APOD 2.6

The APOD from the 17th of January shows the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis. The image and the description makes it seem as though space travel is simultaneously awe inspiring (it being space travel and all) and almost mundane (there is a launch about once a week). This situation is interesting to think about. We are at a comparable point with space travel that aviation was at in 1905, where people know the very basics of the technology, but few have experienced it, so it is still exciting, but not that mysterious. While this stage will probably last 50 to 100 years at the most, I doubt that space travel will ever reach the point of 2001, where one could sleep through a flight from Earth to a space-station in the L1 point between the Earth and Moon.