The sadness of Space

Venus passed between the Sun and the Earth this week.  This was widely publicized as a rare event that was a must see.  It was cloudy here on Tuesday.  With the vastness of the solar system, let alone the rest of the event horizon, every event is rare.
As a physical phenomenon, this was not very spectacular.  You can't look at the sun and see this (frankly, you can't look at the sun very long...).  And, the images of a spot on the sun are less than stellar, pun intended.  I realize people set alarms for all hours of the night to see other more mundane things in the sky.  For them, I'm sure this was thrilling.

In 1997, I will admit I traveled a great distance to see a partial solar eclipse.  Drive to Fort Lauderdale.    Fly to Puerto Rico.  Fly to Saint Thomas.  Boat to Saint Johns.  Camp two weeks on the beach.  There were obviously ulterior motives to this.  The wild donkey's were a nuisance but funny.  The other campers were a source of never ending entertainment.  Said one young vagrant to the other very late one night, "Dude, I'm just not used to drinking so much."
Pan Am went bankrupt while on the Island of Saint Johns.  The trip was a lot of fun.  The trip back not so much.

It is sad what has happened to the space program over the last few decades.  As a kid, I remember watching the first space shuttle launch in school and was mesmerized by many other launches.  I even had a model rocket in the shape of the space shuttle.  It was fairly heavy so not really the best flyer.  I painted it with what I had available, flat white house paint.  This finish may have been ugly, but was probably more realistic that a coat of pristine shiny enamel.

The NASA space program now is bipolar.  The manned space program is plagued with boredom.  The last several launches of the space shuttle seemed to be less about putting yet another ant farm from a middle school in Topeka into space (ho hum) and more about answering the question of whether the space shuttle will actually make it safely into and out of orbit.  The most critical mission was the backflip done to inspect the shuttle.  The space shuttle seemed to be more about discovering the limits of human fear over answering any scientific questions about space.
The unmanned program is more interesting.  The mars rovers were able to go places and do things humans are decades away from, if ever.  Some of the images from mars are captivating.  All of this is done with minimal risk to human life so more risk can be taken to achieve something more interesting.  It does not have the sophomoric glee of "astronauts," but that shouldn't be the goal of billions of dollars in research when little is accomplished.

In 2017, a full solar eclipse will be viewable within about 50 miles or so of where I am right now.  No risk of reentry.  No Pan Am.  With a bit of luck, I'll be able to make it.