Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit

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Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit

[Public Domain] 21 Aug 2013 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Astrophotography
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I grew up on the space shuttle. Not literally, that would be weird. But as a young boy in the 1980’s my deep seated love of technology and science was firmly grounded in NASA’s shuttle program. I watched as Challenger disintegrated in the sky, and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch Discovery’s launch, the first since Challenger. I recorded it on VHS and watched it over and over until it was almost TV static again.

Then, after Columbia exploded dramatically on re-entry, I watched Discovery return America to space once more, after another long break and political soul searching. Discovery is “my” shuttle. Just like some people have celebrity girlfriends, I have my shuttle.

I desperately wanted to see the last launch, Atlantis, but missed my chance. So when I won a trip to San Fran to see the Googleplex (another nerdy story), I took an extra week off work and high tailed it to NASA, Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. I spent the entire day by myself going on tour after tour, exhibit after exhibit, drinking in the NASA story and melting in a warm bath of nostalgia.

The climax of course was seeing the newly opened Atlantis space shuttle exhibit where I stood face to face with the beautiful great hulking beast of a spaceship, weathered and worn like a weary soldier. Despite her years, despite her faded tiles and retro consoles I still think of the space shuttle as one of the great icons of my lifetime. The shuttle is a bit like the De Lorean.. kind of timeless. If you saw one in operation today it wouldn’t be out of place at all. It’s still the past, it’s still the future.

Although the shuttle has flown over my head countless times, there’s nothing quite like standing directly in front of one. I think I must have stood there gaping for about an hour while groups of tourists flushed past me. NASA insists that the next manned spacecraft is around the corner, but either way, an important era has passed in the history of space travel.

Photo : Nikon D5100, ISO 3200 Handheld at 1/40 – 10 exposures merged into panorama.

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