I have strong feelings of sympathy for Kim Keller. His job as a "pad rat"
is extremely cool. Insensitive people like me talk about what a white
elephant the ISS is and naturally Kim defends it. The ISS and the Shuttle
are what makes the pad rats jobs so fantastic and also pays for their
groceries. I know if I was a pad rat, I would be vigorously defending the
importance of the ISS and Shuttle. However there is painful irony here. Kim
Keller and the rest of the Kennedy ground support people have been ripped off
by the Shuttle and ISS. Instead of fooling with the Shuttle's 1970s technology
they should be doing ground support work on state-of-the-art fully reusable
launch vehicles. Instead of wasting their efforts on the ground supporting
ISS they should be in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on board a "floating dry dock"
doing support work for manned interplanetary spacecraft to Mars and the Moon.
Kim, if the system wasn't so fouled up, you would be in LEO right now helping
Mars colonists acclimate to zero gravity and assisting them onto transfer
vehicles. You have been ripped off, big time.
Gary
Space/Science » in reply to NASA spolight: a thought
Sympathy for Kim Keller