Hail, Atlantis!

My friend Scott writes from Florida this morning, "Well, it was cloudy and we could only see it for a few seconds but we did see her launch. Heard the liftoff about 5 minutes after that."

To which my friend Donna, in Connecticut responded, "Terrific, Scott! I am envious."

And with that, the space shuttle Atlantis took off this morning on it's last voyage.   I was listening in to launch coverage on my radio on the way to work, rather sad that I couldn't at least watch it on TV.

It seems incredible to think that 30 years has passed since we watched in wonder as the first shuttle launched.  I had the tee-shirt (still do): A Space Ship Has Landed On Earth, It Came From Rockwell.

Do you remember the name of the first shuttle?  Wait, it wasn't Columbia!  The first shuttle was named Enterprise.  That was the prototype and the test vehicle that started the program.

Back in the early 1980s, I heard author Robert Heinlein give a marvelous presentation about the historic name "Enterprise" and why it was totally appropriate, beyond Star Trek terms, to name the first shuttle that.  The very first ship Enterprise was built by the U.S. Navy and launched to fight the war of 1812!  There have been several Enterprises in the fleet since then.

Shuttle Columbia was first launched on April 12, 1981

Columbia was the first of the working shuttles, followed by Challenger (1983), Discovery (1984), Atlantis (1985) and Endeavor (1992).

I was in 3rd grade when John Glenn orbited the earth.  I remember the teachers bringing in a TV to the classroom - unheard of! - so we could watch the coverage.  It was incredible to me, and still is.  In 1969, when man first walked on the moon, I was in Norway, watching on TV with my grandfather.  I was in college for Apollo 13, and I remember vividly praying for those men whose lives hung in the balance so far away, up in space.  I was on an island in the north sea when the Challenger disaster occurred.  I wept for those who were lost on that sad occasion and for their families.  I remember a Norwegian colleague asking why I should care.  "You didn't know them personally", she argued.  I disagreed with her then and still do.  They were American Heroes to me, and I have always felt personally connected to their exploits.

I've seen the shuttle landings near Vandenburg in California, and in Alamagordo, New Mexico.  I've collected flight patches, and my Face has flown in Space (thank you NASA!). 

My friend Jill writes:  "I just watched a look back at the US space program and it makes me sad that politics can just end exploration."

I agree.  The benefits of the U.S. space program have been considerable.  As someone once said, we don't spend money "in space", there's nowhere there to spend it - those dollars are spent giving jobs to many hundreds and thousands of Americans in all walks of life, from manufacturing to janitorial work and everything in between and beyond.

Spin-off technology from the space program has been amazing, from miniaturization of electrical components, solid state technology, and the very PC or laptop you are reading this from: our lives have been affected in some profound ways by the space program.

To now have to rely on other nations to give us a lift up into orbit in the future just grates on me!  So, what happens when we need to fix something up there?  (He who rules space... rules!  Have we learned nothing from science fiction movies?  Heh, heh.)

I sure hope, when the Atlantis lands safely, this won't really mark the end of the U.S. space program.  I just can't bring myself to believe that our President and Congress can be that stupid.

But I've been wrong before.