Category: Space Exploration

The June 30, 2011 print edition of the Economist magazine had an interesting cover story about manned spaceflight, saying that the last launch of the U.S. Space Shuttle marked the end of the Space Age as we have come to know it. It’s a legitimate position, despite the continued development of launch capability in China and India. The Space Shuttle Atlantis atop the solid rocket boosters lifts off into space. Rocket launches formed part of the backdrop of my entire life, so it’s a little disconcerting to think that it all may end soon, but I have to admit the authors make many good points. There is no longer a cold war to drive spending, and there doesn’t appear to be any commercially viable incentive to dump billions of dollars into the capability to put people a couple of hundred miles above the surface of the Earth. Space tourism has…