Moving On

I just got home from working my last shift in Mission Control as a Space Shuttle flight controller.  It’s funny how you can know something like this is coming for a long time, and yet still be caught off guard by the emotions of the moment.  My job for the last 9 years will probably be the most memorable one of my life.  I really, really loved it, and I’m sad it is over.

Aside from the approaching end of the Shuttle program, my days on console were numbered.  It has become increasingly hard for me to work my family life around the strange hours required by mission work.  I had been a FDO for 8 years when I applied for my management job, and I felt that I’d gotten what I wanted to out of the job.  (And, I’d gotten pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.)  I was ready for new challenges.

There will be a part of me, though, that will always miss being a FDO.  It was an awesome job, for an awesome human endeavor.

So a couple days before “my” Shuttle, Endeavour, has her swan song, I have had mine.