{"id":810,"date":"2008-04-11T09:12:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-11T09:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/2008\/04\/11\/we-still-choose-to-go\/"},"modified":"2008-04-11T09:12:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-11T09:12:00","slug":"we-still-choose-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/2008\/04\/11\/we-still-choose-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"We Still Choose To Go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Taking a short break from reporting on weather and virtual worlds:<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yurisnight.net\/\" target=\"_new\">Yuri&#8217;s Night<\/a>, the anniversary of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vostok_1\" target=\"_new\">first human spaceflight<\/a>, and of the first space flight of the Shuttle. Forty-seven years ago, a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yuri_Gagarin\" target=\"_new\">Soviet cosmonaut<\/a> took mankind&#8217;s first step toward the final frontier. Twenty-seven years ago, the American space program began our <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Space_Shuttle_program\" target=\"_new\">first experiment with reusable spacecraft<\/a>. On April 12th we celebrate a milestone which will stand as long as we reach for the stars.<\/p>\n<p>There are Yuri&#8217;s Night parties in Richmond, DC, and the Raleigh area, and more all over the world &#8211; even in <a href=\"http:\/\/zones.extropiacore.net\/yurisnight\/index.php\" target=\"_new\">Second Life<\/a>! The Yuri&#8217;s Night <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yurisnight.net\/\" target=\"_new\">website<\/a> has plenty of information about the celebrations, including a chance to win a ride on <a href=\"http:\/\/yurisnighthouston.net\/#raffle\" target=\"_new\">G-Force One<\/a>, a plane that performs weightless simulation flights.<\/p>\n<p>Our space exploration efforts have faltered in recent years, but mankind hasn&#8217;t given up; whether it be aboard an <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Orion_%28spacecraft%29\" target=\"_new\">Orion capsule<\/a>, a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soyuz_spacecraft\" target=\"_new\">Soyuz spacecraft<\/a>, or a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scaled_Composites_SpaceShipTwo\" target=\"_new\">Rutan spaceplane<\/a>, a steadily-increasing number of us will have the chance to see the world from above, and dip their toes in the vast sea of stars that awaits the human race.<\/p>\n<p><b>EDIT:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/jameshroberts.livejournal.com\/\" class=\"lj-user\">jameshroberts<\/a> correctly points out that our robotic exploration efforts are remarkably successful; it&#8217;s just the manned side which has faltered somewhat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking a short break from reporting on weather and virtual worlds: Tomorrow is Yuri&#8217;s Night, the anniversary of the first human spaceflight, and of the first space flight of the Shuttle. Forty-seven years ago, a Soviet cosmonaut took mankind&#8217;s first step toward the final frontier. Twenty-seven years ago, the American space program began our first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,33,23,18],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-parties","tag-philosophy","tag-space","tag-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1xCb9-d4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gatocasa.com\/unimat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}