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I didn't watch Endeavour's final flight - wrong coast - but I did see a shuttle launch once, from far away. I'm not sure which shuttle. Even though it was a speck on top of a contrail, it could not be mistaken for any other thing. Even though it was a speck, we stopped and watched until it was out of sight. Mom and REL were there as well, but I only remember standing with Dad.
Although I didn't watch Endeavour's final flight, I did listen to news broadcasts from L.A. and Sacramento, three hours of them, vox pop from the crowds that cheered and cried as the shuttle flew low over the Bay Bridge, swooped by the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign. I listened to yesterday's admonitions from the California Highway Patrol, demanding that drivers not stop, not pull over, not snarl traffic to watch the shuttle - admonitions that were thankfully ignored. I listened to interviews with gridlocked drivers, none of whom were anything less than jubilant.
The shuttle has always been an obvious kludge. Even to a child's eye, it's clearly a product of political compromises, not engineering efficiency. NASA accounts don't even deny it. They knew it was inefficient, limited, underpowered, ugly. Less a spacecraft than a clumsy and dangerous method for getting commercial satellites into orbit, with a personnel module snuck in like a stowaway. There would never be a time when the shuttle program was not at the mercy of congressional bargaining, or when the science missions didn't have to be squeezed around the imperatives of corporate money, and the continual process of repairing what amounted to orbital jalopies.
If one shuttle can be said to be sillier than another, then Endeavour is the most silly - the youngest one, the one they knew with the most certainty, after four others, was a ridiculous design to keep cranking out. The one named with a word that stands outside of American English, so that even NASA merchandise and press releases regularly flubbed it and called it "Endeavor." The one named after a journey of discovery even though it would never, ever - would obviously never - leave orbit.
Somehow, all of that made it more true, when the people on the ground said, "I have never been so proud to be an American," or when NASA administrator Lori Garver said it was like watching her youngest child leave for college. Somehow, in the end, I find I love Endeavour for being absolutely wrong, absolutely unsuited for space, and going anyway.
Although I didn't watch Endeavour's final flight, I did listen to news broadcasts from L.A. and Sacramento, three hours of them, vox pop from the crowds that cheered and cried as the shuttle flew low over the Bay Bridge, swooped by the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign. I listened to yesterday's admonitions from the California Highway Patrol, demanding that drivers not stop, not pull over, not snarl traffic to watch the shuttle - admonitions that were thankfully ignored. I listened to interviews with gridlocked drivers, none of whom were anything less than jubilant.
The shuttle has always been an obvious kludge. Even to a child's eye, it's clearly a product of political compromises, not engineering efficiency. NASA accounts don't even deny it. They knew it was inefficient, limited, underpowered, ugly. Less a spacecraft than a clumsy and dangerous method for getting commercial satellites into orbit, with a personnel module snuck in like a stowaway. There would never be a time when the shuttle program was not at the mercy of congressional bargaining, or when the science missions didn't have to be squeezed around the imperatives of corporate money, and the continual process of repairing what amounted to orbital jalopies.
If one shuttle can be said to be sillier than another, then Endeavour is the most silly - the youngest one, the one they knew with the most certainty, after four others, was a ridiculous design to keep cranking out. The one named with a word that stands outside of American English, so that even NASA merchandise and press releases regularly flubbed it and called it "Endeavor." The one named after a journey of discovery even though it would never, ever - would obviously never - leave orbit.
Somehow, all of that made it more true, when the people on the ground said, "I have never been so proud to be an American," or when NASA administrator Lori Garver said it was like watching her youngest child leave for college. Somehow, in the end, I find I love Endeavour for being absolutely wrong, absolutely unsuited for space, and going anyway.
