Forgive me for geeking out and getting a bit teary-eyed about the Shuttle Endeavour, but I'm not alone:
But, a few years later, I think he made the right move by getting NASA out of the Low Earth Orbit hauling business. NASA should be focused on the cutting edge, deep space, dreamy-eyed stuff; let the private sector entrepreneurs like Elon Musk at SpaceX handle the routine garbage/parts/people hauling missions with their innovative and cost-effective Dragon platform.
If you think about it, the shuttle never really was an exploration vehicle, it was a hauler, and it was the focus of NASA for 30 years. What things could we have accomplished in space if we hadn't devoted so much time and money to flying the Shuttle?
By getting NASA out of the Low Earth Orbit business, NASA will focus their talents and energies on taking us back to the Moon or Mars or building the next great Hubble telescope.
I feel stupid for having lived in Santa Clarita for 20 years yet never making the journey out to Edwards to watch a landing. Though, to be fair, in the 90s NASA moved the shuttle landings to Flordia. The closest I got was this, filmed in my High Density Condo in Newhall. The sonic booms shook the place.
Another reader hadn't planned to watch Endeavour last Friday, but got lucky:
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Shuttle Memories, ctd.
While we don't see eye to eye on many issues it appears you are as much a space geek as me. Great reporting on the shuttle.I, like a lot of space fans, was angry when President Obama overhauled NASA's budget and essentially changed its mission. He scrapped what was to be the next gen human space flight system: the Orion capsule that would have done low earth orbit missions to the Space Station as well as deep space exploration.
I, as the rest of my generation, grew up with the space program. The race to the moon was incredible and I watched each mission closely. Somewhere in the boxes that I recovered from my dad's house has the LA Times paper with the headline we landed on the moon. Little did I know I would eventually be marrying the daughter of the Rocketdyne engineer who solved the problem of igniting the middle stage of the Saturn V rocket used to launch the Apollo astronauts. (Yes, I take the shuttle fly-by snub personally).
After the Challenger disaster a buddy of mine and me went up to Edwards to see the shuttle land on the first mission after Challenger. What a sight. It was spectacular how fast it descends compared to conventional aircraft. It looked like it descended at a 45 degree angle right up to flaring as it approached the lake bed.
It's kind of sad we don't currently have a vehicle to take us to the space station and are reliant on the Russians. Perhaps now is the time for the government to get out of exploration and turn it over to private enterprise. That being said, while I role pretty conservative, I do believe the space program was a good and proper use of taxpayers money.
But, a few years later, I think he made the right move by getting NASA out of the Low Earth Orbit hauling business. NASA should be focused on the cutting edge, deep space, dreamy-eyed stuff; let the private sector entrepreneurs like Elon Musk at SpaceX handle the routine garbage/parts/people hauling missions with their innovative and cost-effective Dragon platform.
If you think about it, the shuttle never really was an exploration vehicle, it was a hauler, and it was the focus of NASA for 30 years. What things could we have accomplished in space if we hadn't devoted so much time and money to flying the Shuttle?
By getting NASA out of the Low Earth Orbit business, NASA will focus their talents and energies on taking us back to the Moon or Mars or building the next great Hubble telescope.
I feel stupid for having lived in Santa Clarita for 20 years yet never making the journey out to Edwards to watch a landing. Though, to be fair, in the 90s NASA moved the shuttle landings to Flordia. The closest I got was this, filmed in my High Density Condo in Newhall. The sonic booms shook the place.
An embedded YouTube video appeared here in the original post. View the original — embeds are preserved as links in this archive.
Another reader hadn't planned to watch Endeavour last Friday, but got lucky:
I went to see the first Space Shuttle land out at Edwards. April 14, 1981, the space shuttle Columbia landed with an audience of somewhere between 200-300k. That was something. I would have loved to see a Space Shuttle take off, but never had the chance.Wow, on PCH! What a great California moment.
I was a little sad when I realized I would be nowhere near a place to witness the final flight of The Endeavor. Last Friday, as I was driving up PCH to spend a three day weekend with my son, I had just pulled out of Ventura. I noticed a shadowy shape up in the sky to my left. As it got closer and came into view ... I realized, it was Endeavor .. sitting atop its 747 escort, on its way home from NorCal. Everyone on the road slowed to witness the event. Chills.
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