Space Shuttle - An Era is Over

Confession. Over the years, I have taken the Space Shuttle Program for granted. The Shuttle would take off and would land without much fanfare and exuberance unlike the pioneers of the space exploration in the 1960's. Of course there was excitement when the Shuttle Program finally got off of the ground (pardon the pun) with great success in the 1980's. But like most of you, I remember the shocking stuff. I vividly remember when tragedy struck the Challenger's take-off in 1986 and Columbia's descent in 2003. But other than that, Space Shuttle endeavors (pardon the pun, once again) were routine and somewhat mundane. I was surprised when I recently learned that including today's final mission, the Space Shuttle Program had 135 flights into space. Pretty impressive.


I have always had a curiosity about space exploration, not because of man's first walk on the moon but because I grew up in Santa Maria, a small town located on the central coast of California and also, in close proximity to Vandenberg Air Force Base. Vandenberg AFB is where many test missiles were (and still are) launched from and at one time VAFB was preparing itself to be a host for Shuttle landings (or launches, can't remember). Challenger's spectacular but startling fall from the sky changed the Shuttle program, putting an end to Vandenberg's Shuttle future. As a young girl, I remember seeing contrails from missiles launched or even brilliant colors when a missile would explode. My mother, somewhat embarrassed, confessed the first time she saw the after effects of a missile explosion she thought it was the end of the world. She didn't have a clue what had created the heavenly spectrum of prism like colors bursting and blending and swirling in the sky. I never thought to ask her how she reacted ~ screaming, pulling at her hair, fainting? or what she had expected .... the apocalyptic ending as told in the Book of Revelation or the Orson Well's, War of the World's senecio.

So tonight, just before midnight as I watched Atlantis touched down in Florida, I felt a lump forming in my throat. Why this attachment to something I have basically ignored all of these years. Could it be nostalgia? I have had family members associated with VAFB and most notably, my mother's husband, Martin, who was the historian at VAFB keeping record of all activity at the base. Martin, would enrapture my eldest son, Gabe, with stories about the Space Shuttle often accompanying these tales with glossy photos of the shuttle in lift-off or floating weightlessly in space. Maybe it's these memories of Gabe or Martin who sparked this brief moment of loss I felt as we say goodbye to an era in time when humankind could be propelled from earth beyond our atmosphere into space and come back as if flying in a commercial aircraft. Which stirs another memory I must share before closing. When Gabe was a young boy, he and his brother Jacob were playing out in the front yard of our home in Santa Maria. Their father and I were in the house when all of a sudden the boys burst through the front door. Typical of my sons but something obviously had them amped. Breathlessly, they spit out the words "the Space Shuttle is up in the sky". We laughed unbelieving them as they pulled us out by our arms into the bright sun. We heard a roar of engines above us. Could it be? Yes! There was the Space Shuttle piggyback on a Boeing 747 flying low right above our house. It was a spectacular and magical sight, a moment of visual exaltation heightened by the excitement of two young boys.


Today, it is all history. Goodbye Space Shuttle, goodbye NASA, goodbye ground control, goodbye heroes and heroines of space exploration. Goodbye to the dream of a young President who never witness his vision for America. In reality, it was a mission accomplished, but what seemed like a beginning, should have never been an end.