STS-135 Reentry

The Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde last flew on Nov 26, 2003. At the time, a pilot friend of mine remarked that this was the first time in aviation history that an aircraft was being shelved without a better, faster aircraft to take its place. Sure, Airbus was working on their A380 and Boeing was working on their 787, but neither has (or will) achieve icon status like the Concorde. The ability for a common man to transit the Atlantic in three hours was lost on that day. Even today, almost eight years later, there’s still no solid plan for commercial, supersonic travel.

Yesterday’s last Space Shuttle landing left me with similar pause – For the first time since the space program began, a manned transport was being shelved without a replacement. Yes, there are five civilian and NASA proposals, but the civilian alternatives are financially risky (What happens if/when NASA gets federal dollars and contracts?), and the NASA alternative is essentially a larger and somewhat updated Apollo module (vintage 60/70′s). None of the alternatives achieve Shuttle icon status. None of them inspire me … and I’m pretty easily inspired by space exploration.

It probably has a lot to do with being born in the 50′s. Being a boy during the Mercury and Gemini programs, and a teenager through Apollo, it was easy to be fascinated and intrigued by the technology and mystery of it all. Throw in Walter Cronkite’s distinctive and attention demanding voice – “T minus nine minutes and counting” – And who wouldn’t be excited?

All Mercury launches occurred early from Cape Canaveral. Which was even earlier for those of us on the west coast. We would rise at 3AM or 4AM to watch the black and white images on our smallish TV. Since the first four (of six) flights were three earth orbits or less, west coast viewers could watch the entire flight before leaving for work/school. Although Scott Carpenter’s 250 mile miss on splash-down did mean that we wouldn’t know he was safe until we were at school/work.

Anyway, it was the image of  STS-135 descending back into the earth’s atmosphere that really brought the message home – The shuttle program is over. That’s it. No more. Or as Walter would say “And that’s the way it is: July 21, 2011.”

Sad, really.