Space Shuttle

[gnwatts]

I saw this beautiful image of the shuttle landing in the NYT:




On April 13th, 1981, my roommates and I loaded up my 1966 Mustang fastback (289 hipo! wish i still had it) with tents, food, medicine (in the parlance of our times) and booze and headed north from LA to the Rogers dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base to watch the 1st shuttle landing. We had to send away for the passes a month or so ahead of time. So we left the night before, thinking we would be camping with no crowds. We were mistaken. That night was kind of a cross with burning man and a Star Trek convention (original series). Live music, booths, naked aliens, you name it. The next morning, we finally saw how many people were there, at least 10,000 people. Along the fence separating us from the runway people had backed up their Winnebagos, so we climbed up on one and waited. It is hard to adequately describe the scene, all of these people but you could hear a pin drop, with the only noise being the NASA radio hookup with the shuttle on all of these transistor radios. As it got closer, we heard the double sonic boom, and all you could hear was the pilot counting off the distance to landing. When we saw it, we were bummed that the runway was over a mile away, so the shuttle was very small, but we were pretty stoked anyway. Getting out of there afterwards was another story which I won't subject you to. Just imagine the 405 freeway at rush hour, but without any lanes through the sand!
Some day I will find my slides, but i am not hopeful. But i did find our permit:

[blueeyes]

That is cool! I am sad it is over. Thanks for sharing.

[gnwatts]

Thanks blueeyes.
It is sad.
Now my $.02:
Instead of tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, 2 or 3 wars (who's counting!), the US government could reserve some money for space exploration. This planet will be dead soon (geological time), so we gotta go! Soon.

[DiscGo]

I was also at the first space shuttle landing. It is among my earliest memories and I still have a bunch of souvenirs from it. That is cool that we were both there gnwatts!

[canyonphile]

Very cool pic!

I remember back in the late '80's when I was in college at UofA in Tucson, and it landed at Davis Monthen AFB, piggybacking on a 747. You could hear the whine of the plane's engine's, and we ran outside to check it out. Wish I'd had a camera...it was very exciting to see, and it was one of those few times where I truly felt very proud to be an American.

I'm sort of ambivalent about the cost/benefit ratio of huge sums of money spent on space exploration; I think we'll be gone from the planet by our own hand long before geology takes us out. I'd rather see any govt money spent on preserving and managing the resources here on earth than a manned mission to Mars, for example. Un-manned space exploration I'm okay with.

But, I'm sort of a stick-in-the-mud who is 100% convinced there is nothing better than Earth out there in the huge, empty Universe, and surely no place I'd ever care to visit or relocate to, even if my life or the future of our species depended on it.

[gnwatts]

Very cool pic!
I'm sort of ambivalent about the cost/benefit ratio of huge sums of money spent on space exploration; I think we'll be gone from the planet by our own hand long before geology takes us out. I'd rather see any govt money spent on preserving and managing the resources here on earth than a manned mission to Mars, for example. Un-manned space exploration I'm okay with.

I agree with you to a certain point.
Exploration has always cost money, and governments or monarchies generally paid or heavily subsidized them. I think the future might be a combination private/public venture.
The Chinese already are subsidizing and researching sustainable industries, for money obviously and their own survival, so they will lead the way in trying to solve certain problems. So I have confidence that the capitalists will come around to the fact that industries like solar etc will eventually be not only profitable but necessary. So I think climate change and the pollution of our air and water will eventually be solved, because it will be profitable. That leaves global nuclear death, but thats something I don't want to think about now, so let's assume we will take care of that one.
So maybe I was fast forwarding a bit much by saying we are faced with a life ending geologic event. But we can always hope for a wayward asteroid. So maybe then we would worry about getting our asses out of here.
I think it would be cool to live in a space station with hip 60's furniture and Beatle boots.

[middlefork]

I think one of the most awesome things would be to see would be the earth from the perspective of orbit.
I see the Russians are raising the price per person to 83 million dollars. Kinda priced me out of the idea.

[gnwatts]

I am amazed I found these, only 2 of about 24 shots I took.