There she goes, my beautiful world

In words that have been and will be repeated ad infinitum all this week and next... today was the end of an era.

I saw that era start on April 12, 1981, in a crowded common room in the first entry of Senior House at MIT.  It was a  momentous event, especially in a place where more than one in the watching crowd had the promise of, if not going into space themselves, helping see that others got up there.  Just how momentous it was could be determined by how many Senior House residents got up to watch television at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning.*

I saw that era end, a little over thirty years later,  in my bedroom surrounded by the rest of my household. 

We seemed more optimistic back in 1981.  This was the first step -- there would be a space station, and then returns to the moon, then on to Mars, then on to ... who knew? The shuttle would just be the first -- we would develop true spacecraft that could get to space and return on their own power.

Of course, it was dangerous.  Everyone knew it was dangerous.  Except then we forgot: it became too routine.  We were brought back to reality, horrifically, with the destruction of Challenger. After Challenger, there was a lot of questioning about whether we should continue, about whether we have any business spending the money and will to get back to space. 

We did, and we have gained by it. We put up the Hubble telescope, which has greatly expanded our knowledge of the universe.  Along with our partners, America created the International Space Station. Technologies developed for the shuttle have impacted everything from medicine to outerwear.  Yes, some of those might have been discovered or developed independently. But space provides a laboratory for solving problems -- the solutions to which can be used to make life better for everybody on earth in ways that might have not been imaginable otherwise.  Sometimes you can't even recognize a problem until you see a solution.

It amazes, frustrates and infuriates me how excited people have become about the last flight.  If there was that level of interest in more of them, maybe this flight of Atlantis would not have to have been the last one.  We are hesitant to spend the money to explore space, but more than ready and willing to reap the benefits that space exploration spawns.

I know that I am not in any way whatsoever a disinterested observer.  I have been invested in the success of NASA up to my eyeballs since the mid-1980s.  But, as I have said before, I think the desire to, as Gene Roddenberry put it, "explore strange new worlds ... to boldly go where no man has gone before" lies in our very DNA. 

I saw the start of the shuttle program.  I knew I would see it end.  I just never expected to see it end and have such low hopes for the future of manned space flight.


*Of course, for many of them, it was a matter of not going to bed Saturday night.