That afternoon I watched a live TV broadcast of something I still think of as magnificent. The first manned launch of the Space Shuttle. I was gobsmacked. This was the single most grandiose thing I had ever seen NASA do. A reusable orbiter that landed like an airplane on re-entry??? Oh my god!!! And it worked wonderfully. I even remember the first flight test with the non-orbital model, the Enterprise. Totally cool name. And yes, I was one of the loonies who, in the early mid-70's, wrote a letter to NASA requesting that they name it that. Ahh, to go where no man has gone before...
These five things were awe inspiring. Gas guzzlers, yes, but mind blowing at the same time. They were instrumental in building the largest orbiting space station in our species history. Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Endeavour and Discovery set records, changed us in ways hard to imagine and made us look at space in a whole new way. These things were capable of taking a school bus into orbit, for god's sake.
I watched the explosion of the Challenger launch on live broadcast in 1986. I watched as Columbia tumbled to Earth in pieces in 2003 over 5 states upon re-entry. Both noble challenges gone horridly wrong for all of the wrong reasons.
Today I watched the launch of the Atlantis. The very last of the shuttle launches. Ever. Our "birds" are gone. Forever. Now just destined to be museum pieces on display. After just a little more than 30 years of service they are obsolete. I know the feeling... With hundreds of millions of miles under their wings. 133 missions. 777 astronauts. My god, Ladies, I salute you!!!
Atlantis, come home safe. You have served us well...
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