Need Another Seven Astronauts

What was the raunchy punchline to an uncool joke in the 1980's, now is a cry for help.

I'm extremely sad today.  This week marks the end of the Space Shuttle era.  The Atlantis lifted off from Kennedy Space Center and there are no immediate plans for US participation in manned space exploration.

It is sad for me because I think that the awesome mystery of space was the seed of my interest in science.  One of my earliest memories is sitting in the living room with my dad and watching the lunar lander on the moon's surface, poised for liftoff.  We watched the single-camera grey image of the motionless machine on a black-and-white television, everything on the screen frozen except for a number counting down to liftoff.

The only reason I remember it must be because my dad told me how important of an event it was.

We'd spend the next few years watching spalshdowns and launches.  Astronauts were heroes and our nation's command of the final frontier was something to be proud of.  We were taking on an ultimate challenge and we were succeeding.

In eighth grade we were introduced to the Space Shuttle.  Out teacher brought a television into class so that we could watch the shuttle go up on the back of a 747, be released, and return to earth.  We watched the first blastoff for space soon after.  Even reruns of that great moment still provoke emotion.

Remember when we used to aim high?

Now we just aim, and hope there are no civilians

in the target area.

In 1986 I was a freshman in college.  I watched the launch of the Challenger with my roommate.  We felt the great emptiness when it exploded and brave lives were lost.

Today I still get misty at a rocket launch.  I still feel great pride that we care enough as a nation to push the limits and desire to be at the cutting edge of exploration and technology.  With the last launch and diminishing interest in a space program, I am truly disappointed in us.  There is always money to bomb another country, but apparently no interest in pushing the ultimate edge of science.

Sagan, Hawking and others inspired us about exploration of space.  It will be necessary for the continuation of the human race and the learning curve will be steep. Future generations will look to the early 2000's and judge us with fanfare or scorn, depending on how we chose to pierce the seal that covered the first discoveries and accelerated those that would follow.

JFK will be a hero, today's leaders a joke.

So I'm sad to see an era end.  I hope that maybe someday we'll regain the drive and vision to think beyond our current fiscal year, and peer into the future.