About quarter past eight I sat down to write a different post. I had NPR on in the background and they cut away to live coverage of the final space shuttle launch. I didn't even realize it was today. I felt the need to witness it, so the dogs I moved to the family room and watched it sail away.
I remember watching the very first launch back in 1981. Even before that, I remember how space crazy this country used to be. I grew up building models of Saturn V rockets and lunar modules. Every other kid in elementary school announced that they were going to be astronauts. My parents made my sister and I watch the first moon landing live, although in all honesty we didn't need any coaxing. "You'll remember this day the rest of your life" my mother said. And she was right.
I also remember that horrible day in January of 1986. I had recently graduated from college and had spent several weeks getting my portfolio in order. After days of cold calling ad agencies in LA, I finally had scheduled my first day of interviews. Everyone had gotten fairly blasé about the shuttle by then. They still showed the launches live but I'm not sure many people paid attention any more. I had the news on in the background and only caught the Challenger launch out of the corner of my eye. And watched it blow up. I was completely stunned and it turns out everyone else was too. We weren't quite so blasé after all.
I wasn't really sure what I should do, so I went ahead with all my planned interviews. Everywhere I went that day, from Downtown to Century City to West LA to Santa Monica, all the offices were deathly silent as everyone gathered around TVs. The people I was meeting with all went ahead and took the meetings, but it was clear no one was really present. Including me. I was never much of a Reagan fan, but I have to admit the speech he gave the nation that night was one of the most moving things I've heard and I cried.
And now today, it's all over. Not just the shuttle, but Americans in space. With nothing even on the drawing boards it will be at least a decade before we ever go back on our own. If we ever do.
If you had suggested back in the time of Challenger, at the height of the Cold War, in the depth of the Reagan Administration, that in the very near future we'd be relying on the kindness of the Russians to let us hitch a ride into space, people would have thought you were insane. But, there 'ya go and here we are. History is funny that way.
