Ringing in Hope for the New Year

This is the last day of 2008. Tomorrow starts a new year 2009 and come January 20, 2009 we get a new President. The swearing in takes place at noon. It is like changing of the guards. I am counting the days until it is here. Meantime, before 2008 comes to a close NASA slips in the report about what happened to Columbia and her crew the last final moments of their lives. According to the report the crew was doomed. Their space suits weren't pressurized. The trauma of loosing control of their ship breaking up killed them. I don't know if it brings closure to the families after six years. I would believe the families would have moved on with their lives. If I were in the position of a family member, I would feel lots of hurt to know or see in writing my family member had suffered at the end of the flight. The television had the husband of one of the crew believing his wife didn't suffer at the end. I hope he can hold on to this thought to give him some peace. NASA thinks they can learn from this report when the shuttle program is going to shut down in 2010. The time to fix the problem is not after the accident. The time to act is before the tragedy. One good thing has come is an inspection of the body for damage after the astronauts arrive in space. If there were a serious problem, the shuttle could dock with the space station until a rescue shuttle was sent up to take the astronauts home. The Orion project doesn't sound much better. This is suppose to be the replacement for the shuttle. It is a return to the rockets of the late sixties and early seventies. I don't know if they want to recapture the glories of the past flights, but times have changed and NASA is behind in changing with them. I believe the spaceships should look more like the ones you see on television. There should be teams of engineers figuring new ways to propel the ship from earth to the moon and beyond. Space flight may need to rely more on Nuclear energy. It may also need to harness solar light and solar radiation. There should be lots more research done on growing plant life in space. Does growing plant life in space alter the genetic makeup of the plant? Can solar plant nurseries be a thriving businesses in Africa? Can solar energy be used to run a plant that converts salt water to fresh water? Can a whole line of these plants be started along the Coast of Africa? If these plants were successful, could this change the desert terrain to usable farm land? I believe we as a nation are in the infant stages of space exploring. We have not made use of all of our talents to improve world conditions. The economy can only improve through job growth. Job growth comes when people have a reason to explore uncharted growth areas. I would rather see the people improvement area be explored verses the people destruction area which is the building of killing devices which brings no resolution to war. The war on poverty is more important than the war on who is right or who is wrong. This is my hope for the coming year and beyond.