Digital Life

I just watched the livestream a few minutes ago of Endeavour lifting into the sky for the last time. Not on a mission of course, as the fleet, well, what remains of it, are officially retired. It's heading for California, no doubt to spend the rest of its life as a museum exhibit or some other equally miserable fate.

It makes me sad. But I also feel fortunate, as I actually witnessed a shuttle launch some years back. I do not remember which one it was but my brain wants to say Discovery. I was vacationing with a friend's family in Florida at the time and as it happened, our visitation coincided with the launch. We were sitting on a beach some miles away when in the early afternoon, we saw the shuttle rising straight up into a clear blue abyss. Despite the distance you could see exactly what it was, even see the sunlight shining on it for awhile. It was beautiful. The media shows it all in glorious HD of course, but you know what, it still misses something in translation. The depth, the scale, the physical presence of it, being there. That goes for just about anything in the media, not just the shuttle. But that's the moment when it really hit home for me.

And it makes me sad that we'll likely never see its like again in our lifetimes. Sure, you have private vehicles like the Dragon, but it just isn't the same. The shuttle is something our country built, you know? Not that I remember it, but you know, the symbolism. When was the last time we built something like that? These days it's all about the killin' and the wars and terrorism. I wish there was more out there about robots on Mars and the future of warp drives and Moonbase.

Besides, I want a Firefly.