End of Days

It has been fascinating to chart the final days of an icon of capitalist success since its heyday in the 1980s. It seems a shame to close it down but, despite how much we might disagree with them, presumably those in charge must have had their reasons. Yes, we can point fingers and name names as much as we like but the fact is that the space shuttle programme is over and, when Atlantis returns to Earth, that will be that.

Embarrassingly blatant fake-out introductions aside, the end of the space shuttle provides an interesting contrast to the constant march of technology. Regardless of the nostalgia it manages to produce in those of us of a certain age, the simple fact is that at its introduction the shuttle was presented as a new dawn in space travel; a renewable, re-usable spacecraft. One would have thought that it would set the standard for decades to come but instead it has gone the way of that other 80s icon, Betamax. Like Betamax, and minidiscs in this century, the shuttle was an apparently superior technology that was simply left behind by a cheaper, possibly more versatile alternative: whether VHS, MP3s or, in this case, robotics.

It seems that, despite the efforts to promote space tourism, unmanned or at least automated flight will become the norm for a lot of space travel. This makes perfect business sense: there is less expense, less risk to life and limb and, considering the resources used up in your average trip not a huge difference in environmental friendliness despite vehicles becoming one-shot items. However, like in technology it also proves that it can be very risky to put all your eggs in one basket. New methods of exploiting technology are appearing all the time: however, it can be purely a matter of guesswork as to which will become as ubiquitous as a PlayStation and which will be the next Atari Jaguar. While it can be difficult to predict which competing technology will become successful in the future, at some point a decision needs to be made. Based on the examples above, that would seem to be simple: go for the cheap option.