on things wildly out of my control, it was relieving to see everything safe and sound.
The Falcon 9 sent a Thiacom satellite into space for the purposes of increasing television connectivity in Thailand on May 27th. This further proves the soundness of the SpaceX program and their potential reliability as a contender in providing technology for space exploration. As a Star Trek fan, I have been hoping that the pissing contest of the Cold War would not be the United States' extraterrestrial peak and am (at least for now) glad for SpaceX and Elon Musk.
Not my photograph. Found on cinemablend for the purposes of hilarity and showing my support.
I want this so much to work. For so many reasons that I cannot even list them here, I want this to work. I know that it may not. I know that it will come with costs, and unforeseen challenges, and political and economic abuses, and everything that industry brings, but I want it so much. I want it to work, and I want it to be good for us as a species.
Elon Musk, you stand to become one of the most powerful people who has ever lived. If you achieve that height, know that I, and many others, are depending on your benevolence. Keep doing what you’re doing, and as it comes more and more to rule over the economy and mobility of our species, please be kind.
Truly,
H
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