Space, the Final Frontier
The world spins on with or without us. And the passage of time, is often bittersweet. As I age, I’m finding all kinds of new and wonderful experiences, but I’m also seeing things that were important to me slipping away. One of those “things” is the space exploration program at NASA. I grew up during the race to the moon and I remember vividly planning our lives around the television coverage of those space launches. It was miraculous, death-defying and sometimes (as with Gus Grissom and crew) horrifying. But it was America at its best. A new frontier—begun before Gene Roddenberry even hit the airwaves.
So it has been with a certain amount of sadness that I have watched the end of the space shuttle program. And particularly the last ‘voyages’ of the Discovery and the Enterprise as they moved across the country to their final destinations—the Smithsonian and the Air and Space Museum respectively. [image error]
Last week my husband had gone downstairs at his office to get a coffee and was standing with a small group of employees watching as the Discovery, piggy-backed on top of a specially outfitted 747, landed in DC. He’s feeling all sentimental. Remembering the events of the past decades. While two of the men watching with him were having their own conversation. It went (and I’m paraphrasing) something like this:
Guy one. “What’s that? Two planes together?”
Guy two. “The top one is the Challenger that went to the moon.”
[image error]Dude needed some serious history lessons. But of course, the point is that the space race and all that it inspired is in fact now history! So where were you when they landed on the moon? When Challenger blew up? When they first talked to us from the space station? How do you feel about the end of the space shuttle program?
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I couldn't agree more. I grew up in Central Florida with my family's beach of choice being Cape Canaveral National Seashore. The road to it boardered right next to the launch pads. I was hopelessly lost in my imagination that I would be the first female space shuttle pilot. I studied and made my parents take me to the Kennedy Space Center every chance I could. When the Challenger disaster happened I was devestated. Even though my life took different turns away from my dream, I still imagined being weightless and watching the earth spin in front of me. The Columbia disaster made me cry that they were so close to home...You are not alone in feeling tenderhearted...I was unable to catch a glimpse of the shuttle riding piggyback, as it had numerous times before, into Washington. This chapter of the space program is done, but I truly hope this is not the end of our exploration in space.
