Before the capsize of the Costa Concordia.

The worst part of all this is the captain’s refusal to return to the ship after abandoning it prior to all the passengers being evacuated.

Captain Schettino: It’s Capt. Schettino.

Port Authority: Schettino, listen to me, there are people trapped onboard, now you go back, you will go with your rescue boat under the stern of the ship, there are some steps, you climb those steps and you get onboard and you get back to me letting me know how many people are on board. Is that clear to you? I am actually recording this conversation captain.

[inaudible, captain mumbles]

PA: Speak in a loud voice.

Captain: So, the ship right now [inaudible]…

PA: Speak in a loud voice! Put your hand by the microphone to cover it and speak up! Is that clear?

Voices in the background: “Tell him to come here. Tell him to come here.”

Captain: So, right now the ship is tilted…

PA: I understand that. Listen to me, there are people that are getting off using the rope ladder on the stern side, you go back there and you go up that ladder the opposite way, you go onboard the ship and you tell me how many people [are there] And what they need. You tell me if there are children, women or people that need assistance and you give me a number for each one of these categories is that clear? Look Schettino, you may have saved yourself from the sea but will put you through a lot of trouble it will be very bad for you! Get back on board for [expletive]‘s sake!!!

Captain: Officer, please.

PA: There are no “pleases”! Get back on board! Please assure me that you are going back on board.

Captain: I am here on the rescue boat. I’m right here, I didn’t go anywhere else, I’m here.

PA: What are you doing captain?

Captain: I’m here to coordinate rescue operations.

PA: What are you coordinating? Get back on board and coordinate rescue operations from onboard the ship.

[silence, sound cuts out]

PA: Do you refuse to do that?

Captain: No, I’m not refusing to do that.

PA: Are you refusing to back on board?

Captain: No, I am not refusing to go back. I am not going because the other rescue boat stopped.

PA: Get back on board! This is an order! You don’t need to make any other assessment. You have declared that you have abandoned ship, therefore I’m in command. Get back on board right now is that clear?

Captain: Officer…

PA: Can you not hear me?

Captain: I’m getting back on board.

PA: Then go! And call me right away when you are on board. There’s my rescuer there.

Captain: Where is your rescuer?

PA: My rescuer is on the stern side, go! There are already bodies, Schettino! Go!

Captain: Officer how many bodies are there?

PA: I don’t know. I know about one… I’ve heard about one, but you must tell me! [expletive]!

Captain: Do you realize it’s dark out here and we can’t see anything?

PA: What do you want to do ? Do you want to go home? It’s dark so you want to go home? Get on the stern of that ship climb the ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people are there and what they need. Right now!

Captain: I’m here with my second officer.

[Schettino identifies second officer.]

PA: You and your second officer must get back on board right now is that clear?

Captain: I just wanted to tell you that the other rescue boat here with other rescuers stopped. It’s just stopped. Now I’ve called the other rescuers.

PA: You’ve been telling me the same thing for an hour now get back on board! On board! And you get back to me right away telling me how many people are there.

Captain: It’s fine officer, I’m going.

PA: Then go, right now!

[A second recording appears to show the another conversation between Schettino and the Port Authority:]

Captain: I have spoken with the company, and there seem to be some people still onboard, possibly about one hundred.

PA: And you can’t even give me a precise number? You say “there seem to be”?

Captain: Well, we were carrying out evacuation procedures, but now all the officers have gathered on the rescue boat with me.”

PA: Where are you guys? All on the reascue boat? Excuse me, earlier you told me you where with one colleague only — now all the officers are there?

Captain: Yes, there’s me, my second officer, and…

PA: If the officers were able to get down there, it means they were still able to move…

Captain: Indeed, now…

PA: Then why are they not going back on board to see what the situation is like and then tell us about it, thank you? Send them on board! Send someone on board to coordinate!

Captain: Now it’s not…

PA: “Send someone back on board!

Captain: I am coordinating…

PA: I am giving you an order, Captain. You must send someone onboard!

Captain: We are going on board to coordinate ourselves…

PA: Exactly! You must go onboard to coordinate the disembarking! Is that clear?

Captain: But we can no longer get on board now, the ship has sunk completely.

PA: Why did you allow them to get off, Captain?

Captain: I didn’t… We abandoned ship.

PA: And with 100 people still on board you abandon ship? [expletive]

Captain: I didn’t abandon any ship… because the ship turned on its side quickly and we were catapulted into the water.

PA: We’ll clarify later what actually happened… for now tell me everything that goes on, everything! Place yourself under the ship with your rescue boat and don’t leave.

Captain: We’re here. We’re here.

The final Space Shuttle launch took place yesterday and it broke my heart. Billions of dollars spent futilely in Iraq, but we abandon the Space Program and Russia, China, India, and private corporations assume the reins.

I grew up watching the U.S. become the world leader in Space. Gemini, Mercury, Apollo, the Shuttle Program. Watching the grainy black-and-white image downstairs in the living room as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1968. Everything seemed possible then.

I also remember the tragedies, and exactly where I was when each of them happened; Grissom, Chaffee, and White dying on the pad during a test of Apollo 1. The awful day when Challenger blew up, Columbia disintegrating on re-entry.

But as John Kennedy said at Rice University in 1962: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” He may have been talking specifically about the moon, but his words sum up the entire space program, and why the United States took the lead in Space Exploration.

How is it that a mere half-century later we can abandon this great vision? To sacrifice the quest for space on the alter of budgetary concern?

I love Reddit.