Tomorrow marks the final landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery after which she will be decomissionned and put on display for all to see.It is amazing how humankind has leapt forwards and entered the space age within the last few decades.
I have always been fascinated by the men and women who as Capt Kirk famously put it "Boldly go where no one has gone before".
Going into space has always been and is still one of the most dangerous things that humans do. With two high profile space shuttle disasters and many others before that, we still pursue the dream of conquering space.It is amazing that people don't really think twice about flying nowadays, so routine it has become and gone are the days of dare devils and barnstormers. Search "Those magnificent men and their flying machines".
I hope that I will live to see the day when going for a holiday in space will be as routine as flying is now.
It is also amazing that over a number of years, we have built an international space station (ISS) big enough to see with the naked eye. Look up in the sky at dawn or dusk, you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it tracing through the sky - it's not a UFO - it's speed is constant, and it's not an aircraft - it doesn't have strobe lights visible from earth. You can track where the ISS is:http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/index.html
Imagine yourself floating all alone out in space. Looking down at the earth, how beautiful and fragile it is, and looking around.....how lonely and isolated we are.
Here's to you space pioneers...pave the way for the rest of us.
All photos in this post courtesy of NASA
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