Space Shuttle Endeavor's Last Flight

The coolest thing happened to me and my kids this morning. Space Shuttle Endeavor, the last shuttle to fly into space last year, flew over my house this morning. Low, only 1500 feet in the air. Riding piggy-back on top of a Boeing 747 owned by NASA.

I knew she was coming, thank goodness, and I got the kids up and outside at 7am. The sun was still rising in the east as Endeavor took off from Ellington Field in Clearlake. It wasn't long at all till my friend spotted her coming up over the horizon, right in front of the sunrise.

I was prepared, armed with my DSLR set to shoot rapid fire, a telephoto lens, center-point metering so that it would expose the dark underside of the plane correctly against the bright blue sky. There was no time for cell phone shots too, only full camera shots...she moved pretty fast. She buzzed our house.

As I stood there watching, tears filled my eyes. It's bittersweet watching her go off into retirement, knowing that decades of NASA's shuttle program are now over.

You see, when I was a little girl, I wanted to be an astronaut in the worst way. Specifically I wanted to be a pilot. I had a plan too. I would go to the Air Force Academy and fly jets for a bit before joining NASA. Space Camp was part of my plan too. Christa Mcauliffe and Sally Ride were the greatest heros in my life. My dad encouraged this dream too.

At some point my dream died. I'm not sure when. Maybe when I learned that my parents could not afford to send me to Space Camp in Alabama. Maybe when someone told me how very few astronauts there are, and how even fewer get chosen to actually go into space. Maybe it's when I realized that being in the Air Force meant military life and I hated that idea. Someone, somewhere killed that dream.

When I moved to Houston four years ago the fire that had burned that dream was rekindled when I realized I now lived in Space City, the home of NASA. I made friends with people who worked for NASA. Every shuttle launch was covered in way more detail than any other city's local news would have given it. Budget cutbacks to NASA were felt in a real way here.

So today I watched another part of the dream die, but I also honored the memory of the amazing things the shuttle program has accomplished.