We are called to open up the heavens

The funeral pyre of the crew of Columbia STS-107 streaked across the Texas sky like some horrible comet. In ancient times comets were considered to be a prelude to Earth-shaking events, the rise and fall of empires, or the birth and death of kings. What turns of history this tragedy will set in motion no one can predict. One can offer, though, some suggestions of what should be.

There should be no months-long orgy of self-doubt and recrimination. For one thing, the need to sustain our presence on board the international space station will not permit a grounding of the shuttle fleet for longer than a few months without horrific disruption to that program. The inevitable voices will use this tragedy as an excuse to end human space flight. They should not be heeded. Find the problem, fix it and then push on.

However, the loss of Columbia and her crew does illustrate with great urgency a problem in the area of access to space. The United States has only one vehicle, the space shuttle, as a means for carrying people to and from space. Building a replacement shuttle for Columbia is probably not a viable option. Even the tooling for building shuttles no longer exists, and replacing it would be an effort of years and billions of dollars.

This situation should not be allowed to continue. The nation should figure out how to expand our means of space travel in the most expeditious way possible.

While one idea along those lines will be to accelerate the development of the Orbital Space Plane, one hopes that commercial solutions will be pursued as well. Small companies such as Armadillo Aerospace and XCOR have been quietly and diligently working on the problem of space access. Let the genius of the private sector finally be brought to bear, to develop new and creative means of space travel. Thus, the cost of space travel can finally be brought down and its reliability enhanced.

Finally, there have been stories in the media about the intentions of the Bush administration to find great things for NASA to do, beyond just being a glorified space trucking company. The Bush administration has proposed a new research and development initiative called Project Prometheus. Prometheus will develop space-based nuclear power and nuclear-based deep space propulsion technologies. Just as the original Prometheus brought fire from heaven for humankind, Project Prometheus will harness the unimaginable energy of nuclear fire to open up the heavens for human civilization.

Project Prometheus should not be deferred while we find and fix the cause of the Columbia disaster. Prometheus should proceed with all due speed and diligence. While Robert Heinlein was right when he said when you get to low Earth orbit, you're half way to anywhere, nuclear power and propulsion is the key to get us the rest of the way.

The things that will become possible to do when these new technologies are in our grasp are breathtaking. Prometheus will allow astronauts and their robotic counterparts to cross interplanetary distances in weeks instead of months. It will facilitate the extraction of life-giving water from the lunar poles and comets. It will make possible the mining of resources from the moon and asteroids to spur a space-based industrial revolution. It will give power and light for people who will settle the high frontier of space.

Imagine if an asteroid, large enough to destroy all human life on the planet, were detected in a collision course with the Earth. Space nuclear power could be the tool that would divert that asteroid in time, saving human beings from suffering the fate of the dinosaurs.

The Bush administration and NASA already envision testing Prometheus with a probe to Jupiter that would orbit and examine each of the major Jovian moons one after the other. That's a good start. But space nuclear power and propulsion can also be used to send humans back to the Moon and on to Mars and to sustain them on those worlds for long stays.

Let this be the memorial for the crew of Columbia STS-107, as well as those of Challenger 51L and Apollo 1: a renewed purpose to open up the high frontier of space not just for the few, but for all people. If, within the lifetimes of most people reading this, human civilization will have expanded to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond, then these heroic hearts will have not given the last full measure of devotion in vain.

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Whittington is a writer and space policy analyst in Houston. He is the author of Children of Apollo.

Columbia: Sign in the Heavens

The imagery of the stars of heaven falling to earth (whole house of Israel, as represented by the two sticks of America and Israel) is a sign of the coming of Messiah.

Numbers 24:17 I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre [shevet, Shevat*] shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.

* February 1, 2003 = 29 Shevat 5763

The Pleiades [Kimah] were turned into doves...

Six Stars, Seven Sisters

>>>Their names are Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. They are the seven sisters. They are the Pleiades. Their mother is Pleione, the Oceanid. Their father is Atlas, one of the twelve Titans, supporting the world at arms length. That's according to the Greek Mythology, of course! But one day, a long time ago, it is said that the Pleiades were travelling with their mother when they met Orion, the mighty hunter. Orion immediately fell in love with the beautiful women and started chasing them. The chase lasted for several years until Zeus, the king of Heaven and Earth and of all the Olympian Gods, helped them escape by changing them into doves. The doves flew into the sky and became the stellar cluster we see today, the Pleiades, still beautiful at 20 million years old, laced with ice-blue glowing interstellar dust.<<<

http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/Media/NHN/pleiades.html

The Constellation Columba (from which the shuttle Columbia was named) was originally part of Canis Major, the dog which is at the heels of the mighty hunter [Esav].

About Columba

>>>Columbia, Noah's dove, was first formally published in 1679 by Royer. It appeared some 76 years earlier in Bayer's plate of Canis Major and in his text as recentioribus Columba. However, Columba did not appear in works by Bartsch, Brahe, Hevelius or even Flamsteed. The constellation refers to the dove released several times during the voyage after the great flood to find land; it was this dove that returned with an olive branch in its beak, indicating dry land had been found.

http://www.botproductions.com/stellar/columba.html

>>>And then there is the mystery which has puzzled humanity as long as mankind has gazed at the stars above. The mystery is why the KIMAH is called the Constellation of Seven Sisters, when only six stars are visible with the naked eye? Is it possible that one of the stars was a doubled star? Or, was it possible that before the flood, the constellation's six stars formed a seventh, the Cocav David or Star of David? If this Cocav David will again appear in the pre-dawn sky, what does it mean?...<<<

http://home.pe.net/~mjagee/procon653.html

This makes sense, if the seven stars ARE six plus a seventh - a star of David - and the Kimah were changed into doves, i.e. the seven stars of the constellation Columba ("dove"), represented by the Columbia astronauts.

Ilan Ramon = 387 = "the seventh" = 43 x 9

>>>The constellation Columba (the dove) was chosen to symbolize peace on Earth and the Space Shuttle Columbia. The seven stars also represent the mission crew members and honor the original astronauts who paved the way to make research in space possible.<<<

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-107/html/sts107-s-001.html

Ilan = "tree" (Daniel 4)

More pictures of six stars plus the Star of David here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/834511/posts

If this Cocav David will again appear in the pre-dawn sky, what does it mean?

Amateur tape shows what appears to be an object
breaking off Columbia over Arizona.

It means the rebirth of Israel, the Messianic age, and the symbols which Ilan Ramon took into the heavens represent everything he had hoped they would in a way he could not even imagine. Tu B'Shevat = the new year and planting of trees... Ilan ["tree"]! Tu B'Shevat spells tov shevet = shevet tov...

Psalms 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod [shevet, 7626] and thy staff they comfort me.

07626 shebet {shay'-bet}
from an unused root probably meaning to branch off; TWOT - 2314a; n m
AV - tribe 140, rod 34, sceptre 10, staff 2, misc 4; 190

1) rod, staff, branch, offshoot, club, sceptre, tribe
1a) rod, staff
1b) shaft (of spear, dart)
1c) club (of shepherd's implement)
1d) truncheon, sceptre (mark of authority)
1e) clan, tribe

7627
Sebat = "a rod"
1) 11th month in the post-exilic Jewish calendar corresponding to Jan or Feb

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