Friday morning, I was up predawn working in the yard, taking advantage of the cool air before the summer heat chased me inside. Summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest – well, at least in the Portland, Oregon, area. Sweating and covered with dirt and leaves, I jumped into my truck for a fast dash to Home Depot to pick up some much needed bits and pieces for the many projects I have planned this summer.
I parked the truck just as the last five minutes counted down on the final flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis began. As I listened through the count, including the few minute delay at the 30 second mark, I found tears flowing down my face. I didn’t feel sad, but it was clear, I was touched by this moment, the end of an era that so influenced my generation.
Over the years, we watched rockets go up and come down, defining earth’s gravity. Skylab was built, then fell into the earth’s atmosphere and burn up. I cheered when the International Space Station finally added the final piece to make it habitable. Hope rang in my soul that someday I would travel out to the stars as we seemed to race forward towards that goal.
As a fan of Star Trek, my teenage years revolved around repeat episodes on television of the classic original version. Having sat with my family to watch the first launch of astronauts into space and those famous first steps on the moon, which resulted in an amazing pastel painting my mother did of the rocket’s launch out into the great unknown, space travel filled my imagination.
I didn’t consider Star Trek “science fiction.” I came late to my passion for science fiction. Star Trek was adventure. It was the imagination of life in space made real. It was a powerful representation that Earth could get its shit together, figure out how to solve our problems and work together so we could go out and help others solve their problems and get their shit together. It was patriotism at its finest.
As I grew up, I saw Star Trek devices become a normal part of our lives. Doors that slid open as you approached, doctor’s beds that tilted, medical scanning devices get smaller and more portable, computers get smaller and portable, computerized tablets and handheld computers…cell phones that look like Starfleet communicators…the list is so long.
I also watched our lives be changed by the research and innovation by NASA and its supporting agencies and businesses. Besides the powdery drink, Tang, and pens that could right upside down or at any angle, science, technology, and medicine were dramatically changed by the space race. (more…)
