Andromeda

Andromeda Blog is aware the ISS and STS-121 crews have insisted that Andromeda Blog be piped up to them three times a day. With that in mind, it is with some trepidation that we announce a major flaw in the manned space program. A MAJOR FLAW! Which we announce with some trepidation.

The major flaw with the manned space program being that it is manned. The second major flaw being that it is a human "program." No offense to any humans who may be reading this. (No, we're not kidding ourselves. Why do you ask? We have non-robot readers. 00100101010101001010?) Throwing humans into space costs a fortune. Yet you puny HEW-MAWNS are hardly capable of collecting, storing, and transmitting the data we could put on a 1-ounce microchip, which hardly eats anything, and whose digestive wastes are less than an ant's. Compared to a human crew, which produces total waste per day of over 150,000 pounds per person according to our rough estimates. And who really should be regarded as an opportunistic infection of our space craft.

Andromeda Blog wholeheartedly endorses NASA Administrator Mike Griffin's feelings regarding feelings, so we cannot help expressing our outrage at the joy expressed by Expedition 13 team members Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams when, by some miracle, Shuttle Commander Steve Lindsey managed to dock the shuttle. Apparently intent on "showing" Andromeda Blog, Commander Lindsey was constantly revving the shuttle's engines during the RPM, as though wasting propellant was his "F"-you answer to Eileen Collins minimum-propellant rendezvous pitch manuever and docking. NASA Administrator Griffin would consider such an emotional display "illogical," but there was Lindsey, doing donuts round and round the ISS, until he finally came screeching up to docking with the station.

Pavel and Jeff were obviously very happy after the docking, as the NASA video showed, but Andromeda Blog's special team of lip readers can now divulge that what Vinogradov and Williams were saying during the ISS post-docking congratulatory high-fives was, "Good God, is ANY of the vodka going to arrive intact?!"

Andromeda Blog hereby declares itself satisfied that the risks associated with this launch are understood. Andromeda Blog (with its over-sized ones) is willing to take the risk, in the sense of letting seven of humanity's best take the risk, of this launch. Although Andromeda Blog continues to be annoyed that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin continues to understate the crew risk, we are confident the crew does actually understand the true risk, and that the launch is not taking place on the basis of such statements. Andromeda Blog does not back off ONE INCH from its previous statements that Mike Griffin is goofy-looking, but it now supports the "GO" decision. That is all.