In a world of every increasing technological wonder, it’s funny how much these ships mean to me. They have always represented ‘a step’ on our path to somewhere new. An idea, if you will, that we can do more and be more. I know that’s a bit of an grand over reaching statement, but really what these ships embodied for me.

I felt the same after the plans to ground Concorde were announced. The idea that we (sic) were happy to have a technological leap just abandoned because the cost of ensuring it’s safety was more than the amount of money it would make in return.

No single [project] will be more impressive to mankind, or more important… and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish
– President John F. Kennedy; May 25th, 1961

More than anything, I believe, that these ships (and the American space program) have brought the world together on a scale that very few others have achieved. Sometimes though the idea that the barriers between us had been lifted (Walter Cronkite presiding over the moon landing) to a reminder that we’re all human and fragile (Challenger blowing up with school teachers on board).

Maybe it’s just me (a sentimental old computer geek) but in a day when Adobe and Apple fire another salvo across each other’s bow in an attempt to convince the other’s fanboys which level of hell they’re going to be on; I can’t help but feel that we’re losing something fundamental to us all. I’m quietly confident that were John F. Kennedy alive today to see the legacy of his space program he’d want to slap Steve Jobs just a little.

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
– President John F. Kennedy; September 12th, 1962

Today, after 25 years of service, we lose one of the three remaining non-corporation owned space shuttles in existence. Today, our dreams move just a little further away.