Fini

Some images from the last day of the Shuttle Program.

 

Julian (yellow shirt) and Mark( tan vest). Two real gentlemen who mentored me during my time at KSC, I'm very grateful for their generosity.

The final journey: Atlantis is moved to the OPF for the last time.

Employee appreciation rally. Many of these people received their layoff notices the next day. Godspeed to all of them.

Too many of us have lost the passion and emotion of the remarkable things we’ve done in space. Let us not tear up the future, but rather again heed the creative metaphors that render space travel a religious experience. When the blast of a rocket launch slams you against the wall and all the rust is shaken off your body, you will hear the great shout of the universe and the joyful crying of people who have been changed by what they’ve seen.

— Ray Bradbury, quoted in R. D. Launius, The thrill of spaceflight,  Profile: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery News 4:8, 2003

STS-135, Atlantis's final landing

'tis not too late to seek a newer world...

Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 Stay tuned for updates on the final landing of Atlantis...

Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go—and he'll do plenty well when he gets there.

— Wernher von Braun, quoted in 'Space: Reach for the Stars', Time magazine, 17 February 1958.