The Space Shuttle Discovery is wrapping up its final mission, and this morning the crew was awakened by none other than William Shatner, putting a new twist on the “Star Trek” opening-theme voiceover:
When I heard this on CNN, it gave me goose bumps. I kid you not. (NERD!!!)
We need warp drive already. All the Space Shuttle ever did was go up and fly in circles around the Earth. I think they always go in the same direction too. It’s like space NASCAR.
Hmm, you bring up a good point, I wonder if all man made stuff in space goes the same direction.. It would stand to reason that it probably would, but I don’t know for sure.
In ten years, Shatner will be doing his PRICE-LINE NEGOTIATOR! shtick selling the cheapest human spaceflight tickets around!
Casey and dcl – if you consider being in orbit to be going in the same direction, then, for a given orbiting object, it is true …
Strictly speaking, nothing in orbit continues in the same direction – each such object’s vector is continuously changing …
(grin)
That depends on your inertial reference frame, and view on the shape of space…