True story; as of 5.30pm today (American time) the era of manned space expeditions will essentially come to an end, along with the hopes and dreams of virtually every single man, woman and child who ever watched Star Trek, read Issac Assimov or, you know, had an imagination.
God Damnit! How am I supposed to explore the stars now? I’ve had my heart set on a swirling little plot of blistering gas-maelstrom for years now. I’ve been saving! I was going to buy space-horses…
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| And after all this practice holding my breath |
The final manned shuttle, named Atlantis, will jet off from Cape Canaveral amidst crowd of balling children, and with its return, will draw to an end thirty years of manned space travel. And the reason? Well, it seems we’ve pretty much run out of worthwhile planets to visit. We’ve put men on the moon, into a slowly spiraling, air-sealed death trap orbiting the globe, and we’ve dropped glorified RVs on two planets and another moon. We’ve pretty much gone everywhere we’re going to go anytime soon.
But do you know who hasn’t? Me, you flipping, NASA bastards! The best I’ve managed was an ill-conceived, prepubescent jump from a roof! I didn’t even get to wear a helmet!
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| This was never going to end well |
If this were a movie (and I’m still not convinced it’s not) something dramatic will happen. A portal will open or a strange, unidentified ship will appear. The astronauts will find signs of a mysterious passenger on the shuttle, or they will encounter duplicates of themselves drifting beyond the windows, beckoning to the crew to come out.
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| Eventually, Richard Dean Anderson will be called in to help |
Apparently the Russians will keep the International Space Station running for a few more years, until it is decommissioned in 2020, presumably because that’s how long it will take for the air to run out.
Read the original, depressing article here.
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