Farewell to the Shuttle and Broken Windows

 Friday morning at 11:26  the last space shuttle fired off into space.  The end.  After all these years.  And if it lands back near Cape Canaveral, and is not diverted to Patrick’s Air Force Base, it is sure to crash the sound barrier, rumbling through our house, rattling our chandeliers, and ripping the seals on our windows.

Oy, our windows.

“Dammit!” my husband yells.  “NASA always costs me a fortune!”

I roll my eyes.  We are once again forced to make another donation to the space program.  Yet, even Friday my husband was nostalgic about the shuttle while the window repairman mourned the loss of his future business.

Night launch of shuttle

For those who don't know, we live in Orlando, an hour from Kennedy Space Center, and thankfully get a pretty good view of the launches from the lake across the street.  I say pretty good ‘cause they’re not perfect, sometimes hiding behind fluffy cumulus clouds.  But at night, oh the night ones, you can see the boosters separating from the shuttles themselves, and the ones we watch on a clear day from Daytona Beach are like looking from our own backyard.                   

Final Four Crew:  Rex Walheim, Sandra Magnus, Pilot Doug Hurley, Commander Chris Ferguson

                                         

 And so many bring back family memories and have become part of our permanent lore. 

When my youngest daughter was six, she was trying to find an appropriate outfit to wear for her across-the- street view of the liftoff.   The whole event would last around five minutes, and I said a robe and slippers would suffice.  Not good enough for her.  "Okay," I said.  "A T-shirt and shorts."  She couldn’t decide.  It was a little after eight in the morning, and I told her anything would do.  That sent her into a frenzy and eventually a meltdown—rare for her—and we left her screaming as we flew out the door.

Then there was the Challenger of 1986. 

I almost missed looking up in the sky that morning, figuring NASA wouldn’t be stupid enough to launch in freezing weather, but sometimes scientists can’t think like an Iowa farmer.  Who sends one’s pride and joy to heaven on a day that was made for hell? 

Years later the Columbia followed, and we mourned that one too.

      

Yet there was always so much good and so much we learned.  

Friday marked the end of a bittersweet chapter, and we wonder how the space program’s gotten so bogged in quicksand, trying to stay afloat and gasping for breath.  It CAN be fixed.  It has to be.

New technology is the only thing that’s going to save us because new inventions develop start-up industries all over the world.  Take the IPOD.  It alone has created over 14,000 jobs in America and 40,000 jobs around the globe. 

  

So who knows what’s in the future?   Maybe NASA will invent a double-paned window that’s guaranteed never to split under pressure of a blasting shuttle bang.  And that’s a guarantee for one very happy man.