Fourth of July Launches

I guess there are two major launches to discuss on this holiday.

First, the space shuttle Discovery had a successful launch. It shed a little foam on the way up, but that's to be expected. The foam desbris is a design issue that has existed since the first shuttle flight. If a piece had not hit Columbia in the wrong place, the public would never discussed it. Unfortunately, we all know what happened to Columbia. That leads us to the media circus we see today.

I watched FOX News yesterday before the launch. It was the Dayside program and it featured an astronaut on-hand to answer questions. Too bad the audience was only interested in asking the same question, over and over and over again. The post-launch press conference was basically a repeat of the same.

I'm not saying that the media doesn't have a right to ask these questions. However, I wish that they would communicate the history of this issue and provide a little bit of context. But then again, this is the same media that refused to engage in a legitimate debate during the buildup to the Iraq war...


The other big launch occured in North Korea today. That would be six launches, actually. I'd say that this sounds like bad news to me. It almost seems like North Korea was more of a serious issue than Saddam Hussein... Bummer.