A Never-Ending Journey

When the space shuttle Atlantis majestically lifted into the sky above Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 8, it marked the beginning of the last flight of the nation’s 30-year-old shuttle program.

It was a bittersweet moment for NASA and all who have proudly and excitedly watched America’s shuttle program carry astronauts, parts and supplies to the International Space Station since 1981. 

The huge cost of the program in an era of growing federal deficits made continuing the shuttle flights hard to justify. But it wasn’t all economics. The retirement of Atlantis and its sister ships – Endeavour, Enterprise and Discovery – has been planned for years.

Last week’s shuttle launch marked the 135th space shuttle mission and the 35th flight for Atlantis, which made its first flight in 1985. The 12-day space mission’s main objective is to resupply the space station for another year. And until private companies can step in and perform the same task, it will be up to the Russians with their Soyuz spacecraft to ferry space travelers and supplies back and forth.

Mostly, the shuttle program has been a huge success, with two notable failures. The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986, and the Columbia exploded upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere in 2003.

A total of 14 astronauts died in those two horrible tragedies.

Some have said the disasters were a signal that the program should be stopped, that exploring space was simply too risky and too costly.

But the program has forged on until its targeted end, with no shortage of brave men and women willing to sacrifice their lives to take humankind farther into the universe.

After a brief moment in the early 1960s when the Soviet Union first put a human into Earth’s orbit, this nation has continued to lead the way into space. And naturally so. America has always been about exploring new frontiers. It’s part of our national psyche.

Those who watched the last shuttle launch kept hearing it was “the end of an era.” Yes, it is. But it’s not the end of the human journey into space.

Charles Bolden, the first black American to lead NASA and a former astronaut, said the nation now stands on the cusp of a new era.

“We’re off now on the venture of exploration, trying to get humans beyond the world’s orbit – as the president has asked us to do – onto an asteroid by 2025 and then to Mars by the 2030s,” Bolden told The Root.

Landing on an asteroid? Going to Mars? And yes, there are plans to go back to the moon again, a place Americans – and only Americans – have ever visited.

Godspeed to these final shuttle astronauts. But the end of the nation’s shuttle program should not be mourned because so much more still lies ahead for those brave enough to accept the challenge.

Shuttle Atlantis Commander Chris Ferguson said it best just before the last shuttle flight lifted off.

“The shuttle’s always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through,” he said. “We’re not ending the journey today. We’re completing a chapter of a journey that will never end.”