I grew up fascinated by our space program… in love with the idea of space exploration and the possibilities inherent in that notion. Star Trek was my grail, and the Apollo astronauts were the heroes of my day. The interest, and hero worship, waned over time… not incidentally as NASA's agenda was redirected from space exploration to near-earth exploitation (I don't mean that with any negative connotations… but as the shuttle system was intended to be a "space truck" to ferry goods and personnel from earth to orbit and back, exploitation seems the right word.)
So it is, perhaps, no surprise that I haven't paid anywhere near the kind of attention to NASA and our space program in recent years as I did growing up. I remember telling my mother (to my grandmother's great consternation) that I was staying up to watch the moon landing. I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing (in my truck, running late for class) when I heard the news about the Challenger explosion.
But I can't remember now if I even knew about the Columbia disintegrating minutes before landing in 2003. And I was stunned to learn, late last month, that today's Atlantis launch would be the end of NASA's shuttle program. (This, I know, puts me firmly in the 'part of the problem' end of the 'what happened to our space program' question… if the people that grew up fascinated by the space race can't generate interest in keeping up on NASA news, then why should we expect anyone else to care. Or, more importantly, continue to foot the bill.)
I picked up a copy of The Economist at the bookstore (yet another remnant of my childhood that seems on the verge of disappearing) this week, and they have a series of articles that do a fine job of discussing the end of this era. (The decidedly depressing — at least to a "space cadet" such as myself — "The end of the Space Age" and the somewhat less gloomy "Into the Sunset".) And I just watched video of this morning's liftoff (which, of course, looked like most every other shuttle liftoff on record), and so have almost completed my "due diligence" in marking this occasion.
There are many arguments to be made that it was well past time to end the shuttle program. The expense (obviously), the drain on NASA resources (not so obviously, but an interesting case is made for this in those above articles) and the general lack of interest and enthusiasm for the program once it stopped being about exploration and the notion of that grand adventure — pushing the boundaries of humankind, as it were — and became (ostensibly, and intentionally) a more "everyday" occurrence. (At least, that was the purported intent at the start of the shuttle program.) I understand these arguments, and can even hold out some hope that "all is not lost" for NASA and a future space program as I read these articles.
But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge today's launch, and the loss I feel at the end of this era.
So it is, perhaps, no surprise that I haven't paid anywhere near the kind of attention to NASA and our space program in recent years as I did growing up. I remember telling my mother (to my grandmother's great consternation) that I was staying up to watch the moon landing. I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing (in my truck, running late for class) when I heard the news about the Challenger explosion.
But I can't remember now if I even knew about the Columbia disintegrating minutes before landing in 2003. And I was stunned to learn, late last month, that today's Atlantis launch would be the end of NASA's shuttle program. (This, I know, puts me firmly in the 'part of the problem' end of the 'what happened to our space program' question… if the people that grew up fascinated by the space race can't generate interest in keeping up on NASA news, then why should we expect anyone else to care. Or, more importantly, continue to foot the bill.)
I picked up a copy of The Economist at the bookstore (yet another remnant of my childhood that seems on the verge of disappearing) this week, and they have a series of articles that do a fine job of discussing the end of this era. (The decidedly depressing — at least to a "space cadet" such as myself — "The end of the Space Age" and the somewhat less gloomy "Into the Sunset".) And I just watched video of this morning's liftoff (which, of course, looked like most every other shuttle liftoff on record), and so have almost completed my "due diligence" in marking this occasion.
There are many arguments to be made that it was well past time to end the shuttle program. The expense (obviously), the drain on NASA resources (not so obviously, but an interesting case is made for this in those above articles) and the general lack of interest and enthusiasm for the program once it stopped being about exploration and the notion of that grand adventure — pushing the boundaries of humankind, as it were — and became (ostensibly, and intentionally) a more "everyday" occurrence. (At least, that was the purported intent at the start of the shuttle program.) I understand these arguments, and can even hold out some hope that "all is not lost" for NASA and a future space program as I read these articles.
But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge today's launch, and the loss I feel at the end of this era.
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