Posthuman Blues

I've written briefly about today's loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia:

This morning a friend called to let me know that the space shuttle Columbia had disintegrated before a scheduled landing. Somehow, this news came as more of a punch in the face than when I learned of the terrorist attacks of 2001. Flawed and short-sighted as it is, NASA is a uniquely American institution capable of doing truly awe-inspiring things given the budget and initiative. The recent announcement of Project Prometheus, a long-overdue effort to use nuclear energy in space in the peaceful pursuit of knowledge, is an example.

Columbia's disintegration is a profound loss that raises important questions about the future of our already tenuous manned presence in space. It could be argued that better technology could have prevented this setback; the shuttle program utilizes laughably obsolete craft that properly belong in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. The loss of the Columbia's crew is a monumental waste of human potential that transcends national boundaries. The seven astronauts killed in the mishap were humanity's envoys, avatars of our inherent exploratory spirit. We badly need more people like them.

The demise of the Columbia and its crew shouldn't hold us back. Their death should be a rallying call for new, more efficient and more reliable space transportation systems. The space shuttle concept, as presently manifested by NASA, begs replacement. The time has surely come to broaden our conception of space and the definition of our role in its uncompromising vastness.

Perhaps I'm being foolishly optimistic about this. The loss of Columbia was a grotesque blow. But maybe NASA needs a grotesque blow to wake it up to the fact that it's using risky hardware and getting very little in return. The shuttle program is largely a charade, a manned spaceflight program in permanent standby mode. Yes, it's better than nothing at all, but now we're seeing how fragile it really is.

This could be a chance to introduce a real reusable shuttle instead of the cumbersome, wasteful, horribly inefficient mutation we call the Space Shuttle. But will we rise to the challenge or revert to the status quo?

Let's continue to expand, establishing permanent beachheads in the sky, never holding back for the sake of bureaucratic whim or political myopia.

See the Cydonian Imperative.