I think that it was that moment that I decided that I was going to be an astronaut and to the credit of my family, they did everything they could to encourage that decision. With a set of grandparents living near Houston, several trips were made to the Johnson Space center in my younger years and I can't remember how many Christmas presents were space-related. In 1986 I remember hearing something about an incident with Challenger in school because of the first teacher going to space, kids talking about it at church choir practice that night, and then seeing it plastered over the TV when I finally got home. Reagan's eloquent speech with the "slipped the surly bonds of earth" quote, and then tears shed for a different reason; the realization that being an astronaut wasn't as safe as it seemed to be on the news. However, the encouragement that the President gave about continuing the exploration of space was reassuring and I still wanted to reach that dream of being in space. There is also a story that one night when I was still a wee young-un, while out with my grandparents and parents on the family ranch, we saw a shooting star overhead and I asked my grandmother if she saw it. At some point in our conversation, I told her that one day, I would be up there looking down on the ranch and waving to her from "space".
The desire to be an astronaut was so strong that yes, I participated in this program when I was going into 7th grade:
Now, I didn't participate in the one in Huntsville, AL. I went to the one in Florida and had the time of my life; we were able to see a shuttle stack on the launch pad, walk through the Orbiter Processing Facility, and fulfill a small part of my dream. Another highlight was the full-day simulated mission that we flew in the Space Camp simulator; I remember I was a mission specialist with callsign "Spacegeek" (yes, that is how much I knew about NASA programs, space in general, and so much about the systems), we at astronaut food, and had a successful go at it. Then there was the end-of-camp trivia contest which we won, and at "graduation" I received my astronaut "wings" and an award for being one of the most active participants in the camp. Yes, I guess you could claim that I was just as annoying as Max from the Space Camp movie (you know, the role that Joaquin Phoenix played).
My interests started to change and I became more and more convinced that I was supposed to study meteorology as I grew up but I never totally gave up on the idea of being an astronaut. Going to A&M afforded some chances to see things at JSC that few ever will; connections with the soon defunct Spaceflight Meteorology Group allowed the student AMS chapter access to Mission Control Center White FCR while it was stood down between missions, to walk amongst the consoles in the room and sit in the CAPCOM chair, and the opportunity to see the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in use. My desire to be a part of NASA continued through my undergraduate and post-graduate work; I participated in the TRMM mission during TEFLUN-A in 1998, KWAJEX in 1999 (where I was able to fly on the NASA DC-8 research aircraft), and then KAMP in 2001 (where as a sidenote, I was in Key West on Sept. 11, 2001...talk about an interesting time!!!). Also in 1999, I was able to watch Columbia re-enter and fly over Fort Worth, leaving a red glowing plasma trail (this was the view from Houston to give you an idea) as I watched at a park about 3 miles from my parent's house. In the time it took for me to drive home, Columbia had already touched down in Florida and was rolling to a stop when I walked in the door. Little did I know the significance of this event about three years later.
Then came the morning of 1 February 2003 when I awoke to the news of Columbia breaking up during re-entry. I knew that the re-entry track would be passing almost overhead of the Hub City but I had a cold and turned off my alarm after a coughing fit, deciding sleep would be better than getting up at 8 am to see the re-entry plasma trail . My room mate at the time was sitting on the couch when I woke up and he was glued to Fox News showing images from WFAA-TV in Dallas of several streaks of light rapidly moving over the city. Immediately my heart dropped and I felt even more sick; I knew exactly what had happened from my experience in the simulation so many years before at Space Camp. At the time I thought that somehow the shuttle had suffered a catastrophic system failure and lost all steering control taking the orbiter outside of it's normal trajectory; instead it was something that took place almost two weeks earlier during the ascent stage when foam impacted the leading edge of the wing. Again, tears were shed.
So now I watch this one last shuttle mission day-by-day, reliving my childhood dream of being up in space looking down on the earth. As the title of an IMAX movie from years ago stated, for so many years of my life, "The Dream is Alive". Perhaps someday I will be able to fly into space, just not on a NASA-sponsored mission. And this is where the deepest sadness comes from. I believe that the direction this administration is taking NASA is wrong. It is easy to cut budgets for something that isn't perceived as providing immediate benefits for the public. But what would you do without Velcro, scratch-resistant lenses, Tempur foam, freeze-dried foods, satellite radio technology, microgravity protein and metallurgical synthesis (more accurate medical imaging in proteins and nearly spherical micro ball bearings), and the list could go on. All of these items came from needs arising during manned NASA missions. Yes, the shuttle system is expensive, is inherently dangerous, and is approaching the design age limit for the orbiters. However, mismanagement within NASA and misguided directions by both former and the sitting president all have left NASA adrift without a direction. Without a way to inspire younger generations. Without something to make a kid dream.
We had to catch up to the CCCP in the late 50s into 1961 which lead to Project Mercury. Kennedy literally shot for the moon to jump us ahead of the Russians which led to Projects Gemini and Apollo. Then some thawing in the cold war came along and with leftover hardware from Project Apollo, we headed up the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project and separately Project Skylab. At the same time, dreamers decided to take the next big leap and develop the Shuttle Transportation System. Now, NASA is practically left adrift; we were dreaming big again by returning to the moon with Constellation Program but after spending lots of money and progressing towards testing the crew module, a new administration came in and cancelled the project, took the step of shooting for an asteroid and Mars, and passed those goals off to the private sector. I do hope that the private sector is up to the task and can make travel on a sub-orbital, orbital, or interplanetary flight realistic and available to the masses but I doubt this will happen.
Space travel is still inherently dangerous and I doubt that our litigation-happy society will be able to afford the insurance costs or fully comprehend the waivers that will need to be signed to keep one lawsuit from shutting down a company after an "incident" leading to loss of life. Are some industries and fields best left to governmental control is a question that I am still trying to decide my stance on. And I do acknowledge that NASA will still be involved in space operations. However, manned spaceflight in the USA will disappear for quite a while once Atlantis touches down in Florida; handed over to Russia until someone here at home comes up with a way to get our astronauts (and public) into orbit. I doubt we will be seeing as much hoopla about Soyuz launches in the eastern hemisphere than manned launches that take place in our own backyard.
And so the dream is fading, likely already extinguished for a whole generation of kids that will grow up not knowing, not seeing, not dreaming about riding a space shuttle into orbit. Once again, the government takes away something that a kid can dream about, learn from, or be inspired to pursue (and probably punishes the State of Texas by removing all the major parts of the shuttle period such as the orbiters themselves, the simulators, and the full mockups to museums everywhere BUT Texas). So farewell to the Shuttle Transportation System, to something that made this kid-at-heart dream a lifelong dream of riding a shuttle into orbit. As the line from a Van Halen song says "Dream another dream, this dream is over..."
Fair winds and following seas Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavor...
P.S. Watch this series of videos for some amazing footage of how a shuttle launches...
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