(CNN) -- July 8 will mark the start of the final space shuttle mission and the end of an era, NASA announced Tuesday.[pauses for a moment of silence]The U.S. space agency announced the date for the final flight of Atlantis following a flight readiness review at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. If nothing delays the countdown, the shuttle would depart at 11:26 a.m.
The 12-day mission will be the 135th and final flight of the space shuttle program.
The first orbiter was launched in April, 1981 just shy of my 10th birthday. I watched launch after launch as a young child, then pre-teen, then teen. And Challenger happened. The program took a hit that January day, and some would argue that it never fully recovered, becoming little more than a way to launch satellites and deliver parts to the ISS.
For someone raised on Star Trek, Asimov, Heinlein, and Star Wars, the Space Shuttle program was the closest thing I could imagine to the Enterprise. Every young man (and, I would assume, young woman) dreams of breaking the earth's bonds and flying; for a very select few, they were able to escape even gravity's even pull.
Let's hope it's not another 30 years before we have a replacement.
That is all.
5 comments:
The good news is that there are lots and lots of private space companies with long term goals of getting to the moon.
One of them was started shortly after a man's young son said to him, "Daddy, is it true that men walked on the moon when you were a boy?"
He said that scared him, because Dark Ages happen when you forget how to do things. If I was in high school, I'd be studying aeronautics and engineering to score a spot on the moonbase.
Remember, the only reason that this Administration still launches rockets is so that they can put up more Satellites to "Prove" that Global Warming will kill us next Spring.
Besides, if the Chicoms can control the High Ground, then that'll be GOOD for the Planet. After all, the Anointed One's Foreign Policy is the Madeline Albright Doctrine: "It's not FAIR that the United States is the World's Only Superpower."
Heck, seeing how the test orbiter was called "Enterprise" and was sent off by almost all the cast of the original series (LOVE those leisure suits), the Star Trek reference is well-earned.
I'll miss the Shuttle, but the day of government-run space exploration is over: Time for private enterprise to take over.
Studying computer programming so I can work in a private space company. ;) I want to be an astronaut, but I have too many health and psychological issues...
That's a very good point about dark ages, wizardPC. Makes me wonder what we've already forgotten, and don't even know enough to realize it.
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