Shedding a Tear (or so) for the Shuttle

In 2003 a few months after the Columbia broke up high over Texas, President George W. Bush announced the plan to retire the Space Shuttle fleet in 2010.  While the announcement was sobering then, and the reality of tomorrow’s scheduled launch of the last Space Shuttle is distressing now, I think the Shuttle does need to be retired.  For many reasons, it is time to move on to the next thing.  I wish there was a better plan for what that next thing will be, but for today I’m not interested in talking about the future, but rather in reflecting in the past.

The first Space Shuttle launch was in 1981.  I was 4 years old.  One of the first national events I remember that affected me profoundly as a child was the destruction of the Columbia in 1986.  In 1998, I started working at NASA as a student cooperative education employee.  In 2005 I worked my first mission as a Shuttle flight controller, STS-114.  In 2008, I worked my first rendezvous as the FDO on STS-123.  A little more than a month ago, I worked my last Shuttle mission, STS-134.

The Shuttle has been a constant in my world since before I can remember.  Even though we’ve known this day was coming for 7 years, I still can’t process that this amazing vehicle will no longer be delivering astronauts to space.  I will be forever proud of having been a part of the Space Shuttle program.