Look up

Space shuttle ATLANTIS blasted into space this morning for the 33rd and final time, 135 total missions and today began our last. I like that we go into space. Without our shuttle program there’d be no International Space Station. That began in 1998.

Our shuttle is the only manned, orbital and winged spacecraft that actually returns to Earth like an airplane to be reused. That concept in prototype was working as early as 1976 but the first true shuttle flew in 1981. I toured the Explorer at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

We lost two, the Challenger in January 1986 and the Columbia in February 2003. That’s a 99% success rate on a fairly complicated mission.

It’s bigger than I thought.

When Senator William Proxmire, Democrat from Wisconsin for 32 years was asked in 1977 if he would fund space colonization programs beginning with this Shuttle initiative, he responded:

“It’s the best argument yet for chopping NASA’s funding

 to the bone. As Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee responsible for NASA’s appropriations, 

I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy . . .”

Nice call, Senator. lol

NASA 

The last mission of an era began this morning. Look up.