Monday, November 16, 2009

"The Penultimate Journey to Shore Up the International Space Station"

Really. Some public relations weenie at NASA wrote that, some pointy-haired manager approved that, and some jerkwater announcer read it. It comes about 1:45 into this video of the launch. Then, a minute later, the clown at the mike says something about the crew "kicking off their work week with a Monday commute to orbit."



Can you imagine the NASA folks in the 1960s saying some crap like that about an Apollo moonshot? I can't.

NASA, just STFU. Really. Shut up.


The Shuttle is carrying about 13 tons of stuff and six astronauts to the ISS. That's pretty spectacular enough without having to dress it up with "let's reach for the thesaurus and find adjectives we haven't used" type of writing.

Oh, and one last slam: Rockets do not "go uphill", you fucking morons.
on or about

3 comments:

  1. Sarah11/16/2009 9:33 PM

    Yeah. Sigh. They try to make it all workmanlike & ordinary and kill the wonder. A simple "godspeed Atlantis" would be better.

    I hereby vow to attend the ultimate shuttle launch. I've never seen one, and it'll be a long long time until the next one.


    She packed my bags last night pre-flight
    Zero hour nine a.m.
    And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then
    I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
    It's lonely out in space
    On such a timeless flight
    And I think it's gonna be a long long time
    Till touch down brings me round again to find
    I'm not the man they think I am at home
    Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
    Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone
    Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
    In fact it's cold as hell
    And there's no one there to raise them if you did
    And all this science I don't understand
    It's just my job five days a week
    A rocket man, a rocket man
    And I think it's gonna be a long long time...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eck!11/17/2009 7:56 AM

    It's that kind of blather that give everyone the impression this is simple and safe.. Theres a million pounds of high explosive if things go wrong under them. It's still dangerous and has real risk. with that kind of crud speak if something bad happens everyone has forgotten those that do it are taking serious risk for science and exploration.

    Just dumb really dumb.

    Eck!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cujo35911/17/2009 6:20 PM

    Classic NASA-speak was understated, and I agree that's how it works best. It's actually exciting that the ISS is big enough now to accommodate six crew plus the shuttle. That's more than we've ever had before, I think.

    ReplyDelete

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