Teeing off over golf shot from the space station

Re “A Golf Shot to Be Hit Around the World,” March 9

If that’s the best that can be done with the International Space Station with taxpayer money, it’s time to turn off the lights and close the space station. To be fair, problems like this are not entirely NASA’s fault; significant blame goes to our elected representatives with stop-and-start funding and aimlessly wandering policy objectives.

If this is the best the United States can offer for space exploration initiatives, we’re in a bigger technological hole than most would care to imagine.

DAVID DUTRA

Tucson

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It was interesting to me as a high school physics teacher to read this story. Sir Isaac Newton had considered a cannonball shot from a mountaintop to describe how satellites might revolve around planets under the action of gravity.

He, of course, could not carry out his experiment about 350 years ago.

Maybe now is the time to honor his legacy and help connect students and ordinary people to the great scientist’s work and continuing effect on our lives. Instead of knowing him as someone who had an apple fall on his head, we can now remember him for a “thought experiment” that took centuries to come to reality.

MONALI KHANDAGLE

Van Nuys