As the space shuttle Atlantis has lifted off for the final time I am with a heavy heart. As a child I grew up wanting to be an astronaut...like many childhood dreams it never came true.
More below the fold...
In 1969 I was two years old...One of my first memories was watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon; while I doubt that this is a real memory of mine as I have seen the moon landing so many times in my life and have heard the story from my dad a thousand times of how we all watched the moon landing together as a family that it has become a memory. I do remember later launches and moon walks though.
How I was inspired. I wanted to walk among the stars. I could not get enough of the real thing so I thrived on Star Trek, Space 1999, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica (the original one). I knew that someday I would go into space, "...to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
In 1975 I recall the then unheard of cooperation of the United States and the then Soviet Union and the Apollo-Soyuz flight. The night it flew over Madison the entire neighborhood was outside looking skyward as it flew overhead. What was amazing about that flight was not that mankind could orbit the Earth, but, that the United States and the Soviets could get along long enough to work together. That mission was the end of the space race. There was talk of this new found cooperation and how it would take my generation to Mars...Mars...wow, imagine living on another planet.
Before Apollo Soyuz and after, I was enthralled with Skylab. Men living in space...of course today I know that Skylab was wrought with problems and only saw three manned missions. When it fell from the sky to Australia in 1979 a felt like a little piece of my dream of living in space had died.
The Space Shuttle - Enterprise was her name. Any news on the Shuttle and her tests enthralled me. I was going to fly the Space Shuttle someday. I built models of the shuttle, I had the whole fleet hanging from the ceiling of my bedroom. Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis (Endeavour was not in my fleet because at the time, it was not planned for...it was not built until after the Challenger disaster).
As a teen I had posters of the Space Shuttle on my walls...I was in the Civil Air Patrol planning on going into the Air Force...I watched every launch that I could. I devoured all reports of every mission. I took Aerospace classes in high school, passed the written pilots test when I was fifteen I was on track to have a pilot's license before I would have a driver's license. Then reality hit, my dad lost his job, math was dragging my grades down and I started to skip school...my dream of becoming an astronaut died a silent death.
I still followed the space program the dream was tucked safely in a secure spot in the back of my head. After high school I joined the Army...I became Air Assault qualified...I jumped out of Helicopters...the closest I would ever get to flying. I remember Challenger like it was yesterday. I was assigned to Co. D, 54th Engineer Battalion and stationed in Wildflecken, Germany. We had just come off duty...the images of the explosion replaying over and over on the TV screen in the dayroom. The horror of it all...the loss of life. The end of a dream.
After the Army I still followed the space program but not as closely as I did in my younger years. I had too many responsibilities and not enough time. The Columbia disaster was just a blip on the radar for me. I was aware that it had happened - but it was not a large part of my life.
When my son was born my interest in flight and the space program was born anew. Taking him to airshows became a passion. When he was five we spent a week at EAA Airventure. We spent a lot of time in the NASA exhibits. It was like my dream of becoming an astronaut was re-born. My son and I got to meet Story Musgrave...Story asked my son what he wanted to be when he grew up, my son, all of five responded, "An astronaut." Story responded, "That is something we just don't hear anymore."
My son is now eleven and wants to be an NFL Defensive End, a Veterinarian and an Engineer. I mentioned to him that the shuttle was taking its final flight today. He was indifferent to the news. Me, I am saddened. As a child I remember being told that we would have colonies on the moon and we would be exploring Mars and making it suitable for habitation by now. Instead we, as a nation, no longer have the ability to put a man in orbit let alone go to the moon or Mars.
I guess, and this is just my opinion, that the loss of the ability to go into space is a sign as our decline as a nation. We no longer think or act boldly. Think about it...42 years ago we put men on the moon less than nine years after we came up with the idea of doing it. What have we done since then?
11:48 AM PT: Forgot to mention...a few years ago NASA was accepting applications for astronauts...I applied. I am still waiting for my letter saying I have "the wrong stuff."