Well, it’s official — the space shuttle Endeavour successfully launched Monday morning on the STS-134 mission to the International Space Station, and we’re all that much closer to a world without any more shuttle launches.
Despite living right there in Florida for years, I never managed to see a shuttle launch in person. With Endeavour’s successful launch Monday, it’s that much more likely I never will. // Photo by NASA
, it was easy to root for the delays that kept dogging STS-134 to continue. Now that
Endeavour’s off on its final mission,
Atlantis’ potential launch in early July 2011 (for mission STS-135) will be the last one. Ever. For someone like me, who’s literally grown up with the shuttle (the first flights launched years before I was born), it’s going to be hard to accept the new, shuttle-less world of spaceflight.
Worse yet, the next launch will almost surely mark the death of a long-held dream of mine: It has been my goal for decades — the majority of my life! — to witness a shuttle launch firsthand. As a kid growing up in Puerto Rico who wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut one day, I was certain I’d eventually see them up close and personal, from the inside. As I got older, that became less and less likely, but I still hoped to see the spectacle and power for myself someday. Now, that seems all but impossible.
Worst of all, I have no one to blame but myself. After all, I lived in southern Florida for years, during which time, I’ve just recently calculated, NASA held 13 shuttle launches. Where was I? In school, typically, which sure seemed important at the time, but now … I don’t know. I bet watching a space shuttle take off from my relative backyard would’ve been more memorable and significant than some random day of school, but so it goes.
And now I live in the Midwest, making it nearly impossible to travel to the Kennedy Space Center. I kept hoping NASA would delay STS-134’s launch long enough to make it possible for me to attend when I’m in town this Thanksgiving, but to no avail.
At least there’s still STS-135 to hope against hope for — but what then?
Related blog
Successful launch of space shuttle Endeavour, by Brenda Culbertson