Ad astra per aspera

I have just finished watching a documentary on the BBC I Player called Nasa triumph and tragedy details Nasa’s finest hours and its greatest disasters in there voyage of exploration though the stars. After watching this the title of my this blog entry seemed fitting ” Ad astra per aspera” which translate as “a rough road leads to the stars”

The Shuttle program has been running for nearly 30 years with over 110 successful missions which has greatly improved science and our our understanding of not only ourselves and the universe.

However as the program suggests with great triumph there is also great tragedy. Nasa has lost 2 shuttles the Challenger and the Columbia

Challenger was lost with all 12 crewmembers when an o- ring failure in the left hand booster caused with an explosion 73 seconds into lift off.

Columba was destroyed with all 7 crewmembers when a hole was punctured in the leading edge on one of Columbia’s wings, made of a carbon-carbon composite. The hole had formed when a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier and struck the shuttle’s wing. During the intense heat of re-entry hot gases penetrated the interior of the wing, destroying the support structure and causing the rest of the shuttle to break apart.

The shuttle’s final crew was honoured in 2003 when the USGS’s Board of Geographic Names approved the name Columbia Point for a 13,980′ mountain in Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains, less than a half-mile away lies Challenger Point, a peak named for America’s other lost shuttle. The Columbia Hills on Mars were also named in honour of the crew, and a host of other memorials were dedicated in various forms.

Fans of the original Star Trek television series were largely responsible for NASA naming the first Space Shuttle Enterprise. In the television series Star Trek: Enterprise both the first and second starships of the human-built NX-Class were named in honour of pre-existing NASA space shuttles. The second starship’s name was first revealed in the season 3 episode “E²” to be Columbia, in honour of the space shuttle Columbia following its destruction on February 1, 2003. Uniforms worn by crewmembers serving on this starship bore a patch similar to that on the uniforms worn by the space shuttle Columbia crewmembers, with 7 individual stars visible. Stars are often used on NASA mission insignias to represent the number of crewmembers.

Cleary there is great risk in what Nasa is doing however everyone in the documentary and others that I have seen all seem to say the same thing. Accidents will happen in a business as dangerous as threes and risk must be taken to make the trip to the final frontier. They must keep flying not only to make these new exciting discoveries, but to remember those that have fallen and as a dedication plaque to the tragedy for Apollo 1 Reads

“In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice so others could reach for the stars; Ad astra per aspera (a rough road leads to the stars); God speed to the crew of Apollo 1”

As I am writing this, there are 9 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes and 50 seconds until the space shuttle endeavour launches to service the International Space Station in what is the first of the last 8 shuttle missions before the new generation of vehicle takes over the exploration of space. Clearly this is just the beginning of this brave step into space.

Let’s take a moment to remember all that was lost and make sure those brave people did not die in vain

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Memories

Tonite i spoke to the one who i know now a lot of people didnt like down here and everyone seems to have this impression that i was unhappy the whole time . i know i wasnt. In that 2 years i had some of the best times of my life …. and i also had some of my worse. However it is important to rerember the good times but its also very important that you dont hold on to it , other wise u will se the future fly passed you while ur lookin into the past. A quote i have jsut read on facebook seems fitting

“Dont look back and grieve over the past , For it has already gone & do not be troubled about the future for it has not come yet . Live in the present & make it something that  will be worth remebering

I loved her , however we were not right for each other and she is now much happier now

everything happens for a reason

Anyway here is another poem that i wrote , please feel free to comment. It is entitled ” the ultimate betrayal”

When I look back at what we used to be
The happy times we had
The good times we shared
We were together
Friends forever
Those were the good times
But then there was the betrayal
The hatred
The lies
We tore ourselves apart
And each other with us
We hurt the people we were supposed to protect
We hurt the people we were supposed to love
For that I will never forgive
Nor will I forget

Inspirations and Introductions

Me

After Reading the brilliant Joseph Mallozzis webblog ( http://www.josephmallozzi.wordpress.com )and then my talanted friend Suey Robinsons blog at ( http://www.slrobinson.blogspot.com) i decided to give this a try. im not sure how sucsessful i am going to be with this but lets see were it takes us.

I had what was hopefully my last bloodtest today so hopefully i should now be competly better , il find out the results on thursday. I was slighty late getting up beacuse i was talking to David Read ( gateworld.net ) and he gave me loads of great advice about reporting and journalism.

I will be slowly posting some of the stuff that i write on here so heres the first poem

The Eyes of the world

Look towards the stars

for there in the great heavens

awaits our salvation

the one place

we can truly

be free

Comment and tell me what you think

The random moment of the day actually came from my very beatiful friend Joan Gale with the comment ” Im about as subtle as jesus in woolworths” it did make me chuckle.

Joan Gale

Much love people xoxo