So Far, so Fast, So Long
We watched the Endeavor flyover at my office this morning. We went running outside and down to the intersection. It was a stampede of about 30 folks. I got a very good look at it. It was really low. The photos don’t do justice to the amount of detail we could see, although if you compare the size of the fighter to the cargo jet and the shuttle, you get a clue about the size.
Hopefully that's behind an LJ cut, because the original was enormous. Photo taken by Shirley, as it went over their house. As in make your bones rattle over-your-house.
Here's another one, Juan took as we were running like insane people, down to the intersection.
I was surprised to find myself in tears. I remember John Glenn going into space on the first manned Mercury mission. I was little at the time, probably in first grade. I was really amazed by the concept that if you go far enough, there’s no air out there.
I also remember the Apollo missions. We didn’t have a TV, so I went to a neighbor’s house to watch the broadcasts “from the Apollo Room.” The first broadcast, maybe more, had no sound feed, so the Astronauts held up signs to the camera.
And when they finally landed on the moon, it was such a big deal. My neighbor with the TV threw a luau and roasted a pig in a pit. My classmates were tremendously excited. We probably had an advantage - our school had a substitute teacher who had just retired from Nasa, Mr. Johnson. He never bothered with the prepared lesson plans. He just brought his slides and told us stories about the people and how they did things. The stories were scaled down for our level of sophistication - very rural 7th & 8th graders. Previously the height of ambition for the boys was to get a job working cattle for one of the large ranchers - that was the cool job before Mr. Johnson. Science and math became way cool. College was suddenly “in.” For the girls, well, let’s just say this was before feminism.
Space! Astronauts! and Satellites! were a huge and new deal. It wasn’t until after I graduated from high school, which would have been five years later, that they started using satellites to send long distance calls. I was working in a hardware store and the boss had gone to Alaska. When he called back to the store, I was the one who picked up the phone. He told me they were making that call via satellite, did he sound okay? I could hear him fine. But it was amazing, it was such a new thing. Wow, a call by satellite. There was a store full of impressed people.
(Apropo of nothing: My 8th grade teacher was a retired CIA spy who had worked in post war Germany. We had very interesting critiques of the James Bond film that came out that year. And I got introduced to the notion that polyglot was a good thing.)
But I'm rambling. Today I saw the last flight of the last shuttle. The American manned space program is done. Yeah, it's okay to cry.
Hopefully that's behind an LJ cut, because the original was enormous. Photo taken by Shirley, as it went over their house. As in make your bones rattle over-your-house.
Here's another one, Juan took as we were running like insane people, down to the intersection.
I was surprised to find myself in tears. I remember John Glenn going into space on the first manned Mercury mission. I was little at the time, probably in first grade. I was really amazed by the concept that if you go far enough, there’s no air out there.
I also remember the Apollo missions. We didn’t have a TV, so I went to a neighbor’s house to watch the broadcasts “from the Apollo Room.” The first broadcast, maybe more, had no sound feed, so the Astronauts held up signs to the camera.
And when they finally landed on the moon, it was such a big deal. My neighbor with the TV threw a luau and roasted a pig in a pit. My classmates were tremendously excited. We probably had an advantage - our school had a substitute teacher who had just retired from Nasa, Mr. Johnson. He never bothered with the prepared lesson plans. He just brought his slides and told us stories about the people and how they did things. The stories were scaled down for our level of sophistication - very rural 7th & 8th graders. Previously the height of ambition for the boys was to get a job working cattle for one of the large ranchers - that was the cool job before Mr. Johnson. Science and math became way cool. College was suddenly “in.” For the girls, well, let’s just say this was before feminism.
Space! Astronauts! and Satellites! were a huge and new deal. It wasn’t until after I graduated from high school, which would have been five years later, that they started using satellites to send long distance calls. I was working in a hardware store and the boss had gone to Alaska. When he called back to the store, I was the one who picked up the phone. He told me they were making that call via satellite, did he sound okay? I could hear him fine. But it was amazing, it was such a new thing. Wow, a call by satellite. There was a store full of impressed people.
(Apropo of nothing: My 8th grade teacher was a retired CIA spy who had worked in post war Germany. We had very interesting critiques of the James Bond film that came out that year. And I got introduced to the notion that polyglot was a good thing.)
But I'm rambling. Today I saw the last flight of the last shuttle. The American manned space program is done. Yeah, it's okay to cry.