After twenty-five years and 32 missions of heading out into the space around planet Earth, The Shuttle Atlantis has landed for the last time.
The Shuttle Program is one of the many things that got it’s start with good old Tricky Dickie Nixon. There were a couple of disasters, but for the most part, the Shuttle Program was so successful that we all but ignored them. I didn’t even know the Atlantis had gone up again and here it is returning.
Space Travel turned out to be kind of a bust-a lot harder than we thought it was going to be and a lot less reward for all that effort and exspense. Astronauts stopped being heroes shortly after we landed on the Moon in 1969 and the dreams of all Sci Fi fans of a future among the stars has slowly faded away. The next phase in space travel seems to be going back to rockets-of course, we don’t know how they made the Saturn Fives, so will have to start from scratch.
Last Century we went from the horse & buggy to landing on the moon. This century we have perfected the social network and learned how to say something cute in 140 characters or less.
We have gone, for the most part, from a community with shared goals and ideals, to a group of individuals that are all about doing what is best for us alone. Sure we make feel good donations to help people in other countries, but at the same time we step over that homeless person and wish they would go somewhere else to die.
Space Shuttle Atlantis is a symbol for all the wrong decisions we have made, and all the wrong decisions we continue to make. America continues to write blank checks it will never be able to pay, so why not keep writing those blank checks to NASA as well? Money is all a giant game of make believe anyway. So let’s make some new space shuttles.
