The end of the Space Shuttle program was announced years ago. The last shuttle took off and landed last year. Yet the reality of it’s departure from space is only starting to set in. I wanted to take a few moments to share my memories and bid it farewell.
I’m not sure if you know this about me, though I am a nostalgic guy. I am a lover of history in general. So any history that has occurred on my watch holds a special place in my heart. While I was born a decade too late to see the landing on the moon, NASA was only a few years out from the Apollo program when I was a youngster. The Space Shuttle was the new cool thing when I was a kid. The James Bond movie Moonraker glamorized the shuttles in a magical way that only the Roger Moore Bond could do. It was the promise of a new age when space planes could leave the atmosphere and dock at the space stations that were promised in the movie 2001 and re-enter the atmosphere and land at an airport. The new world seemed bright!
There was more at play, of course. The shuttles were a symbol of our dominance in the exploration of space. In elementary school, we looked to them as if they were fighting the Cold War alone, even though I was among very few kids in my class who knew what the Cold War was (yet we all hated the Russians), and the Challenger explosion was especially tragic. The footage played over and over again and I had a hard time understanding it, as any youngster does, though after a while it sunk in. When my mom got teary-eyed, I was teary-eyed. I recall the moment of silence that we held for the Challenger in school. While most of us kids looked around at each other with half-closed eyes, the symbolism was not lost on us. This moment changed our nation.
While it turned out to be a bad O-ring that caused the explosion to happen, I remember the report on TV. I never forgot the inefficiency of government that occurred, yet I also asked my mom about the company that sold NASA the defective O-rings. She told me nothing would happen, she was right. The media’s talk of government waste soon followed (as a youngster, I should point out, I was unusually fascinated with the news). The companies that ripped off the government, I thought, and even told a few friends on the playground, should be punished (I should also point out that I had some pretty smart friends in elementary school, though our interest in the issues of the day was an inch deep and a mile wide). None of us had any idea what we were talking about, though we were angry about the Challenger explosion.
Regardless of the Challenger, the shuttles remained cool. Everything was called a shuttle and it was cool because of that, or so they said. Yet the thing that made it the coolest to us kids was time off from doing math and social studies. Every time the space shuttles would land or take-off during school time, we were hauled into the auditorium to watch the event on a large wood panel TV that sat atop a metal cart on caster wheels. I’ll never forget the time a yogurt commercial displayed a young boy’s bottom in the “nothing on the bottom” campaign and the whole auditorium erupting in silly laughter. Our teacher remarked, “everything is funnier in the auditorium”. To be honest, the fairly dull footage of the shuttle in the distance slowly getting bigger and eventually landing, only to wait 20 minutes for the astronauts to come out was so dry that a yogurt commercial was a welcome relief.
Though we loved the shuttles. We were just kids. Watching a plane land was cool and all but we wanted to play and have fun. Not that we were ungrateful for being out of class. Hell, I remember when the teachers started to get antsy and wanted to return to class, at least one student always tried their hardest, in their most sincere voice to say, “the astronauts are getting ready to come out, we should stay”. Nice try, that was almost always the sign that we had to return to class. The collective oawwwhh would erupt and it was back to class we went, despite the fact that some of the “cool classes” would get to stay a little longer.
In junior high and high school, I remember very little about the space shuttles. We all knew that we were masters of the universe so who cares I suppose. Though Junior High is when we discover so many new things, I had video games to play, girls to hopelessly pine over and sports to lose at. I honestly can’t tell you that High School was much different.
As an adult I largely took the program for granted. It was as if it always was and always will be. If we need to go to space, we always have the shuttle. I recall, during a rough patch, going with friends to see the movie Armageddon (I had to be in a bad place for my buddies to say “let’s go see Armageddon” and for me to say, “sure!”). Their cheesy plot-line necessitated an even more advanced shuttle, which sucked worse than that stupid movie. Though it made sense to us at the time. I remember thinking that this was the next logical step, even if it was fantasy. Turns out, I was wrong and I was not the only one.
Than tragedy struck, as we looked with a concerned indifference to the Columbia explosion. At the time, I remarked it was a bad omen. Bush was gearing up to invade Iraq and bring the rest of us with him. It happened one night when I had forgotten to write a paper for my business class. Like the shuttles, I took it for granted. I developed a ruse and bought myself some time. When I was done writing the paper, I headed to my homies pad and we stayed up to the morning hours, his lady had long since fallen asleep, talking about how this was a sign of things to come. American dominance had now come into question for the first time.
Yet the shuttle had endured and survived with it’s 1970s computers largely intact. It lasted through several wars, several major crises , 9-11 and the entire Bush Presidency. They were a symbol of strength and stability in an otherwise questionable world. American strength was never in question when you mentioned the Shuttles. Who would drag the parts to build the International Space Station? The Shuttles. Who would always give us a wonderful show of fuel-powered combustion that pushes heavy rockets into space? The Shuttles. Who would always be there to remind us that the United States was a great nation? The Shuttles.
Yet the program began to show it’s age when the Columbia exploded. This is now especially apparent when the decision to move the shuttle Endeavor from LAX to it’s new home at the Discovery Science Center required the cutting down of hundreds of trees instead of simply taking the wings off the shuttle. Apparently, the spacecraft is so old that taking the wings off could permanently damage the craft. So trees were cut and replanted so the City of Los Angeles can give the absolute final voyage of the Space Shuttles one last victory lap.
We all knew some day it would come to an end. I suppose today is that day. When the once mighty Space Shuttles are tucked away into museums along side the Wright Brothers plane and capsules of space missions past. While it is noble to see these Space Planes that have journeyed more voyages to the stars than one can imagine, get one last trip. It is sad to see them reduced to parade material. Though it’s more than the capsules of previous missions ever got.
Many Americans may see this as the end of our greatness, though they couldn’t be further from the truth. The man who took a 30 mile skydive in an astronaut suit will tell you differently. The JPL team that has landed the most sophisticated rover in existence on the planet Mars with heavy NASA assistance will tell you differently. The Virgin Galactic corporation, and their many competitors that plan journeys to outer space for a hefty fee will tell you differently. Like airspace, space itself will be settled by commercial interests. Government research, as usual, leads the way and the companies fill in the gaps, and make profits. All this talk of government waste was waste in itself, as the trip to the Moon produced countless new industries and unleashed a flurry of engineers on the world.
The sad fact is that the space shuttles were a unique experimentation in budget cutting. It didn’t work. Keeping the shuttles alive and the extra fuel it took to get them there offset any savings. I hate to say it, though the Russians had the right idea. Better, more fuel efficient boosters and capsules are a better way to go. Stubborn NASA took a couple decades to realize it though it must be said, they have come around to the Russian position, and our journey to Mars includes the capsule.
So where does that leave the space shuttle? Just another failed experiment? Just another issue of government waste? Or perhaps one of the most ambitious projects in our history, that far exceeded the original goals and continued to thrive for over 30 years?
You be the judge.
Yet today we are saying farewell. I will never forget those plumes of smoke that extended into the sky like a column of pure, unbridled power. I will never forget those floating astronauts or the work they did on the ISS. I will never forget the hope and promise that we felt as youngsters when they walked down the haul towards their journey into outer space. They had The Right Stuff and their courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten!
We will miss you Space Shuttle! Hell, we already do!