Safe Landing

The space shuttle Discovery landed safely this morning. I saw some of the post landing coverage, but missed seeing the actual landing.

Watching the coverage brought back memories. From my freshman year in college. When the FIRST space shuttle Columbia landed. Anyway, my professor cancelled class so we could all watch it. I went to Georgia Tech...a lot of Georgia Tech alums were involved in the design, launch and yes, even the piloting of that shuttle. John Young, who landed that baby, was a Georgia Tech graduate. The school was tense and proud. I watched on the TV in the dorm. A girls dorm. Can you imagine 20 young ladies...geeks one and all...watching tensely as the shuttle appears on the cameras. And the all out cheers when the landing was successful. It was a cool moment and one I will remember always.

It was quite the paradigm shift to those of us who rememberd the moon launches. One of my earliest memories ever was sitting in my dad's lap, late at night, watchin Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Anyone else remember the re-enactments with models on sticks? I remember wanting to go to sleep...and my father saying...stay up! You'll be glad you did. I am glad I did. I suspect I dozed off and he woke me up when the moment was about to occur. "That's one small step for man. static..pause...static.. One giant leap for mankind." What an awesome quote. I guess he had plenty of time to think it up...lots of down time during the flight to the moon.

But to see the reusable craft land like and airplane. That was soooo cool. Engineers were cool again. Maybe never again, but for that moment in the dorm we were darn proud to be engineer hopefuls!

Hence the flashback today.