today in retromania world, here's the latest...


1/ CNN this morning

DISCOVERY'S FINAL FLIGHT
Discovery being delivered to Smithsonian today

Talking head on loss of "inspiration" that came from the Apollo program and Shuttle program, driving thousands of bright young minds into science and math

"one of the great concerns, with the inspiration of the shuttle gone now: is there going to be a lag, a downturn in people going into the sciences?"

meanwhile, in the adjacent room, my son, oblivious to this historic event, is tap tap tapping away on the computer (my computer, actually)... it means nothing to him, not just the Shuttle Program (why would it? it's barely been active during his lifetime), but the concept of Outer Space, the Final Frontier

he's enmeshed in a different space -- neither Outer Space nor Inner Space -- but the spaces of social media, online games, etcetera

thing is, the Space Shuttle is kinda boring... CNN have gone to town with uninterrupted coverage of the Last Flight (from NASA to Washington, "its final home") (MSNBC mostly ignores the story in favor of Romney Veep speculation and so forth)... the footage of what is basically an obese aircraft trundling through the sky just isn't that compelling or impressive.. it never was spectacular enough, the Shuttle, to capture anybody's imagination

and now the Shuttle shuffles off to its final resting place, a museum ... and I don't think my son would even know what the word "shuttle" referred to, if his attention could even be wrested away from his tap-tap-tap


2/ NECRO-RETRO

now talking about a new frontier for something or other... Is this not marrow-chilling?