I was in the fifth grade....

[Pacifist Patriot]

in Huntsville, Alabama. The principal made an announcement telling the teachers to take their classes out to the hill behind our playground. Several hundred of us stood there staring at the sky when a 747 barreled overhead with a strange object on top of it. The first shuttle was on its way to Florida for STS-1. A few months later I was selected to shake John Young's hand after he and Crippen addressed a civic center full of school children.

This morning I ran home to grab my own fifth grader and his two brothers. From the roof of a five story building in Brevard County, Florida we watched as STS-135 left earth. The skies were cloudy. It wasn't the most spectacular launch we've seen. In fact, the cloud cover was such the sonic boom never resonated throughout our bodies as it usually does. You don't just see a launch, you feel it.

Between 1981 and 2011 I watched launches from my front yard, from the deck of a cruise ship, on the beach, on television and I have to admit, ignored a great number of them. They ceased to be anything special for awhile. In that time I graduated from high school, college, graduate school, got married, had three children, laughed a lot, cried a lot and loved a lot. How odd to think it's the end of an era.

But somehow I doubt the human quest for knowledge and adventure will cease.

I offer my gratitude to everyone who has had anything to do with NASA's Space Shuttle Program. Thanks for the memories!

[HopeHoops]

1. I was a senior and I did a report on STS-1 - wrote it on an Apple II

I recorded the entire pre-launch, launch, and post-launch program on a Panasonic VCR with a remote (had a cable attached to it), typed the quotes into SuperText on an Apple II, cut them out to sort them, and then wrote the paper and printed it on an Epson 9-pin dot matrix printer. I believe Ted Koppel did the reporting and it was probably CNN.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. You kicked my butt in technology.

My family did not get a VCR until 1984 and I didn't write my first paper on a computer until 1987. And only because I had a professor who required it. I did indeed print it on an Epson dot matrix printer though. Cheers!

[HopeHoops]

3. I got through college on a C=64 and an Amiga 500. Both were WAY ahead of M$ boxes.

[CBGLuthier]

12. Amiga ruled

I first entered a nascent internet upon an amiga computer. 512K of RAM, micro floppies, no hard drive yet still did true multi-tasking.

[HopeHoops]

18. And at a time when both the president of IBM and Bill Gates dismissed multitasking as useless.

[Snoutport]

6. Now I'm hearing that printer sound in my head....

jjjjt jjjjjjjjt jtjjjjjjt jjjjjjjjt jjjjjjjt jt jt

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I'm remember the amount of time spent rethreading the stupid paper.

[PATRICK]

4. The symbol

of the raw power of a rocket was great for science, but more important science is less dramatic, less "empowering" even if incredible consequences closer to earth is less valued or even known.

In biology the control and manipulation of the structures of life makes the future unimaginable and the choices critical, the results almost unknowable. In mechanics and computers, in the "DNA" of universal forces and particles, or beyond our universe to impossible unknowns the future is likewise at an "omega" turning point impossible to exagerrate.
Our goals are idealistic or poison, the reactionary retreat the only thing one can judge as wrong. All things lead somewhere or to burnout or madness- where ignorance rules power it will not understand, will not allow for the good or survival of Earth life.

So far, it is plain that pone meaning of human life is that it is the only species capable of defending the biosphere- and planet- with rockets, telescopes(etc.) and force. Managing the biosphere is a potential we are not handling so well, especially in refusing to prioritize the changes to do no harm and good changes.

The rocket itself is innocent 1900's style awe, primeval but connected to progress. It is also limited economically, while the effect of a simple chemical or bacteria is physically limitless- on earth anyway. The World Wide Web is a human super brain.

The disappearance of the rocket though shows the triumph of the foolish, the reactionary, the destructive ruling forces taking advantage of human weakness, the youth of intelligence itself. The planet is imperiled by one of its best tools, the toolmaker.

[Snoutport]

5. You just reminded me of how it felt to be part

of the first moon walk. I was only 4--close to 5 and my parents and many neighbors were over for a party. It was California, we had a pool and my parents had made an event out of it. I can remember everybody huddled around the (new and kinda big t.v.) And they were just cheering and cheering and the energy in the room was so amazing. It is my earliest memory of world events.

I was noticeably sad watching this takeoff. I didn't know why but your post reminded me...we lost something important today as America steps out of the space race. Growing up in this era we all know how much impact space exploration has had on the world and I liked being part of that energy and excitement.

I hope we come to our senses soon and continue on in our exploration of the stars.

[RC]

7. I was on a TV station control board when they first stepped onto the moon service and

promptly destroyed the B/W vidicon camera by sweeping it across the sun. Huge disappointment.


"Video camera tubes typically had a certain maximum brightness tolerance. If that limit were exceeded, such as by pointing the camera at the sun, sun-reflecting shiny surfaces, or extremely bright point light sources, the tube detecting surface would instantly "burn out" and be rendered insensitive on part or all of the screen. The only remedy was replacing the video tube."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_camera_tube

[lapislzi]

9. I go back farther than that...

When I was in grade school, we were in the middle of the Apollo program in our race to the moon. An Apollo launch was tantamount to a school holiday. The giant black-and-white TVs were rolled into the lunch room and we watched. It was the only thing spoken about for days. It's a good thing the moon landing happened in the summer, because the collective excitement of an elementary school full of kids would probably have destroyed the building.

Ah, good times.

[PCIntern]

11. I was in first grade and they took us down to the auditorium

to watch the Mercury launches, then the Gemini...

then we went to the Museum of the Univ. of PA and they had a mockup of the underside of the Saturn booster for the Apollo. Unbelievable...

[vanbean]

14. I was in third grade when Alan Shepard first went into space.

My teacher rode to work with my mom who was also a teacher. She (my teacher) insisted on staying in the car to listen to the radio after my mom and I got out to go in the school. I can remember her excuse, "History is being made!" That is my main memory of the space programs.

[WillyT]

10. K & R !!!

:kick:

[lunatica]

13. My entire school was in the library listening to the radio when John Glen

was launched to make the first American to orbit the earth on February 20, 1962. I was the person holding the globe and pointing to the places he was flying over. Less than a year earlier Alan Shepard was the first American in space in a launch that lasted 15 minutes on May 5, 1961.

[lapislzi]

15. My mother saved all the newspaper articles about Shephard.

It happened two days after I was born. I have always considered myself a child of the Space Age (no snarky jokes, please!)

Now I want to go home and watch The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 back to back. (Ed Harris, yum)

[lunatica]

16. I remember Yuri Gagarin's launch too on April 12, 1961

A month before Alan Shepard. Except Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth once. And that's why John Glen was able to orbit the earth within a year. It really lit a fire under the US!

Those were the days when we did big things. Unafraid, except for the Republicans who said it was a frivolous waste of money. Now we can't get anything going in this country. We can't even fix our infrastructure. I wonder what made us so fearful of trying the impossible? Maybe it was the 911 attack. It certainly sent us into a defensive crouch and aggressive war on a country that didn't have a damn thing to do with the attack.

[DemReadingDU]

17. When I was in 5th grade, we would watch for satellite Echo

Project Echo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echo

Mercury 7 Astronauts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Seven

Apollo Astronauts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_astronauts