This is where I’m supposed to cobble together some title that clues you in to what you’re about to read. Just so happens, you’re SOL. ;-)

As a kid, I recollect lying in bed one evening and thinking that nothing was something… that there was absolutely no such thing as “no thing” because “thing” was something, and that a void, or chasm were things which also existed because there was something before and after, and which may have surrounded the same void or chasm. I reasoned further, that the existence of a void, or chasm could only be identified first by the presence of another thing which was opposite. Those thoughts I had long before I’d heard of the names of the world’s great philosophers, or even read any of their thoughts. My questioning led me to suppose that, when I met the Almighty – I still aspire to that Beatific Vision – I would ask Him, “Where did you come from?”

For quite some time, I have also shared that we understand the things we do not now understand by comparing them to the things we do understand. We analogize. It was fascinating – indeed exciting – to recently hear a scientific researcher – an astrophysicist – say almost verbatim the exact same thing.

In much the same way, we use our brains to understand.

NASA Announces Deep Space Exploration Vehicle

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, at podium, is flanked by Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, Bill Nelson, D-Fla., John Boozman, R-Ark., Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, and Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., as he speaks about the design of a new Space Launch System during a press conference, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011, at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington. The new system will take the agency’s astronauts farther into space than ever before, create high-quality jobs here at home, and provide the cornerstone for America’s future human space exploration efforts. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers) photo via Flickr

Deep Space Exploration Vehicle Announcement (201109140003HQ)

See more: NASA HQ photo on Flickr

Contrary to what some have claimed, said or asserted, America’s space program is not dead. The Deep Space Exploration Vehicle will take manned spaceflight further and deeper into outer space than any previous program.

We have been extremely fortunate to have had the Space Shuttle program to last as long as it did. It went well beyond it’s projected life expectancy. And while in a very real way it did not provide the hoped-for benefit of cost savings – it was a phenomenally expensive program to operate – it did provide useful service to continue space exploration,

Q: Why is NASA retiring the Space Shuttle?

A: Because President George W. Bush wanted it that way.

Seriously.

No joking.

AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein wrote an interesting Q & A style column about the shuttles’ retirement, which was published Fri May 13, 6:01 pm ET.

His article – which offers an explanation – follows below.

WASHINGTON – As the space shuttle program winds down, questions are flying about what’s happening and why. The launch countdown began Friday for the second-to-last flight. Some answers about the end of the space shuttle:

Q: Why are the shuttles retiring?