When the Space Shuttle program was shut down last winter it made me sad. I was sad because as far back as I can remember the United States had been sending humans into space. I was a toddler during the Mercury program, in Kindergarten during Gemini, and an adolescent when the Apollo program put a man on the moon. I got married during the Shuttle program – it was a long courtship.
I had originally hoped to be an astrophysicist before Colby College’s Calculus III and Physic II combined to shut me down, through the application of derivatives to matrixes. Such is life.
So when we started following the count-down for SpaceX’s Dragon program – complete with delays and broken valves – I was excited again. A company in the US was putting things in Space; hauling cargo to the International Space Station. SpaceX was trying to help the Russians in lifting critical materials into space to further international space study.
So now, when I think about the US space program, I not only feel good that we’re focusing on larger objectives, like trips to asteroids and Mars, but I can feel a sense of pride in the power of the entrepreneurial spirit. It feels exactly like it should feel. We’re back baby! We really were never gone.
Thank you SpaceX.
