Space shuttle memories
Lewis DiuguidThis week’s photograph of the space shuttle Discovery sitting nose to nose with the prototype shuttle Enterprise brought back memories of the Enterprise in the 1980s coming to Kansas City International Airport.
Both shuttles now are at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. But the Enterprise more than 25 years ago had piggybacked a ride on a Boeing 747 and landed at KCI to give Midwest space travel fans like me a look at what then was this country’s newest vehicle, which would reach beyond our world.
I took my oldest daughter, Adrianne, to see it. The youngest, Leslie, wasn’t even born then.
It was a gray, cold and windy awful wintry day. I felt sorry about having dragged my young family out into that mess. But just getting a peak at the Enterprise was worth the sting of the weather.
Adrianne now is 28, Leslie, 25. The shuttles are now museum pieces.
Time rockets on as we all get older on its wild ride.
Phil Cardarella
1 year agoSad, really.
We took pride that it was a American who stood on the moon. We were a nation who did great things because that is what great nations do.
It was the culmination of generations of greatness that built huge dams, won great wars, createda highway system that freed us to move — and a middle class that could dream great dreams for their kids.
Now? We aspire to mediocrity — to a marginalized tax rate. Those who used to call themselves patriots? They want to “starve the beast” of the very government that made us great.
Mot with a bang, but with a wimper, right?
Phil Cardarella
1 year agoGo stand under the Jefferson Memorial Arch.
It is like standing before the ruins of the great aquaducts built by the Romans. Before the wealthy destroyed that Empire with their greed.