The latest edition of John Brockman's EDGE explores the lives, characters, and work of the seven astronauts who died in last week's Space Shuttle crash. Excerpt from contributor Martin Rees:
I recall attending a lecture given, back in the 1960s, by John Glenn,
the first American to go into orbit. A questioner asked him what went
through his mind while he was crouched in the rocket nose-cone,
awaiting blastoff. He wryly replied "I was thinking that the rocket
had twenty thousand components, and each was made by the lowest
bidder".Glenn was aware of the risk he was taking-so surely, would have been
the astronauts who perished in Columbia. But their fate injects a
dose of reality: space travel is not a routine exercise. We need to
ask-as we do of any pioneering venture-whether the goals of manned
spaceflight are inspiring or valuable enough to justify the hazards
involved.
Contributors to date include Oliver Morton, Gregory Benford, George Dyson, Nicholas Humphey, Paul Davies, Martin Rees, Karl Sabbagh, and Piet Hut. Link Discuss
