Ok so I thought about writing about the village bringing donkeys back but that was to obvious. Then there was the one about the guy in Australia threatening everyone with a tv remote but I already wrote about a drunk person this week. Of course why not write about the new use for Viagra. No too many penis jokes to be made there. Why not a local story about the wandering emu on the interstate?. Well the story is entertaining, but it would be funnier had it not happened in my home state.

Then I stumbled upon an article about the space shuttle. I had forgotten all about the launch on Thursday. I had planned on watching it as I do have a desire to go into space one day, but after the delay last year I completely forgot about it and there was even less press about this one then before. Well I read the article and I was immediately drawn to one part in particular. Day 2: Crew to Check Atlantis for Damage

But first the crew of seven astronauts had to determine whether the shuttle was damaged by at least three pieces of foam or other debris that came off the fuel tank two minutes after Thursday’s liftoff.

Wait a minute, three pieces of foam came off during the liftoff? That means every shuttle launch since the major Shuttle Columbia tragedy has had pieces of foam fall off during liftoff. I thought they spent millions of dollars invesitigating the cause and developing a solution to prevent that from happening. And my tax money paid for it. Now I am not a rocket scientis but you give me $150 million and I will find a way to keep that from happening and make damn sure it works.

I do not know how much they spent on this problem (I am certain it is more then $150 million by now) but they have some of the smartest, best educated people on the planet or at least in the US working there and they can’t keep foam from falling off. Here’s a solution, get rid of the foam or put it on the inside of the tank. There. Problem solved. no need to spend more money. I will expect my check in 6 to 8 weeks.

Perhaps the Ansari X-Prize foundation should develop an X-Prize for keeping foam from falling off during lift off. Perhaps then an actual working solution will be found. Burt Rutan and Virgin Galatic seem to be able to launch into space with no extra pieces of foam falling off, granted they are launching a substantially smaller craft.

And don’t even get me started on the next wave of US space travel. Why are we reverting to an older technology? Sure the Apollo capsule was great and was reliable. There were still major problems with it. The space shuttle was a huge jump forward in technology and we should not allow them to just drop it like a brick. Take what you learned from the shuttle program, mix it up with the Apollo program and give us something better, not something backwards.

Stupid NASA.