{"id":7222,"date":"2011-07-08T10:26:57","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T17:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/?p=7222"},"modified":"2011-07-08T15:13:18","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T22:13:18","slug":"u-s-effectively-abandons-human-space-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/2011\/07\/08\/u-s-effectively-abandons-human-space-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Effectively Abandons Human Space Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2011\/07\/final-space-shuttle-launch\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7223\" title=\"Shuttle\" src=\"\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/Shuttle.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"345\" height=\"441\" srcset=\"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/Shuttle.jpg 345w, https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/Shuttle-234x300.jpg 234w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 345px) 100vw, 345px\" \/><\/a>So the United States today <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2011\/07\/final-space-shuttle-launch\/\">launched its last space shuttle mission ever<\/a>, leaving the task of supporting the International Space Station to Russia, a country ruled for all intents and purposes by a dictator.<\/p>\n<p>NASA, along with its international partners, apparently thought it would be a good idea to build a space station and then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/07\/08\/space-shuttle-launch-atlantis_n_893245.html\">retire its fleet of transport vehicles without any replacement in existence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In about a week, after the final shuttle flight lands, the United States will no longer have the technical ability to put a single human being into earth orbit.<\/p>\n<p>How&#8217;s that for leadership in technology and science?\u00a0 That&#8217;s your current president at work who was supposed to possess some magical form of science awareness.<\/p>\n<p>Onward presses NASA with its plan to privatize space station supply launches&#8230; sometime&#8230; perhaps&#8230; in the next five years.<\/p>\n<p>The shuttle was expensive to operate and sometimes dangerous, but it was a successful machine.\u00a0 No such thing exists now.\u00a0 Typically, when I&#8217;m ready to replace my automobile I go buy the new one first.\u00a0 Then I bring it home, park it in the driveway and think about how best to dispose of the old clunker.\u00a0 That&#8217;s how it works with me.\u00a0 I&#8217;m just sayin&#8217;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So the United States today launched its last space shuttle mission ever, leaving the task of supporting the International Space Station to Russia, a country ruled for all intents and purposes by a dictator. NASA, along with its international partners, apparently thought it would be a good idea to build a space station and then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1705,319],"tags":[1974,1973,184,398],"class_list":["post-7222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-travel","category-technology","tag-international-space-station","tag-launch","tag-nasa","tag-shuttle"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7222"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7231,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7222\/revisions\/7231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}