The Top 40

I thought the same thing while visiting Kansas City. My hometown is quickly becoming Detroit. They built a Museum of Jazz right next to the famous Blue Room night club, where my father used to perform, where a lot of jazz greats have performed. Even though it is still operating as a jazz club, they built a museum around it, like Jazz is a relic. Walking through the funhouse mazes that make up this sorry exhibit of political correctness (apparently ISLAM had the greatest influence on JAZZ in America which is bullshit.) I felt like maybe Jazz is dead. Culture is dead. Only things that are dead and gone are put in museums.
As I left, I saw my father's name on the list of Jazz Hall of Fame inductees for the year 1997.
He isn't even dead, although almost everyone of the other inductees is. I guess they belong in a museum, then.
It is so sad to see the space program die...I mean, museumed like this. The Future - a relic of the past. My God, we are Eloi, after all.

It struck me as just plain sad. Those were space ships once. Now they're trophies for the politically well connected. NASA piddles around with climate change and outreach to worthless muslims while our astronauts have to beg a ride from the Russians. This is not the future we were promised. It's the future of a diminished America-

exactly what the communists wanted; and it's exactly what we have.

JWM

Commenting only on the spectacle of the loaded Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in flight: As a lifelong connoisseur of aircraft, it is the most impressive thing I've seen flying. One thing that might surpass it is a launch of a Saturn V or a Shuttle, if you are close enough to feel the noise. I went to college in Daytona and saw some launches near the Cap and many from Daytona. But the time I remember most was riding to the Cape to watch the SCA bringing back a Shuttle from Edwards. Awesome.

Sure, it may also look like a funeral.
But it might also look like the birth of something new. Such as space tourism may truely begin now. Is it like Gen Washington transferring his authority to the people? Or like when they carried Joseph's bones finally out of Egypt? Their work was accomplished.
I never quite got around to getting that test pilot idea off the ground. Now, there is a dream revived that I just might get the chance to ride the stars, perhaps with my grandkids.
Go private sector. Fly, you fools! I'm not getting any younger.

Bringing the shuttle program to an end was one of the few times that Bush actually did something about reducing government spending. He dramatically increased government spending in other areas but I will give him credit for reducing spending by cutting the shuttle program.

RPF has the better of the argument, folks. It's long since time for NASA to get out of the way and let the private sector take over.

The best days of space exploration and, ultimately, settlement are ahead of us.

Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's Republic of Maryland

I saw it as Bam and Pelosi giving us the shuttle finger. Goodbye dreams.